GM in talks to buy Chrysler

[jbas]

Daimler should pay GM to take Chrysler, like a dowry. If Chrysler was making money, it wouldn't be sold.

Chrysler could bring some very good things to GM - the Jeep division, heavy truck manufacturing (big global future here), and pretty good & new assembly lines (i.e., cheap, well made cars - PT Cruiser, etc.) from Mexico. Maybe keep the Canadian plants, too. But the older US plants and poor-quality managers/workers have got to go, they are really holding Chrysler back. No one's going to match Honda's, Subaru's, Hyundai's, & Toyota's quality until you have skilled, quality-conscience managers and workers like they do. (E.g., look at Hyundai's upsurge in quality so quickly compared to decades of Ford, GM dribble).

 

[wileyE]

If they have to leverage the money overseas to make the deal I'm against it. The last number I heard was 43% of this country’s debt load is held offshore. That means almost 1/2 your house, car, credit cards, our war debt, our bonds etc, is foreign owned. To me that means we’ve lost 43% of the contol over our future as nation, and it shows.

 

[Tosh]

Let's apply some GM-think: If we own Chrysler, there's no way the guvment won't bail us out.

 

[Gary Allan]

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If they have to leverage the money overseas to make the deal I'm against it. The last number I heard was 43% of this country’s debt load is held offshore. That means almost 1/2 your house, car, credit cards, our war debt, our bonds etc, is foreign owned. To me that means we’ve lost 43% of the contol over our future as nation, and it shows.

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Well, I don't view it from that angle. I view as a way to neuter the American population economically without suffering the normal recessions that cause natural pauses in the realignment of our labor. Now you don't have that as the money supply just keeps pretty constant. Now you don't get to compete. Before we went idle ..they went idle. We realigned our economy ..they did too ..to provide the needed differential. Now the valve doesn't get shut off. You don't see engineering firms lowering their bids for domestic projects ..where engineering firms must accept what the market will yield ..you see them outsourced and a bunch of unemployed domestic engineers. It's the same with everything else too.

 

[Rico567]

...and if this goes through, with Ford in such lousy shape, within a few years we may see another merger with the result being General & Only Motors. Just what we need, a corporation with a domestic car monopoly....about like a bad case of the clap. Take the #@$%! cars the three of them are making now, and raise that to the X power.

 

[Syntec-Man]

This way they will be certain, that the government bails them out!!! There products are improving i love my z06 its a keeper

 

[Tornado Red]

Just as the Chrysler-Daimler merger was controversial at the time, and definitely a mistake in hindsight, so too would be a GM-Chrysler merger be a bad idea.

I think there are too many smart minds saying "NOOOOOOOO!" This won't happen.

The other issue is technology tranfer. Every year since the DC merger, there has been a little more sharing of technology between the two divisions. This is even more true of the cars that are in the pipeline for 2010-2012.

Merging Chrysler with some other company would be bad, but the real problem would be the divorce of Chrysler from Daimler.

 

[SSQ]

GM is nuts. If they have the money to buy out Chrysler (including Dodge and Jeep), they should just spend it on something more profitable. Plus it will suck for Chrysler as well, getting onboard another leaking ship.

 

[Steelhead]

try to export your Corvette or Ford PowerStroke PU to Japan or China

 

[crw]

My take is that we really need to see beyond the headline. This looks like a story created by reporters. Some executives get together for a meeting and all of a sudden a deal is going to be made? There are no real quotes, just speculation. Meanwhile it's going to take three years to figure out how to trim 15%.

Such a deal between GM and Chrysler just doesn't make any sense. The only thing I could think of, would be a deal such that GM takes control and then just kills off 90% of Chrysler and keeps a few things they might need.

The real new world order is going to be global alliances, with one of the former "big three" merged with one large company in europe and one in Asia. The Ford-Volvo-Mazda thing is a start in that direction, but it needs to go bigger.

The whole union thing is a big problem. Unions had their heyday and they did some good. Today is a new day, and unless concessions are made there will be no more union in the future (that is, there will be no more workers for them to support).

 

[ShiningArcanine]

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Let's apply some GM-think: If we own Chrysler, there's no way the guvment won't bail us out.

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I think that GM is after Chrysler's marketshare more than anything else, as Toyota is poised to overtake it as the #1 automobile manufacturer this year and GM does not want that to happen. It is an ego thing.

 

[oldmaninsc]

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GM hasn't had a minivan worth buying in years. If they buy Chrysler, then they'll finally have one that IS worth buying.

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That's funny - especially the part about Chrysler having a mini-van that is worth buying. I know lots of people that own Chrysler minivans, and everyone of them have had major problems. My family has worked in the towing business for many years, guess which mini-van we tow the most of? It wasn't GM's, Fords, Toyota's. By a VERY high margin - Chrysler wins in that department.
I agree with the previous poster, this is about market share and trying to stick with Toyota in that department. Nothing else!

