CARBIZ

Five years ago, we Canucks were told that our banks were 'too small' to compete globally and should be allowed to merge to be competitive. The government intervened and said, no. Now, Canada is one of othe few countries whose banks are not seeking bail outs because they are rock solid and did not get involved in costly, leveraged buyouts. BCE (owners of Bell Canada) is one of the biggest Canadian companies not owned by a foreign power. Two years ago, they penned a huge deal to be bought out by a pension fund and other 'investors,' to the tune of $34b to $54b (depending on who you believe.) The government had concerns and now with the money markets, the deal is in jeopardy. But WTF: who is going to pay for this 'merger??' How will it benefit consumers in Canada? Why does BCE need to be bought out? Well, the answer is pretty clear: it benefits the fat cats on the board, all the brokers (commissions!!) involved in the deal, etc. I may not hold a Phd in accounting, but wouldn't that kind of money be better spent on R&D? I am really reconsidering my opinions of all this globalizaton talk. It is fairly obvious now that we were sold a bill of goods because one of the benefits pitched to us was that these type of world wide recessions would no longer be possible. REALLY?

There certainly is a lot of merit to the argument, FOG. If I remember correctly, didn't the UAW get a seat or two on the Board of Chrysler when they were 'bailed out' 30 years ago? I have said this many times that outsourcing jobs to China, for the sake of saving a few bucks at Wal-Mart is NOT the answer. Canada's biggest department store chain for over 100 years, Eaton's, went bankrupt about a decade ago and one of the biggest reasons is that they paid their employees much better than minimum wage and they couldn't stand up to the likes of Wal-Mart. We are not doing ourselves any favors, as nations, by slaying the dragon of high prices by killing the jobs first. Although it is a given that the UAW has a lot to do with Detroit's demise, it is also well known (in non-socialist circles, anyway) that 'pride of ownership' makes a big difference. That is a major reason that rental apartment buildings are generally a disgrace, whereas condos are clean and well maintained. I'm not sure what kind of war chest the UAW has, but they should be willing to put their money where their mouthes are and 'buy' into GM during these challenging times. The CAW, on the other hand, has already proven they are part of the problem by refusing to acknowlege they should have to 'give up' anything.

Here is what is worrying me THIS WEEK: GM is hurting now because of the bad press and lack of leasing. What is going to happen in light of $60 a barrel oil when the Volt comes out? Who is going to buy it? The green-zealots have already bought their Priuses. It is convincing middle America to buy vehicles like the Volt that will turn things around for GM - especially if GM doesn't invest in their trucks over the next couple years while other manufacturers do. It is a given that GM/Ford should be saved, but it will be the greatest irony if investment in the Volt saves the company TODAY, only to sink it in 2 years.

His dad ran American Motors? GOOD GRIEF. That explains a lot. I stopped reading after that. Talk about pre-conceptions.

Having 'grown up' with RWD and now 'married' to FWD, I understand the advantages/disadvantages of both. However, what I don't get (and I know I am pissing into the wind with many folks on C&G) is why are so many 'enthusiasts' prepared to throw Detroit into the dumpster just because somebody, somewhere builds a RWD car that can 'drift?' BIG DEAL. There's a whole lot of growin' up to do. The problem is, these are the same guys who write in the car mags and influence the wannabees out there. So, you end up with a 40 year old housewife buying a BMW 3 series for the 'image,' even though the half-wit wouldn't know RWD from FWD from the end of her curling iron. (My apologies to the 4 housewives in North America who show up at NASCAR events.) Whether we like it or not, manual shift/RWD/300+ horsepower vehicles are going to die very soon, thanks to a perfect storm combination of legislation, the insurance lobby, dwindling resources and pure common sense. Before some of you reach for your shot gun, think about it: oil will be expensive again; you are financing terrorists that hate you; automobiles were intended as transportation, not toys; speed does kill; insurance is expensive and as society we are going to have to make tough choices in the ensuing years. I doubt many of you would bother to haunt any of the 'green' sites, but obviously they are diametrically opposed to most of what is said on C&G. Many of those types won't be happy until all forms of personal transport (other than bicycles perhaps) are outlawed. Furthermore, if you look at where auto technology is going (more computer control, drive by wire, hybrids, telemetrics, etc.) we are truly seeing the birth of an era where most if not all driver input is being taken out of the equation. There are many reasons for this, but the overwhelming one is that of efficiency. Automatic transmissions are one good example. As they have improved, they are more efficient in most cases than a manual shift. That is why you don't (or won't) see any hybrids with a manual shift. For the vast majority of people out there, automobiles are little more than transportation. These people have (in their minds) busy lives and will not take the time to learn the proper use, care, etc. of their vehicles. It is for them that GM and Ford have catered over the past decade or more. Once the car mags are driven into extinction (probably when oil hits $200 a barrel and nobody can afford to drive 5 series Beemers that require premium fuel), there will be a return to sanity within the automotive engineering/design community. The question is, will GM and Ford survive long enough for the enthusiasts to realize and accept that?

