Originally Posted By: double vanos
They are victims of their own circunstance. They fell in love with the Pick Up Truck /SUV high profit to cost ratio, when they should have had a half wary eye on the cost of oil. Can't say as I blame them though, easy money is hard to deny.
If necessary, buy a BMW and tear it apart and figure out what they are doing right. Do the same with the Japanese and European small cars and try to learn something. It would be sparse times indeed, but necessary therapy.
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all the car mfgrs buy competitors vehicles to examine. I read in Hot Rod once about how GM wanted to experiment w/ BMW's drive by wire in the 750il; BMW wouldn't cooperate, so GM bought a 750, tore it apart, and put the whole drivetrain in a caprice. guess what? GM has a very good drive by wire system in all its cars now.
everyone KNOWS how to build good cars; the hard part is actually doing it. the japanese had a long learning curve; they only gained a rep for reliability in the late 80's. nobody used to think that Americans would accept high end Japanese vehicles, that's why they developed alternate nameplates for the American market- Lexus, Acura and Infiniti. Mazda was suppoed to do one also but ran out of money. toyota took 3 tries before they figured out how to do a full size truck as good as the domestics.toyota spent millions developing a NASCAR engine program; they benchmarked the chevy engine then poured money over it.
Unencumbered, the domestics could turn out fantastic cars. BMW makes a great car, but you don't see them offering a nice mid size for $21K? they can't do it. they don't offer a compact do they? it takes a lot of R&D to offer a full line of cars. the beancounters at the domestics are a hinderance because they make cars to hit a price point, instead of building a truly great car.
I don't remember the details, but there was an infamous GM memo that suggested that paying wrongful death claims was still cheaper than fixing a known design flaw. that's straight up demon-spawn accounting right there. but that thinking continues when they cheapen out where they think they can get away w/ it.