ClassicCar

4Hud wrote:

It really is unfortunate that domestic manufacturers have underestimated the intelligence of the consumer for so many decades. Now they sit and wonder what happened. What happened was they built lower quality autos that are designed to cost a fortune for any and all repairs. It's a hard sell after a while, when other manufacturers have satisfied customers.

Not to be contentious, but America does builds some of the best cars in the world. As an automotive writer, I am privileged to be able to test drive new vehicles on a regular basis. And, the quality difference between import brands (which are not imports, most are built in the USA these days) and U.S. makes is undistinguishable in my opinion.



Sure, the late 70’s, most of the 80’s were a low point for U.S. manufactures. But since the mid 90’s, U.S. built cars are comparable to the so called import brands.



GM has a full size Hybrid SUV and Ford has the Escape SUV with a 200hp hybrid engine. Both, very snappy and well built. My wife has the non-hybrid version of the Ford Escape. It is a very nice and well built vehicle. I have had zero problems with it and we get 23 MPG around town and about 30MPG on the road. The Hybrid gets about 28MPG around town, and around 36MPG on the road. There was little difference between my wife’s V6 and the Hybrid in regard to performance.



Anyway, I have driven a lot of new cars….all have their strong and week points. Honda has some ups and downs too. Right now they are looking better for 2008.



The point is that U.S. makers make fine quality vehicles and it’s a myth that imports have some edge in the quality market. American cars are the safest vehicles over any import brand as group. Size matters in safety and there is a mileage trade off for that safety.



As far as fuel goes, 10 years ago, gas was $1.16 a gallon. 10 years is the design stream, American customers do not buy fuel saving cars when fuel is cheap. That is a fact. As the U.S. enters the realm of $5.00 a gallon fuel, designs will change. Ford has already closed down 2 Truck and SUV lines for 2008.



I will say in closing, the current Ford Mustang is the best car I have seen or driven in a long time. The Mustang GT V8 is hands down the ultimate machine of quality and performance in a domestic brand, there is no import make that compares. There are other makes, like Chrysler that produce well made cars and trucks too. The 2009 Chevrolet Camaro looks very good, I haven't driven one yet.....it and the Dodge Challenger are still concept cars.

nhp1127 wrote:

In my opinion, it is the auto unions that have killed the US Auto market.

Plain and simple: You can't pay someone $70,000 a year (plus benefits) to build a car and expect someone who makes $30,000 a year to buy it.

You could not be more right. The Union costs have made American manufactures uncompetitive against the non-Union import brands. Also, some bad investments and short sightedness with part vendors have made things difficult.



One of the short term problem being worked out is the loss of the Government stipend for maintaining strategic work force levels in the event of a national emergency. Something the U.S. makers have had since WWII. The loss of this wage support has compounded the labor costs.



In the hay-day of the Unions, they had guys making $75 an hour screwing on wheels with a pneumatic wrench. These same workers also had a huge compensation package that made them a $115 an hour cost for unskilled labor. Those cost are still with the U.S. makers in retirement and health care costs today.



It will be sometime before they recover. Meantime, they still turn out good products and keep their customers, all the while facing the Government policy wonks and Tree-hugger's with their green agendas.

Pacemaker500 wrote:

My personal gripe with Big Auto and Big Oil is their purchase of great patents for engines, carbs, parts etc...that could have already had our cars at twice to three time the current EPA estimated MPG.



My favorite one is Smoky Yunick's fuel vaporizor - 200 HP and 60 MPG on an old 4 cylinder car.

There is a cool "water" injection fuel system out there that uses a water charge in the combustion cycle. Water is injected into the cylinder after the exhaust stroke to create a "steam" stroke, thus extending fuel mileage. The problem is user maintenance. Most people do not maintain their vehicles, they just drive them...so this system is not yet practical for the mass market.



Yeah, there are some cool fuel delivery options out there. I see someone has a multi-port injection system for a Ford Flathead. Neat.

Ted W wrote:

You could not be more right. The Union costs have made American manufactures uncompetitive against the non-Union import brands. Also, some bad investments and short sightedness with part vendors have made things difficult.



One of the short term problem being worked out is the loss of the Government stipend for maintaining strategic work force levels in the event of a national emergency. Something the U.S. makers have had since WWII. The loss of this wage support has compounded the labor costs.



In the hay-day of the Unions, they had guys making $75 an hour screwing on wheels with a pneumatic wrench. These same workers also had a huge compensation package that made them a $115 an hour cost for unskilled labor. Those cost are still with the U.S. makers in retirement and health care costs today.