And this would be the Quote of the Day. I would call this the definition of irony: here is a man who clearly doesn't understand the point to the posting in Edmunds. GM, Ford and Chrysler must (and I can't be bothered to count them) build at least 100 different models of vehicle, available right here for purchase at a local dealer. But, no, that is clearly not enough for some people. Is there no end to this madness? Must we walk into a liquor store and spent 45 minutes trying to pick out a bottle of wine because there are, like, 300 brands? Do we have to stand in line at a coffee shop to pay $5 for a coffee while some ingrate tries to choose between the 50 flavors, 12 sizes and 18 cups? It's friggin' coffee!!!!! Nothing personal, Axoid, but every time some a-hole in a BMW tries to run me off the road while yakking on his/her cell, I pray that his/her job is the first one gone as our society circles the drain.

Again, I found the remarks to the posting more illuminating than the article itself. The guy who remarked his kids will have a dim memory of American cars, like AMC, just makes me want to buy a gun. Is this the level of ignorance and self-loathing that we have achieved? Wow. Judging by the majority of the posters remarks, I do believe it is time that China or India or the Taliban invade. We don't deserve to command the world.

?????? Not around here. The Camry is easily $2,500 more than a similarly equipped Malibu. If you factor in the Impala (standard V-6), then the gap widens considerably.

... and if that is what you truly believe, sir, then the Japanese have won and we may as well pack up our tents and go home.

It's a common trick for newbies to hang around the lot on Sundays and give out cards... or at least that was the case when there was actually traffic of any kind on dealer lots. Hey, I've gone to lots when they're closed myself. Nobody hates being bugged by salespeople more than I do. Don't blame us, blame management. When the General Manager sticks his head out of his office once a day and sees one customer out on the lot without 3 guys tagging him/her we hear about it at the next meeting, believe me. Funny, we were joking around the other day that Service should put bright red stickers on the shoulders of their customers so that these people don't get harassed by a swarm of salespeople in the show room. It's like running the gauntlet, but believe me if the manager sees a customer in the show room or on the lot and we don't have a detailed explanation of who this person is, why they are here, etc. we get in $h!. You guys gotta know what they teach at training seminars: everyone who walks on the lot (and I do mean EVERY ONE, even if it's a lady pushing a baby stroller on the way to daycare and is cuttign through the lot) is a CUSTOMER. Especially when times are tough, these seminars teach us (and the managers, of course) that the reason sales are down is entirely OUR FAULT. We get told $h! like 93% of customers (but please, good teacher, what exactly is a 'customer?') will buy within a week. That figure alone is total $h! because I can call up 20 people I've talked to in the past couple months and probably half of them still don't have a clue what they are going to do. Anyway, this wasn't intended to be a rant, but I hate being ambushed by salespeople, whether its on a car lot or at a furniture store. I feel like wearing a T-shirt: Just Leave Me Alone and I Will Find You If I Need Help.

LOL Sounds like me! I was at a bookstore in the airport not too long ago and looking for some reading for a 4 hour flight. I had a copy of Consumer's Reports Auto buyers book in my hand. The BF snatched it out of my grip and declared there was no way in hell he was sitting beside me for 4 hours, trapped on a plane while I read that garbage!

