HuJass

Just saw this article in Detroit News about GM shutting down it's Romulus, MI plant for retooling in anticipation of a new V-6 that's supposed to come online in 2015.

GM to temporarily lay off 560 workers at Romulus plant | The Detroit News

The article uses the term "fuel-sipping" in one of the sentences.


Have we heard about this new V-6 engine?
If so, what do we know about it?

HuJass

And this from Automotive.com:
GM Announces Investment in New Tiny Ecotec Engines, New V-6, and 8-Speed Automatic Transmission - Automotive News

5th paragraph:

LT4Monsta

All I read was a story about hourly and temporary workers getting laid off and told to bit the dust while GM spends millions building up their new super duper plant and keeping the salaried or more likely contract workers on payroll. Seems just like the standard company logic. Invest millions into everything but the longevity of a good dependable worker. I feel sorry for those folks. That's a lot of people out of jobs that need them. They should have taken 1 Million of that and figured out a program to train these workers for their new factory or given them some job to do to keep them on payroll until the plant was done. I'm willing to bet the person(s) in charge of that idea aren't worried about the roof over their head or paying their bills.

HuJass

Then you didn't read the article closely enough.

HuJass

Car and Driver speculated a few years ago that GM would introduce a new V-6, guessing that it could displace 2.8 or 3.0 liters.
Could this be that engine?

LT4Monsta

Oh, thanks! Now I see. I must have somehow overlooked that. I was too busy thinking about all those people that just lost their jobs. Wait... this is the Automotive news and industry discussion right?

Silverado C-10

The kind of reasoning in your post is part of the reason why GM went under in the first place. From what I understand, they actually used to do that, pay people to not work. What other industry does that? None that I'm aware of. I'd love to have that job. I'm a civil engineer that does construction testing/verification. If it rains, I don't get to work, and I don't get paid. I only worked 26 hours last week, I wish they would have paid me for 40. Not only that, the GM workers are getting some pay, the temps get nada:

I also worked at an auto plant for 2 years. It's hell. There are a lot of people that stay, but there is also a lot of turnover, so there are always new people being trained. Also, it was typical for the plant to shut down for 2 to 4 weeks per year for maintenance or retooling for a refresh or new engine, etc. I was never paid for that time unless I chose to burn all my vacation for it, and I was a permanent hire, not a temp.

Likely, before things get back into full swing, workers will be brought back 2 to 3 months (maybe longer) before production is officially "online" to train them how to use the new equipment and assemble the new engine.

LT4Monsta

GM lost money because of poor business decisions not because of workers. The end result of any company that has lost out on profits is to cut employment as a means to recuperate itself. When you don't have a demand in manufacturing you end up with surplus in labor. GM went under in the first place because there was a change in buyer behavior and a drop in sales due to less purchasing power. GM was on the decline long before the 2008 bailouts.

If you remember what GM's old lineup looked like it was mostly mid sized family Sedans,Trucks,The F-bodies, and the Corvette. If you recall around the early to mid 2000's that's when Japanese and Korean manufacturers started flooding us with compact cars, family sedans,trucks, SUV's, etc. etc. that were not only affordable but very reliable as well. Foreign cars started taking up a big chunk of the market and GM has never really recovered from that to regain the volume of car sales they "used" to have.
A Chevrolet lot selection today looks a lot different than the one 10-15 years ago. Now you see a few trucks,a few Camaro's,a few corvettes, a few sedans but you will see floods of economy cars. It's almost the opposite how it used to look.

The reason GM is doing this level of investment and restructuring itself in the first place is to build more economically efficient vehicles because that's what the current market is demanding. If they can build a more efficient V6 or hybrid car they will. Things are going to be changing a lot in the next decade with GM. If you want a performance car you're going to have to really pay for it as their main focus is going to be mostly on economic vehicles. Just the fact that there is a 50K+ Camaro as a hint of what's to come I don't know what to tell you. All these V8 performance models have skyrocketed because sustaining their production and development costs them more so it's going to costs you more as well. The market sales that's keeping the GM boat floating aren't in a Camaro SS they're in cars like the Malibu. So you can expect to see GM trying to create an economic efficient Camaro or possibly even Corvette, in the future just like Ford is doing with the Mustang currently.

I was just making a statement that GM has the money to retain their workers, and they have enough people there on their payroll to come up with a way to keep those workers on their payroll while they upgrade their plant. What you fail to understand is that by cutting them those working 40+ hours a week will now be filing for unemployment and the US tax payer is going to be taking the bill. Don't for a second not think that someone in GM's offices doesn't figure these things out already. They save more by cutting them than keeping them. When they could finally figure out to build a successful and reliable car you need to invests into your employees as well. BTw,they are going to get paid for doing nothing (those that qualify for unemployment) end the end.

HuJass

Not that it's not a good discussion, but lets try to stay on topic, which is the new V-6 engine.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised this thread is not taking off.
10 years ago, it probably would have been 2 pages long by now.
Surprised no one is really commenting on it.

jg95z28

From GM media website:

From wikipedia:
From this I would deduce that they are going to build a more fuel efficient engine to replace the standard 4.3L V6, so I'm not sure the comments from the second article on the 3.6L V6 actually apply to Romulus.

HuJass

There's already an engine to replace the old small block based 4.3 V-6; it's the new LT1 based 4.3. But that's already in production.
I would think the 4.3s (old or new) would not be considered "fuel sipping".
Unless it's a smaller displacement version of the new 4.3.

And we know the new Gen V V-8 replaces the Gen IV V-8.


I'm thinking it'll be a smaller displacement version of the 3.6 HF.

AdioSS

Maybe a smaller displacement forced induction V6?

Z28x

I don't see why you guys think GM would go with a smaller displacement. Seems to me like the small V6 has been replaced by the turbo 4cyl. From here on out anything under 280HP will probably be a 4cyl.