I think you're right.

So many corps have invested huge amount of capital and resources in "supposed" up-and-coming foreign economies, but most of those ventures have produced very little profits to justify their expense.

Because every possible foreign corporation is now in the US competing for the US consumer's dollar it has made the US economy ultra competive even for those who have a homefield advantage like GM. While this ultra-competiveness has help kept inflation low and given consumers a larger assortment of products at super low retail prices its having a negative effect on alot of US-based companies that can no longer be profitable in todays marketplace. Especially when trying to compete with ultra-cheap Chinese labor in conjunction with the Chinese Goverment artificially keeping their currency devalued to make their products even cheaper.

If and when (or ever) the US consumer becomes tapped out and signficantly slows down its mass-buying-spree then we will take the rest of the world's economies down with us. Most countries around the world don't have a large enough middle class to sell enough stuff within their own borders. These foreign countries have become soley export-only economies that depend on the US economy for survival while we are becoming an import-only service-economy that's addicted to "buying" cheap crap while we love to "lease" expensive cars.

The question I have is if we are indeed a Service-Economy why does "service" suck so bad??

 

it is not honda's problem if some monkey can't change an oil filter.

the car, when serviced correctly, is just fine. it is not going to burst into flames if the oil filter is on correctly.

now, is it engineered poorly? yes, no doubt about it -- but this is still in no way similar to the ford cruise control fire situation.


i figure its the same thing as if someone serviced the brakes and didn't tighten the bleeder valve. when the person slams the brakes and the bleeder pops out and the person crashes, is that the car maker's fault?

 

Ditto. Great leaps have been done, and I can now honestly start looking at domestic cars as an option (outside of the "cool" cars like the f-bod, mustang, vette, etc).. Still, the domestic need to continue moving foward.. and for now, they are going to have to grit their teeth and work thru the negative perceptions, until more of these newer vehicles are out on the street, and the general public does notice,that they have gotten substantially better.

 

Nope, the Ford fires are nothing like the honda fires, despite there being MORE Honda fires than reported Ford Fires...

But the Ford Fires are strikingly similar to the GM Fires...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...m-recall_x.htm
"General Motors (GM) said Friday it is recalling 1.8 million cars to repair potential problems with the ignition switch that could cause a fire."

I think the total was nearly 4-million vehicles total after including all the car and truck variations that have had the same basic recall going for the last 4 years, with an astounding 80 reports of fires.

More people have died from drunk driving while I was writing this than have been INJURED in the Ford issue (and the GM issue too FTM).
"Ford says it knows of 63 alleged vehicle fires and of one alleged injury associated with a fire. No deaths have been reported, but the instances of fires appear to be increasing, the car company said." http://ennispaige.com/ford_recall.html

Get this straight... in defects per total units produced we have the following...
CR-V... 280,000/71 reports = .0002536%
GM... 1,800,000/80 reports = .0000444%
Ford. 3,700,000/63 reports = .0000170%
ALL of these are falling within sigma values for the best manufacturing defect rates possible, and the Honda is the WORST of them to boot.


Do me a favor, lighten up on the "Ford Fire" thing.

 

GM had 4 years to get the ignition thing straight...
MB has been sliding for electrical issues for a decade...
Nissan has had their issues... so now Ford ignores problems?????

WTF does this have to do with the price of eggs in China or the topic of this thread?

 

[QUOTE=ol'93formula]I'll never be in one that I own - guaranteed.
But I just spent over two weeks in an E320 while in Germany, and I was underimpressed for a $60k car.

As for what you find strange...
1) It's my life, I'll spend it digging up hidden truths if I so choose.
2)Apparently, I am MUCH better at computer stuff like searches and typing than you are, cuz it only took about 15 minutes.
3) Lastly, I find it strange that you STILL DON'T GET THE TOPIC OF THE THREAD AFTER 3 PAGES.