Not sure about Alberta Law, but our bills of sale for used cars all explicitly state: 'As seen and equipped.' I'd have to see the build sheet. If the build sheet says the car has it, then it has it; however, often there are codes where the option was deleted (usually due to a shortage). Since the car was used, GM certaily won't come to the table (nor should they). It sounds to me like this is more of a mis-understanding. FYI, in future, if you want to know if the vehicle has ABS (like when you rent a car, for example) look for the master cylinder under the hood and you will see the 'computer' for the ABS system because it has to be located close to the master cylinder to supply the pumping information. (It looks like a silver box with metal pipes coming out of it.) I can't imagine adding ABS after the fact: the sensors alone would cost a fortune.

Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons Detroit is in such trouble. Every time GM or Ford pull out of anything, Japan Inc steps in to fill the void, further adding to the illusion of Detroit's irrelevance. It would be one thing to not support the Academy Awards or something like that, but the Auto Show in Detroit is Ford and GM's own backyard. I remember (fondly) to the early auto shows of the mid-70s that I attended where Datsun, Honda and others were relegated to back corners and only a few square feet of space. Now, the auto shows are polluted with the imports and their offerings. It's almost a reason for me NOT to go.

If it were merely disgruntled consumers spreading rumors and lies, GM and Ford would be fine, but rather the bigger issue is the agenda being foisted on the auto industry by the likes of MT, R&T (and even the slobs on Top Gear), who rank every vehicle by how many Gs it can do in a turn. It's the aggregate of these two groups attacking Detroit that have created the bigger issue. We see the same kind of biases here on C&G, amongst a group of supposedly auto-educated people. There are frequent posters on here who are willing to cheer GM into bankruptcy because they don't build hardtops or RWD, or because GM may have to cancel their favorite brand to stave off financial ruin. If we get that sort of anger amongst the 'enlightened,' is it hard to imagine worse from the ignorant? It's simple math: GM sold 5 million vehicles a year throughout the '80s (more or less), let's assume 20% of their cars were total POS; therefore, you'd have 1 million pissed off customers a year, bad mouthing GM Honda sold 800k-1M a year through the '80s, and again let's assume they had 20% of their cars as total POS; therefore, you'd have 150k or so pissed off customers a year to slander Honda. Multiply that over a couple decades and you'd have a $h! storm for GM, especially when their market share has DECLINED, which I view as a natural process, inevitable for any maturing business. When I owned my own business, I once joked to my sister (as an irate customer stormed out of my store) that if we stayed in business long enough we would succeed in pissing off every customer we had.

Where is aatbloke when you need him? I've been screaming for 2 or 3 years now that Wall Street builds NOTHING and that a day of reckoning was coming, yet I got sniped at for 'hating' anybody with a degree. No, just accountants and lawyers, who are all a bunch of snake oil salespeople, as far as I am concerned.

I agree with you, but you'd be amazed at how many people bitch and whine about them (usually older folks). Also, there were a lot of early sensor problems (especially with Fords) back in the '90s which resulted in costly repairs being needed when the vehicle his 5 or 6 years old. Canadian winters (salt!) kick the crap out of anything under the chassis.

The 2007 LS and LT G5/Cobalts did not come with ABS. Unless you paid the extra $600 on your bill of sale, you wouldn't have a legal case in court. It is clearly marked in the brochures, too. 'O' means 'optional.' Blame your salesman or mis-communication. GM yanked ABS out of all their cars in '03. At the time, I thought that was a mistake, but in all of '03 I only had two customers who gave a damn. Go figure. Due to roll-over regulations, etc., stability control is being mandated in trucks and soon in cars, so ABS is suddenly becoming in vogue again. I guess GM was about 2 decades (again) ahead of things when they put ABS in all their vehicles in '93. The '09 G5/Cobalts have ABS standard on the LT models, but not LS.