It will be sometime before they recover. Meantime, they still turn out good products and keep their customers, all the while facing the Government policy wonks and Tree-hugger's with their green agendas.

$75.00 an hour for non-skilled labor and that doesn't include the benefits?!! C'mon, I think that's a little far fetched. Think about it, if you made that kind of money screwing on parts on an assembly line, you'd be making $600.00 per day or $3000.00 per week or $156,000.00 per year! Sign me up for that kind of pay! I'm a union worker (BLE- Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) and I work for a U.S. Class 1 railroad. We make good pay with pretty good benefits. But, nothing even close to $75.00 an hour. If I work overtime, yes, my pay increases, but still not near $75.00 even with my health benefits tossed in.

66patrick66 wrote:

The $75.00/hr figure is PAY AND BENEFITS together - that is NOT the hourly pay, boys and girls! And THAT is a high figure! Actual hourly pay of a line worker, depending on who he is working for, is between $29.00 - $42.00 per hour.

29 to 42 dollars an hour is absolutely OBSCENE for what they do. Most Registered Nurses around here don't ever see that kind of money--usually around 25.00/hr average, and they have HUMAN LIVES in their hands every day!! I'm sorry, but our "esteemed" UAW auto workers are among the most spoiled rotten overpaid people in any factory anywhere in the world. And their union ragsheet reads like the Communist Manifesto... utterly pathetic......

66patrick66 wrote:

Those wages aren't jack, anymore. You try and live on those wages in most large metro areas, and you are just living. Like rambo said, that will barely get you into a $200K home. That money in Los Angeles won't get you eight hundred square feet! That money in the New England area might get you a box to live in. That money here in OKC will get you a nice 2,500 square foot home on a half-acre lot! A $25.00 wage is by no means "obscene" for assembly-line work like they do...remember, YOU drive that product! Do you want someone getting $7.50/hr assembling your vehicle? I didn't think so. Have you ever toured an auto plant? Even with the amount of automation (that costs money, too, machines are not free!) that occures these days, you can not take Man out of the picture.

Please remember that you guys out in the Pacific Northwest, the Great Southwest, California, and New York/New England are on completely different planets (heck, galaxies) compared to Wisconsin. I live right where the world's largest manufacturer of outboard motors (and stern drives and inboards, for that matter) is located, and I can tell you that those IAM (machinists' union) guys at Mercury Marine, on the assembly lines, in the foundry, in whichever department they work in, are making $20 to $25 an hour, TOPS, AND living pretty darn well doing it. BUT-- the market and cost of living is also much more bearable here too. Despite Wisconsin's reputation of being something of a tax hell (or maybe because of it?), you can get a pretty decent house in the country with an acre and a quarter for around $100K-$150K. My ex and I did eight years ago, and property values have stayed pretty much frozen around here since then. It's pretty much a buyer's market out here for real estate. Most people who work in factories (or stores, or wherever) do pretty well on $15 to $20/hour around here. This isn't Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, or Detroit, or OKC, or NYC, or even Chicago. This is Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. I know a gal who has worked 20 years at our local Mills Fleet Farm store (similar to Tractor Supply Co., but much bigger) and is now a department head, and she makes enough to buy a new vehicle every four years (yes, she pays it off; no, she's not in debt). She just traded her Ford Escape in on a new, loaded Pontiac Torrent. It depends VERY much on where in the country one lives (and also how willing one is to budget one's money and not live beyond one's means). Even so, I can't imagine the cost of living in Southeast Michigan being so exorbitant as to warrant $42 to $50/hour wages or more. The "citified" out there would be quite shocked and dismayed to discover that most Americans DON'T live in a "major metro area" and therefore can't understand what the heck justifies those kind of outlandish Detroit UAW wages, especially when we here in "da Land o' Cheese, Bratwurst and da Packers" (Ya Hey!) make less than half as much and are doing JUST FINE on what we make!! I can also tell you that the UAW guys 18 miles north of us at Oshkosh Truck don't see much more than the IAM guys at Merc do, either. I ought to know, I worked there for awhile; that's why I'm still stuck on the UAW's mailing list for their communist ragsheet...:mad::mad:



BTW, our property here lasts a lot longer (LOTS of very good 100+ year-old houses) because we have NO hurricanes, NO earthquakes, NO wildfires, NO mudslides. Just a few occasional tornados, and with nowhere near the frequency the Great Plains sees them. And, of course, there's the snow, but that's what Arctic Cat, Polaris, and Ski-Doo are for...