The topic is not that others might/might not have problems, but that the U.S. PRESS AND MEDIA REFUSE TO SCREAM ABOUT IMPORT PROBLEMS AS LOUDLY AS THEY DO ABOUT DOMESTIC PROBLEMS. (Hence, my "digging" to prove it.)
Get it now?

 

Dear Mr Pony

When I said the Mercedes recall was about quality and not safety I was refering to the recall you refrenced when you started the thread.

You know You started this thread comparing the story about the Mercedes recall a few weeks with today's story about the NHTSA investigation into Fords.

I gave a logical answer as to why the MB story differed from the NHTSA investigation in to Ford. I stand by this answer.

I have no idea why you have decided to include every recall Mercedes had over the last 15 years. The seatbelt recall and and any other recalls Mercedes had had have nothing to do with the two stories you are comparing.

Please if you want to prove how bad MBs are then use your great searching skills to find all the instances of Benzes bursting into flames.

Have a nice day Mr, Quixote

 

ok, whats your point? a bunch of people screwed up putting on an oil filter, again, a human-caused event.

so whats your point? other car makers have fire problems? i don't think this had to be established.

yay for that, what is FORD or GM going to do about drunk driving? apples to peaches, not similar in any way. also, by your own quote, these FORD fires are going to be increasing.

why? because as more and more of the cruise control units start to go bad, more and more of these switches will overheat and burst into flames. this is a problem that will start happening more and more often as time goes on, possibly burning people alive in their homes while they sleep.

so they had 71 reports of lube techs putting an oil filter on wrong. whats your point? also, there was 63 fires reported to FORD at the time of the recall, before this all became known. the local news station here, who by the way is the one responsible for all this, has documented over 250 ford fires by Jan 28, 2005 (http://www.wesh.com/news/4134936/detail.html)
nah, ford fire just kind of flows when you say it out loud, almost like it was designed to.

besides, how many other vehicles produced within the last 10 years will burst into flames at 4 o'clock in the morning and burn your house down while your sleeping? not the CR-V ...


here is some interesting reading:
Government Investigates Ford Fires

Parked Ford Catches Fire In Family's Driveway

Ford Fire Damages Winter Park Home Another Truck Goes Up In Flames Popular Trucks Going Up In Flames

 

Because editorials are really about you saying something that your audience already agrees with. And it is sad by a very large portion of Americans think that our cars are inferior, and/or that the Japanese companies producing them here make cars that are more American than the Big 2.

 

Man, I've never had such a hard time keeping people on the topic of the thread?!?!

I'm not here to defend Ford's issues. Nor GM's. Nor Honda's. Nor MB's. Or anybody else's for that matter.

YOU HAVE MADE MY POINT BETTER THAN I DID with all that stuff you just linked to in your post above. It is effortless to find stories about US vehicles with a problem, but you have to dig to find similar stories about imports with the same or even worse problems. The press just doesn't do them.

If you don't get it by now, please - stop typing in this thread and go start your own about "Flaming Fords" somewhere else so you can have your own topic and type about it all day.

(BTW, are you a US Press member? You sure write and act like one. Honda can do no wrong (despite the worst percentage of incidents), GM and Ford now have to fix drunk driving, and people are dying while asleep in their beds from "Ford Fires" - even got your own little catch phrase going there for a headline article... )

 

AGAIN, the topic was BIAS IN THE US PRESS COVERAGE, not the subject or reason of the recall. This thread was not intended to compare a computer reflash to a faulty cable connection in severity and cost.

I did not come CLOSE to uncovering all MB's recalls in the last 15 years... in fact, I picked randomly from a huge list on Alldata.com. Took 2 minutes to get the list in front of me, and 1 minute each to copy/paste a link. AGAIN, it's not the type of recall, the age of the recall, or the reason of the recall - it's the fact that the press screams out loud about Ford or GM recalls, and whispers about MB, BMW, Porsche, Audi, Honda, Toyota, and other recalls.