+ 1 I would add that too much of business theory is about quantifying or pigeon-holing everthing, and that would include customers. It's easy for an accountant to say that if you sell X,000 cars and the cost on each is X0,000 to build, then the profit will be X billion per year. However, somewhere along the line the brainiacs at various colleges decided ALL aspects of business can be categorized that way. Absent owners (another problem in the global village) want to be able to run their empires by remote control; ie., while sitting on the dock at their cottage. Middle management feels powerless, so all they can do is pepper-spray their managers with charts, emails and reports to show that they are doing something to justify their existence. I see this more and more: middle-managers rushing around giving the appearance of doing something during a crisis when, in fact, there are too many things out of their control. This could be one of the biggest challenges in huge companies like GM and Ford. Sales is emotion driven (Lutz gets it), so how can you expect to quantify everything that goes through a customer's head? But that is the thinking in marketing circles these days. Customers can be 'managed,' brands can be 'managed,' etc.

$230 MILLION? Well, that will pay for about 20 minutes of what GM is losing these days....

.... unless you actually test drive a Cobalt with the 4 spd and the Corolla with the extra gear.

Y'know, if it didn't say you've post over 3,000 times here, I'd almost think you were new around here. We've been debating this to death for the past 2 or 3 years. There is nothing wrong with the majority of GM's vehicles that the average person wouldn't be perfectly happy with. It's the constant hating/piling on mentality of the jaded, purposeless media that has created the biggest headaches for GM and Ford. Why don't you do yourself a favor and stand on a street corner and ask 30 passersby what they drive, what's under the hood and how much horsepower it has. If you want a real laugh, ask them if it has DOHC or pushrods. If you got 3 intelligent answers, I'd eat my hat. Quality (whatever that means), durability, styling and value are the most important attributes to any new vehicle. Unfortunately, 3 out of the 4 seem to be quite subjective. Here's two conversations I had yesterday with customers: 1) old geezer with a 3 year old Malibu. Loves the car. Finds the ride too harsh. I asked him what he drove before. Answer: Buick Century. Oh, I replied, that's your saleperson's fault. He or she should have put you in an Impala, you'd like it better. Moral of the story: some people don't want road feel and just want comfort. 2) Younger guy, late '30s. He has a 12 year old Sunfire with 180,000 miles and the original clutch. I spoke to him two weeks ago, but he was 'told' to check out the Camry and Accord. He came back and bought a Malibu. Why? He shrugged and said the the Toyota and Honda were 'okay,' but he has never had probems with his GM cars in the past and wants to 'stick with GM.' Do you think this guy give s f$#k about how many speeds his tranny has, or whether his 'crappy' Sunfire was a pushrod engine? If the WSJ, R&T, MT and others fell off a cliff tomorrow, GM and Ford's sales would probably double in a couple years. 80% of the public don't know there ass from a hole in the ground but they are being pushed and shoved around by the absolute bull$h! bordering on propaganda in the media today. Where is Goebbles when you need him?

LOL Seriously, you don't want to know the number of short stories (and 3 unfinished novels) I've written over the years. My grade 11 English teacher was horrified with a 230 page (typed) assignment I gave her. I went to school with Robert Sawyer. Look him up. He is living the dream I thought I would, had I have (ahem) kept it in my pants, so to speak, after highschool. I guess that's why so many geeks are rich! LOL

Oh, please: NDAs??? There are leaks all over the web (including right here on C&G) from paint plants being built at Springhill to the GMT-900s. There was every reason to expect (up until '04 anyway) that GM was on-track to keeping its 25%+ market share, etc. From what I've seen, Fiat was the biggest fiasco on his watch, but I don't think we know exactly what went on with that plan. Maybe GM saw an opportunity (like Daewoo) to knock out a competitor and/or gain market share. Wagoner is merely an accountant, not a lawyer, too. LOL Also, the dividend could have been suspended sooner, but then Wagoner's title was CEO, not President, and as CEO he is supposed to shore up share value. One of the easiest ways to maintain share value (short term) is to pay a dividend. It's too bad there aren't any disgruntled Toyota board members or plant workers to post on English language blog sites so we can hear as much dirt about Toyota's dirty laundry as we do about GM and Ford's.

Is that not what he did? Lutz came along 7 years ago. Olds disappeared 5 years ago (although planning for that must have occured at least 7 or 8 years ago). All the product cycles were accelerated. I venture to say if not for the market meltdown of '08, GM would be well on its way to profitability again. Wagoner and Obama are going to have a lot in common with respect to their biographies: both inherited structural messes and both their tenures will be dominated by other people's legacies, not creating their own.