I was going to do the same thing

 

What I don't think anyone has mentioned is what R.P. and others have said themselves,

The large numbers of overlapping vehicles is not a result of a marketing or business plan for market share but to keep workers in plants as opposed to being laid off and still getting full (or near full) pay with all their benefits. If you that choice, which one would you make.

The best scenario for GM (as I see it off top of my head) is to sell as many cars as it does now but through fewer brands, thus eliminating the above scenario.

Idle union workers are the issue.

 

I don't know why they couldn't just call them all "Chevy Trucks" and market them separately from Chevy cars. In fact, there is a Lincoln-Mercury-Ford Truck dealer near my work.

 

well, the biggest problem with this idea is this:

What do you do with all the dealers? You cannot give each GM dealer in the same town the same Divisions.........that would be in violation of State franchise laws.

Our Sales and Service Agreement in so many words says "Mr. Dealer......if you put up the adequate capital....train your people.....take care of the customer....provide good service...etc/etc/etc.....then, as a dealer representing (insert GM division here).......you will, in turn be able to make a return on your investment.

now........what do you do when a Division desperately needs a trasfusion? (i.e. Saturn or Buick) you give them a Mini-van until the new product comes down the pipeline.

I do agree that we had 'badge' engineering for way too long. But I also see that coming to an abrupt halt. The Malibu and Saab look nothing alike, ...or, for that matter, the G6.....yet they're the same basic architecture.

As to your idea..........if it were only that simple!

 

So is there an 'out' there for dealers who try to "take care of the customer" by marking up Solstices $15k?

 

How to do this?
Well, if the pie is shrinking rapidly, a larger share will just maintain the volume you had with your previous smaller share.
They are "downsizing" their market (Pie) systematically themselves, only they have the power to stop it, and the insanity of cutting more to maintain an equal share of it.
Why not add security to the share you have?
Why not emphasize(more now) warantees, service, quality?...
So much emphasis on keeping the price low, and sales volume; but what of making a quality, waranteed product that will sell itself.
People want security...in jobs, products, life in general.
Look at all of the people employed in GM and related companies...How many buy GM vehicles? How many more would if integrity found its way back to GM?
It must start with GM leadership...treating everyone under them with integrity. It's infectious, and it has high returns.
GM NEEDS to Return to Greatness, I'm not sure of the How?..but They could lead the manufacturing industry back to the right path b/c they have everyone's eye..

 

High pension liabilities are also an issue. Short of bankruptcy, I don't know how GM gets out of them.

 

Two words .... Daimler General??????? Think about it .... if the company's value drops to an all time low, it would be rip for the picking.

 

Gradual moves in the proper direction would seem to be the only solution. Buying a dealer out is big money, but when a dealership goes up for sale the option might be inserted that GM has "last right of refusal" to purchase the franchise.

A significant change in franchise law would be a big problem, but the phrase "golden handcuffs" comes to mind. If it were possible to gain certain concessions via a contractual agreement, as opposed to defaulting to state laws, that might be helpful.

Personally, I don't think "badge engineering" is a bad thing... as long as the correct things are badge engineered. In particular, braking systems, powertrains, electrical systems and certain other "hard parts" are good things to commonize. The rule of thumb probably operates along the lines of "nothing that is a Class A surface is shared"... or at least I hope it does...

Finally, I do not necessarily agree with the initial premise of the first post. Part of GM's strength is the large dealer network and the range of vehicles offered. What is truly necessary is continual refinement of the system as it exists.

The operative question is then not "why are we so screwed up???", but more along the lines of "what can I tweak to make this better???"

The magic is in the consistent implementation of progressively positive small changes, not a complete flushing of the current systems. GM is very, VERY good at specifying what they want, the struggle is generally whether what they want is really all that beneficial.

Once entrenched into a particular idea or concept, GM has a very difficult type rapidly shifting away from it, even if it is beneficial in readily apparent other ways that they do so.

