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"Cash for Clunkers," or for the Japanese

Posted 34 months ago|7 comments|531 views

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Cash for Clunkers , General Motors , Chrysler , Toyota, Honda

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http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/0... FLAG THIS LINK

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Billyberoo
Cedar Park, TX

Well it looks like misdirection again. All over the news the Demogogs (I mean Democrats) are praising the success of "Cash for Clunkers." Sure mpg rates rose, that will be good for the environment. Car dealers got some much needed sales, great. Some people, those who are RICH enough to still have a decent credit rating, were able to finance a new car. All this seems pretty good.

Now for the misdirection. CNN is reporting that of the top ten cars purchased, five (5) are Japanese (Toyota, and Honda), with four of them in the top five (5). Chrysler had the #8 car with the Dodge Caliber. Finishing 10th was the Chevy Cobalt.

Along with helping with our dependency on oil, CFC, was supposed to stimulate our failing, Government owned automakers. Well even with stacking the deck in favor of GM and Chrysler, the Government still couldn't get people to buy more cars from their companies than Ford or the Japanese companies. What's next mandatory purchases of a GM or Chrysler product???

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The Cypress Gang

34 months ago: I heard that 6 out of 10 were not U.S. taxpayer owned companies.

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The Cypress Gang

34 months ago: Makers July 2009 % Chng Share Yr Volume % Chng
------ -------- ------ ----- --------- -----
GM-Group 188,730 -19.8 19.0 1,141,634 -37.5
Traditional 188,156 -19.4 18.9 1,135,674 -37.3
Saab 574 -71.7 0.1 5,960 -57.5
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Ford-Group 164,818 2.3 16.6 938,204 -28.1
Traditional 158,377 1.6 15.9 902,017 -28.1
Volvo 6,441 25.7 0.6 36,187 -29.1
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Chrysler LLC 88,900 -9.4 8.9 560,097 -41.7
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VW-Group 26,997 -0.9 2.7 161,811 -13.3
Traditional 20,590 0.7 2.1 117,598 -13.0
Audi 6,407 -5.8 0.6 44,213 -14.2
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Hyundai-Grp 74,898 9.0 7.5 426,988 -6.1
Hyundai 45,553 11.9 4.6 250,239 -7.4
Kia 29,345 4.7 3.0 176,749 -4.3
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Mercedes 16,228 -21.7 1.6 101,316 -27.2
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Other Firms 433,431 -16.7 43.6 2,449,061 -32.2
Toyota 174,872 -11.4 17.6 945,321 -33.9
Honda 114,690 -17.3 11.5 645,468 -30.7
Nissan 71,847 -24.6 7.2 419,591 -31.7
Mitsubishi 4,847 -49.7 0.5 31,314 -50.4
Mazda 19,032 -15.1 1.9 119,413 -31.6
BMW 21,253 -26.7 2.1 135,701 -27.0
Subaru 21,839 34.2 2.2 115,145 4.9
Suzuki 3,507 -56.7 0.4 25,905 -59.5
Porsche 1,544 -50.6 0.2 11,203 -38.1
Total 994,002 -12.1 100.0 5,779,111 -31.7

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sixholdens

34 months ago: Another program for the well off. Like you said, if you have a credit rating high enough to finance an auto, you can use the program. My rating is so far in the tank that I'll have to keep driving my clunkers till the kids all get out of college and get jobs, paying ones that is. Years from now.

Sure there are those out there who aren't rich but can get the financing, to me they have lead ideal lives, never got over-extended because of a layoff, never had a bill dropped on them from an un-expected source, never helped their children get financing for college, not to mention paying for all the other stuff that goes with college attendance, never paid for a vehicle for their child or the insurance that goes with it and never spent 20 years in the military. Such a life I have not had. Been behind the eight ball for as long as I can remember. Get a little ahead and BAM! Something sucks it all away. Last big blow was getting knocked off a ladder. Wasn’t the medical bills, was the lack of income that killed my financial picture. There is no help out there for someone who was working, paying their bills and loses their income because they are injured, you are screwed.

Anyway, I would love to take advantage of this program, but there are so many requirements that it would mean trading in our best vehicle! Otherwise it would mean two big payments and that ain’t gonna be workable.

