

Saving Detroit: It's the Cars, Stupid - astrec
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081126_005507.html

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StrawberryFrog
Put yourself in my position: in England, which has very few totally local car
manufacturers.

I'd buy a German car if I got rich (VW, BMW, Audi, Mercedes), a Japanese car
(Toyota, Honda), even a French car (Peugeot or Citroen) if I don't. If I won
the lottery I'd think of an Italian sportscar.

But an American car, what possible use would I have for one of those?

Change that.

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vaksel
its not the cars, its the legacy.

Domestic cars are pretty much associated with crap by default. Detroit can
come out with a car thats faster, better looking, more fuel efficient, more
luxurious, more reliable and cheaper than a honda civic. And most people would
still buy a civic over it.

Why? Because they either owned or know someone who owned a domestic product in
the past that turned out to be crap.

~~~
wensing
_Why? Because they either owned or know someone who owned a domestic product
in the past_

Or rented. Seems like almost every car I rent is a GM, and I always notice
something flaky or broken about it (which is sad considering they rarely have
more than 20,000 miles or so).

I own a Toyota, but ended up driving someone else's Chevy for a while this
weekend. I couldn't believe how cheap all of the components felt, not to
mention how much my body ached after driving it for 2.5 hours.

~~~
potatolicious
That's always been GM's problem. They have perfectly fine designs, but have
always been built shoddy. They build a reliable car, and then sabotage it by
stuffing it full of ill-fitting plastic interior parts.

Every GM car I've been in recently has felt cheap. You know, interior
materials don't cost that much - however much they are saving on this
construction is nothing compared to how bad it makes them look.

I know many people who work in the automotives field, and the general
consensus is that GM uses the worst production methodology out of them all.
Parts have high tolerances (i.e. shaky, loose, poor fitting) and that leads to
shoddy assembly, which weakens reliability of an otherwise sound design, and
generally just feels like junk.

If GM tightened their manufacturing tolerances they would do wonders for
themselves.

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mrtron
I agree with your summary - but why have they even survived this long with
such shoddy workmanship?

GM's have been poorly built for at least 10 years. Same with Ford.

My father owned an auto repair shop, and there seemed to be a big gap in
quality between the old vehicles and the new starting in the early 80s. The
old cars were tanks - built simply and reliably. The new cars much cheaper and
poorly constructed, focusing on form over function.

Back then Toyotas and Hondas seemed to be in their own class. The same old
reliability, but built cheaper. They were ugly and didn't have many bells and
whistles, but they ran forever. Since then the quality gap has remained, but
Toyota/Honda have also overtaken the rest in style too.

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kqr2
Cringely actually tried to design his own plane in 30 days in an interesting
PBS documentary:

<http://www.amazon.com/Plane-Crazy-3pc-Gift-Set/dp/B00003A9RW>

 _Join Robert X. Cringely, computer industry gossip columnist and high-tech
gadfly as he sets out to design, build and fly an airplane in 30 days_

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jeroen
_The new design would have to carry two people and luggage, have an empty
weight of no more than 625 lbs. and use an 85-horsepower engine._

The biggest differentiator between cars and planes (as far as construction
goes) is crashes. That changes both weight and price in a non-trivial way.