 

[hominid7]

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That's funny - especially the part about Chrysler having a mini-van that is worth buying. I know lots of people that own Chrysler minivans, and everyone of them have had major problems. My family has worked in the towing business for many years, guess which mini-van we tow the most of? It wasn't GM's, Fords, Toyota's. By a VERY high margin - Chrysler wins in that department.
I agree with the previous poster, this is about market share and trying to stick with Toyota in that department. Nothing else!

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With all due respect i would think the vast number of Chrysler mini-vans on the road today is why you tow more of them than any other. They outnumber all other mini vans by a wide margin.

My family has owned 4 Chrysler mini-vans and they have all performed very well.

 

[oldmaninsc]

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That's funny - especially the part about Chrysler having a mini-van that is worth buying. I know lots of people that own Chrysler minivans, and everyone of them have had major problems. My family has worked in the towing business for many years, guess which mini-van we tow the most of? It wasn't GM's, Fords, Toyota's. By a VERY high margin - Chrysler wins in that department.
I agree with the previous poster, this is about market share and trying to stick with Toyota in that department. Nothing else!

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With all due respect i would think the vast number of Chrysler mini-vans on the road today is why you tow more of them than any other. They outnumber all other mini vans by a wide margin.

My family has owned 4 Chrysler mini-vans and they have all performed very well.

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I see your point, and this has been discussed at length. According to one source, in 2004 Chrysler had about 34 percent of the mini-van market. But I'd say of all the minivans we towed about 70-75 percent of them were Chrysler products. The most common failure by far is the transmission.
Don't get me wrong - I had someone give me one and I drove it for a short time. They are nice vehicles to drive, but for the most part their reliability is not very good. While they have improved over the years, we still see low mileage units failing fairly often.

Someone in the office once remarked that if you read the classified ads you will see a lot of their vans for sale, and most of them have in the ad "New transmission"

I have a close friend who had a 1990 Voyager burn to the ground in his driveway. Fire department thought it was an electrical problem in the engine compartment.

 

[wagsg]

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How about a hemi in a Vette.

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Johnny... that is sacrilege!!!

As far as the Chrysler minivan angle (or any other vehicle for that matter)it seems that, today, many people care less about reliability and more about looks, cup holders, fold-down seats, dvd players, etc. Style over substance, baby!

Back on topic: this merger would be bad in many ways.

 

[hominid7]

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According to one source, in 2004 Chrysler had about 34 percent of the mini-van market. But I'd say of all the minivans we towed about 70-75 percent of them were Chrysler products. The most common failure by far is the transmission.

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That's interesting. I guess we have so far been lucky with transmission problems not being something we have delt with. My sister, bless her heart, drives like she is either late for a fire or trying to get away from one. She is on her 3rd Dodge/Chrysler Mini-Van and so far they have been unusually reliable for her. Her husband changes the oil with whatever he finds on sale, be it walmart brand or whatever. While i am not certain, I do not believe they have ever flushed the tranny on any of the vans or cars they've had.

They currently own her last one and the brand new one. The old one they still have has over 150K miles on it and the engine still runs fine. The only problem with it is the A/C compressor went out. In Texas that's unfortunatly not an uncommon problem.

In all the years my 75 yr old father has driven, all the old used cars he's bought, i've bought, and my sisters and her huband have bought, we've only replaced two trannys. One in a 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with 120,000 miles on it, and the other in a 1990 Mitsubishi van that had a tranny self-destruct right at 100,000 miles. I know we've just been lucky.

The only other Plymouth/Chrysler product we owned was a 1964 Plymouth Station Wagon. We sold it with 200,000 miles on it to our next door neighbor. His daughter drove it to college and back for 4 years, then gave it back to her Dad. He continued to use it for several more years as a 'work car'. He sold it with over 300,000 miles on it.

They certainly dont make'em like that any more

 

[hominid7]

Here is a LINK to a neat looking old advertisment for a mid-60's Plymouth wagon like the one we had. I really did enjoy that car...

 

[Volvohead]

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Someone in the office once remarked that if you read the classified ads you will see a lot of their vans for sale, and most of them have in the ad "New transmission"

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And that is reason No. 1 why Chrysler eventually came up with the ATF+ series of fluids.

I know the gentleman who came up with the design solution to the chronic FWD transmission failures they were suffering for years. He was a QC mechanic for them in the field. According to this gentleman, it was a simple and inexpensive fix that saved Chrysler several tens of millions in future warranty repairs. They offered him a new Viper in appreciation. But he was so angry that that's all they offered, that he turned them down and quit to start his own concern.

My neighbor had a first-year minivan ('84) that also caught fire when parked in their driveway and exploded. The first explosion (from the gas tank) blew the side door through their garage door and into an interior wall. A secondary magnesium explosion burned a five foot deep hole through the macadam and shot flames thirty feet high. According to the fire marshal, the only thing that saved their home was that the house had asbestos shingles. Chrysler conducted an investigation, gave them a brand new vehicle, and a letter of apology signed by Lee Iacocca personally. The guy drives an AWD Town and Country today.

 

[Warlord]

Yep, no good chysler stories here either. My grand father has owned 3 chysler minivans. All 3 had tranny failures within 100K. He still drives them though.

 

[K-Man]

Um, that was after getting the tranny failures repaired, right?