Ha ha ha. Not quite though. Don't act like quality issues haven't been present in GM/Ford/Chrysler products all through the 90s. Pinto. Ha. You could replace 'Pinto' with at least half of the passenger cars offered by them and it would be the same thing.

You don't build product loyalty by consistently selling half assed vehicles for years. That's how you build a bad reputation. I don't reward people trying to pawn a crappy product by guaranteeing them my business for life. Good luck with that.

 

I have been very happy with the quality of the GM cars I have owned over the years. Friends of mine have owner Japanese cars, and have not found them to be significantly nicer in many respects.

 

The thing that is blatently obvious is that Toyota's Chairman had NO REASON to say his comments IN PUBLIC except to RUB IT IN THE FACE of Ford and GM. How often do you hear CEO's telling the public that they are going to raise prices across the board on their vehicles? That kind of thing is kept to the board room, for the most part. This is complete arrogance from the Japanese, hidden behind a veil of concern for the US auto market.

Wow, that article really bothers me.

Dan

 

Come on Bob pull a Dick Cheney and tell him to go "F*ck off!"
That would be the funniest thing EVER!!!

I would even buy that on DVD.

 

I suppose the term "competitive" is relative. When you consider that the Titan is "up" in sales....and GM alone still sells almost 9 times as many light trucks as Nissan each year (on the long-in-the-tooth GMT-800 mind you), how truly competitive is it right now? The Tundra is even worse off. It could get real ugly when the 900 shows up...GM is once again putting their eggs in the truck and full size SUV basket. The new trucks absolutely MUST be the best in the market without a doubt...GM knows its revival is now depending on it.

My point with the Mustang (and any would-be Corvette fighter for that matter) was that the Japanese historically haven't been able to deliver a real performance oriented coupe at a reasonable price and make money. If they haven't by now, when would they?

 

Scions rock.

Hmmm...

Let's cover the Corvette's victims again, just for giggles:
RX-7 - KIA
300ZX - KIA
Supra - KIA
Porsche 944 - KIA
Porsche 928 - KIA
Thunderbird - KIA x 1.5 (the last car just flat-out sucked)
Viper - days are numbered...
GT40 - they didn't even try...
GT - tell ya in about 2 months...

Who's next? The line starts above.

 

This article, along with teh GM recall made it onto fark.com. The discussion section was a huge domestic bash session, as it always is over there. Probably a decent representation of the typical Americans thoughts on the matter, however uninformed.

 

And now we see how the Japanese shovel sh^t into the American companies' faces. Lets see how GM and Ford respond to the statement. Should be interesting.

 

corporate **** talking is quite an interesting development

might not have been nice, but then again the world isn't inherently nice.

its not like GM is being held down by something they cannot overcome to say the same thing back to the japanese in a few years... hopefully this is motivation.

 

I don't think this is $hit talking.

Think about it.

They can either raise prices, thus dropping sales a bit and letting the domestic companies recover yet at the SAME time increasing their profits. Or they can have the government do it for them by enforcing higher import taxations and such that cause the price to go up without any of the money actually going back to Toyota.

At least this way they get more money back to HQ to develop even better cars for the future.

 

You might recall that Imperial Japan was mighty full of itself on December 7, 1941 after they bombed Pearl Harbor. But they weren't feeling so very good a few years later, especially after August 6, 1945. It is amazing how history has a way of repeating itself. Perhaps it is time that GM and Ford arise to the occasion and take this fight right back to Tokyo!!!

 

Bottom line is that Toyota and the other Japanese manufactorers are able to say this because they can. They are in a very good position right now and are poised to continue this trend of gaining market share. I'm really worried for GM. They've already dug themselves into a hole that of only being held afloat by SUVs and trucks. And they're basically in a situation where they have to devote their efforts and capital on trucks while they neglect or half *** their car lines. I'd hate to see what happens when the truck/suv market falls flat on its face, and it will happen, probably sooner (gas prices gas prices gas prices) rather than later. GM seems focused only on the short term. The trend they are in now will not stop their declining market share. It may sound crazy, but can you imagine a GM that abandons passenger cars, and sells only trucks/suvs (assuming the demand is consistent)? It would take some substantial scaling back, but it may not be that far fetched.


Edit: We're far removed from WWII.

 

OK ...a couple of thoughts.....back when the Pinto was being built, the Japanese cars had a LOT of quality problems..esp. rust.

Wanna start to level the playing field? Don't raise the price of Toyotas....Take the huge Japanese imposed tarriff off of all cars entering the Japanese market from North America or Europe! It is NOT a level playing field by any stretch of the imagination.

As to 'built in North America'...the Average GM or Ford passenger car or truck has a content of about 86% North American content....the average Toyota has about 38%........

As to domestic truck sales being down 7%....what did you expect??? The pie isn't getting larger, folks, there's just more players.....thus, for every Nissan pickup sold, you can be assured that's one less Dodge, Ford, Chevy or GMC.

 

I don't care about North American... I care about US content. I'd tend to guess that, of the "about 38% of Toyota's content", quite a bit more of that is built in the US than as with GM and Chrysler who love to build stuff in Mexico and/or Canada.

I'm sure the part content on the domestic cars is still higher, but what about assembly? Last survey I didnt actually showed a greater number of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan models were built in the US than were GM (ignore the North America crap... giving labor wages to Mexicans is no different than giving them to Germans for all any pro-domestic person should care)

 

actually, most is from the U.S.....second is Canadian.....