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sixholdens

34 months ago: As for where the money is being spent…. We have all known for years that GM, Chrysler and Ford make inferior cars to the ones engineered by Toyota, Nissan, Kia and others from that area, not to mention the European models. Why is this? We pioneered this industry! We have the engineers, the financial backing and the drive to create the best damn car or truck in the world that can be sold at the lowest price of all the import or non-Big3 models. Why haven’t we? Are the auto unions causing the Big3 so much trouble they can’t make a profit? Is there sabotage on the assembly line? Are our engineers, engineering poor performance? Or is it all of these?

My opinion is that management is so bent on making profits that they tell the engineers to do a good job, just not a real good job and then when it comes to making the parts, they tell the suppliers to make it pretty but to make sure it will fail within three to five years so a new one will have to be purchased. Obsolescence. Built in obsolescence. Ever hear of it? That is manufacturing’s way of guaranteeing that the customer will be back for a new one in three to five years.

I actually believe that the “foreign” car makers do not do this, they build their cars to last no matter what, or if there is built in obsolescence, it’s just not anything that will cause the vehicle to fail early.

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sixholdens

34 months ago: There has to be a distinction about “foreign” and domestic autos. We have many manufacturing plants in the US that make many of the so called “foreign” vehicles you are talking about. Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars are at stake. Let’s just say that to be a foreign auto, it has to be assembled outside North America, I don’t consider Canada part of the US but they do assemble some of our autos. So if it didn’t come off a cargo ship, it ain’t foreign as far as this program is concerned.

That built in obsolescence is real. I have a Chevy Suburban, the front grill is plastic, within the first three years it started to shrink. Yeah shrink, it shrank away from the mounting points and cracked the mounting tabs off. Used to they made them out of metal, that doesn’t shrink. They have plastic out there that doesn’t shrink, lasts for decades, why didn’t they make the grill out of that type of plastic? Cause it wouldn’t fail in three to five years. Same truck, within 1200 miles had to replace the entire front brake system, rotors, calipers, master cylinder, lines, pads. It was all under warranty, but why did it fail? The engineers didn’t allow enough clearance for heat expansion; calipers locked in the mounts and wore out the pads and rotors. The techs didn’t figure it out until after they replaced all the extra stuff (lines, master cylinder). At about 6,500 miles they put a new A/C compressor in it, and a week later a new alternator. At 11,000 miles they put a new transmission in it, still under warranty. Does this sound like a good vehicle? When I bought it, Dec93, it was one of the top of the line from Chevy, had all the bells and whistles and cost a pretty penny. Spent way too much time in the shop that first year or so. After that the warranty was gone because it was beyond the crappy 12,000 mile mark. I put another tranny in it at 135K and another alternator sometime around 90K, not to mention new brakes every 30K or so.

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sixholdens

34 months ago: My son bought a used Kia four years ago (at about 27K miles), dogs the crap out of it, replaced one velocity joint (keeper came loose letting it “pop” out) and put tires on it two or three times and brake pads and if his girlfriend hadn’t sat on the center console and broke the lid off, it would be in great shape. About 167K on it now. To top it off, it was a “rebuild” car, wrecked, totaled and rebuilt for resale.

Wife has an 04 Trailblazer, 93,000 or so on it, transmission went out at about 84K, took the rebuilder three tries to get it right. Wasn’t because he did it wrong, the parts were machined from the factory to be too short and until he actually measured them to figure out what was happening, it wasn’t something he could see or expect.

Son in law has a Toyota Corolla, about 175K miles on it, been wrecked a couple of times, drives it everywhere, never works on it. Runs fine, drives fine. Daughters Ford Windstar is a totally different story. Had a coolant leak, shop said it would cost $800 or more to fix it. We fixed it for under $60, was a coolant line run UNDER the intake plenum. WHO in their right mind runs a coolant line under the intake? Neither of the front windows work anymore, motors quit. Just replaced the A/C compressor due to catastrophic failure (internal failure), filter/dryer and metering tube (yes I am qualified to do that). This is a closed system and shouldn’t fail for hundreds of thousands of miles. Van has less than 125K on it.

If I could, I’d buy a Japanese make. It will be assembled here in the US so its not like I’m taking money from Detroit. I might buy a Ford, but that is because they haven’t been sucking at the taxpayer’s nipple, yet. I really need a new vehicle to get away from my gashogs, but until Principle Insurance Company ponies up to the money they stole from me with the blessing of Congress, I will continue to drive what I have, government program or no.

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sixholdens

34 months ago: As for them forcing us to buy a GM or Chrysler, they better give them away cause I don’t got the spare cash to make any more payments.

Sorry it was so long, this is a touchy subject for me.

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