Believe me, GM is packed to the gills with REALLY intelligent people with great ideas. Where GM fails is having people that are really intelligent who are DRIVEN like rabid dogs towards achieving particular goals. Part of the reason is that people who are like that don't fit well in to a massive organization like GM easily, and the ones that are there of that type get beaten down into side-tracked careers where they are less "painful". At that point, keeping a low profile is more important than doing great things.

 

Oh how true that is. Having been an engineer myself for the largest auto manufacturer (GM/Delphi), and now an engineer for the largest chemical company, what you are saying is spot on. When you graduate from college, you are motivated to climb the ladder of success, and are driven to make a difference. The further you go in a large orginization, the more you get "conformed", and it's all to easy to do your job as required, and not drive toward success as if you owned the business, and it's success depended on you.

Sorry to swing this off topic, but PacerX is correct when referring to very large orginizations that rely heavily on technical prowress and engineering.

Dan

 

The HORRIFICALLY frustrating thing is to see the organization repeat the same mistakes over and over and over.

Case in point:

The "A" pillar trim on the Cobalt/Pursuit leaves a rat-hole to the headliner. Now, standard practice is that damned thing is engineered to have a 10mm INTERFERENCE FIT to the headliner... they missed it by MORE THAN 10 mm!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's that g*dd*mn*d rat-hole, bigger than life, in the Pursuit rental car I had this week in Canada ON BOTH SIDES OF THE VEHICLE. So, not only was it missed once, but it was missed TWICE... once on each side of the vehicle.

It's not like a rat-hole at this interface is a new issue. Cripes, companies have been dealing with this interface for 20 years. But it gets screwed up AGAIN.

Somebody needs to be SHOT. Who owns this interface? Who's job is it to make darned sure that there is NEVER a rat-hole like this on another GM vehicle?

Answer:

It's nobody's responsibility in real, concrete terms. That's why the failures CONTINUE. Nobody OWNS it, INDIVIDUALLY. The corporation, because of the inertia and the plethora of places to side-track the responsibility (notice that I did NOT say "blame"), just continues to fail in that particular area.

And unless there is CHANGE, it will NEVER be fixed in absolute terms. The next vehicle launched (unless dumb luck prevails) will have a rat-hole in the same darned spot.

 

I agree with you here, but my understanding is that this is kind of the plan already. And it could work. Chevrolet dealerships would be Chevy only and sell a full line of high quality, high value cars. Then you would have Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers which between those lines would be "full line" but not within each brand. Pontiac doesn't need any minivans SUVs or crossovers at all, in my opinion. They should make a GMC minivan and replace Torrent with a GMC and sell them at the Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers - then you'd only have one minivan and one small SUV at the dealership. Buick needs just one SUV - a nice luxury crossover to compete with the Lexus RX330. Then I'd like to see them have a premium sporty car or convertible, and mid-size and full size sedans (hopefully with a little more effort behind them than the current LaCrosse and Lucerne). So if you had:

Pontiac: Vibe (or other entry/small car), Solstice, G6, Grand Prix, GTO

Buick: premium luxury/sport model, mid size, full size, luxury crossover

GMC: Torrent, Minivan, Envoy, Yukon, Yukon XL, Canyon, Sierra, Savanah

This would give you a Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealer that covered all of the segments Chevrolet has, though a little more upscale, without each brand having to have EVERY model. It would allow dealers to know that they had every segment covered while keeping each brand truer to character. The only duplication would be Grand Prix and the mid-size Buick (assuming they remained platform mates), but I think that the models can be adequately differentiated and their buyers are different enough to not have that be too much of a problem.

 

And right on cue, the badge-engineered '06 Pontiac G4 (Mexico only?):
http://autodeadline.com/detail?sourc...40239&mime=JPG

Not sure why it's Pursuit north of us and G4 to the south. Surely, one doesn't translate to masturbation in French or Spanish.

 

Thats a good point, I don't think I could have said it better.
You also have to consider consumer bias. Some ill-informed Joe may say "I'll never buy a chevy" because of some libel media or some other brand loyalty, but they would consider GMC to be an independant brand.

 

Lucky for me I'm at least a "somewhat-informed Joe".