Though your answer may have had some logic to it, it did not pertain to the subject matter I started with - PRESS BIAS. If you think it did, then you think there are varying degrees of "need-to-know" based on the severity of the potential damage, and I disagree with that logic 100%. You can NOT predict that someone will/will not get hurt or killed based on the type of problem with the vehicle. A person is just as likely to get killed in an MB with faulty seat belts as they are to die in a house fire caused by a faulty Ford cable.

And at the risk of getting off-topic again myself, how can you say that one problem is more/less significant than the other for any of the examples given? NO INJURIES are NO INJURIES. Property damage is property damage. To me, I can't discriminate about the "severity" between a GM ignition switch that burns down your house, a Ford cable that burns down your house, or a Benz that will dump your brake system while you are doing 100mph+ on the autobahn or 70mph on a US highway?
Which one of those is the "best" problem to have for you? Would you like to see less press coverage on ANY of these situations?
Now back on topic... why would one get MORE pres coverage than the others if they all involve a million cars?
See my point? (I hope... )

 

1) Glad we agree that Honda's placement of an oil filter on top of an exhaust was nothing short of stupid.

2) I never said it was identical, just epically stupid.

3) The human error is in poor engineering, not the installation of the oil filter itself - an oil filter should NEVER be placed in such a position. People who engineer cars... well, the people with a brain in their head, that is... realize that any service procedure involving a human being will never be better than 90% reliable. Due to that fact, service procedures are written and cars are designed in such a way such that even with an error, no catastropic damage or danger is the result. In short, Honduh failed, not the service people.

4) As there is nothing that can be done to fix an incorrectly packaged oil filter, CRVs will CONTINUE burning. Ford, on the other hand, will most likely achieve a 100% knock-out rate on the fix for their issue.

 

wha?

alright, the general topic of this thread is "boo hoo why does the press hate US automakers" and it was brought up that honda's SUV's are bursting into flames but got no press coverage.

well i just proved that the ford thing isn't some small thing, is MUCH MUCH more dangerous then the honda fires, its going to be getting worse and worse with time, and deserves the press time.

and then you posted the above?

its almost as if your not even reading the posts your "responding" to, as if your spouting out crap to hope it hits somewhere near on target.

btw, i wasn't the one that brought up the argument about drunk driving, i'm just the one that said it was a stupid argument. you should go back and actually read the post...

 

Oh... one more thing...

The oil filter on an Ecotec is a cartridge-type filter on the COMPLETELY OPPOSITE side of the motor relative to the exhaust.

On GM V8's, the oil filter is underneath the motor, and oil fill is on the valve cover with a plastic extension to prevent excessive spillage.

On GM pushrod V6's, the oil filter is also underneath the motor and the oil fill has a plastic extension also.

None of that is an accident.



Back on point now...

I would submit that a wiring issue resulting in fires is inherently more difficult to engineer out of a car than placement of an oil filter. Furthermore, it appears that the Honduh fires are more prevalent given this data:

"Get this straight... in defects per total units produced we have the following...
CR-V... 280,000/71 reports = .0002536%
GM... 1,800,000/80 reports = .0000444%
Ford. 3,700,000/63 reports = .0000170%
ALL of these are falling within sigma values for the best manufacturing defect rates possible, and the Honda is the WORST of them to boot."

The data is pretty surprising there. The Honduh fires happen at a rate 15 times greater than the Ford issue AND THERE IS NO 100% RELIABLE CORRECTIVE ACTION. On a DFMEA, that's bad, bad news.

 

Nice to see someone in here with a rational POV instead of a pair of rose-colored glasses...
You... you... you... you engineer! How dare you analyze something like that!

anasazi seems to have the same blinders on that the general media does.

I quickly dug up some seatbelt and brake failures on a higher-end producer to show equally dangerous or human detriment conditions to the Ford issues, but those get washed away in light of arguing about, well, I really don't know what about. Oil filter placement design?