GM's "perception gap" is about to get even wider

[Familyguy]

Originally Posted By: rudolphna
Scdevon: GM does no longer build s4177y


l33+! Not.

GM has been circling the drain for years. It was only by gaming the system through production of "light trucks" (where they were able to make a profit while thumbing their nose at CAFE and the EPA) that enabled it to continue to limp along while their passenger car business tanked....all the while further encouraging consumer dependence on imported oil to feed 3 ton soccer mom carriers. Systemic mismanagement and kowtowing to the UAW are what put GM into their pickle and I've only seen window dressing solutions to both of those problems...and only done under duress in order to coax money from the government.

GM is like a smoker that wound up in the hospital with lung cancer after a lifetime of choosing a bad lifestyle. After having "the lump" removed and some of the scare taken away, I suspect they'll head right back to the smoking lounge.

Companies with inept management that can't make a profit should go out of business. Delaying the inevitable by transferring OUR money to a company with a proven track record of failure is pure folly.

 

[Scdevon]

"Aww, come on people! Give us another chance............our quality isn't THAT lousy anymore.........."

That seems to be the best that GM and their cheerleading section
can come up with. It's frankly a little desperate and sounds kind of pathetic.

 

[daves87rs]

Oh, everyone will do it-I'd be willing to bank my account here on that. Ford and Toyota will be next in line.....


Most GM dealerships will work with you, so most of this is not going to be a big issue.


In case nobody has noticed it (unless you work at a dealership, maybe), fraud and abuse are becoming big issues.


Last time I had to stop at the dealership, a lady put up a huge fit beacuse they would not pay for the repairs to her Cobalt.



Here's why: Oil had not be changed since new (had almost 26k on FF), and her kid poured Kool Aid and half a bottle of bleach into the gas tank.


She was even more [censored] when I laughed along with the tech....

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: Familyguy
Originally Posted By: rudolphna
Scdevon: GM does no longer build s4177y


l33+! Not.

GM has been circling the drain for years. It was only by gaming the system through production of "light trucks" (where they were able to make a profit while thumbing their nose at CAFE and the EPA) that enabled it to continue to limp along while their passenger car business tanked....all the while further encouraging consumer dependence on imported oil to feed 3 ton soccer mom carriers. Systemic mismanagement and kowtowing to the UAW are what put GM into their pickle and I've only seen window dressing solutions to both of those problems...and only done under duress in order to coax money from the government.

GM is like a smoker that wound up in the hospital with lung cancer after a lifetime of choosing a bad lifestyle. After having "the lump" removed and some of the scare taken away, I suspect they'll head right back to the smoking lounge.

Companies with inept management that can't make a profit should go out of business. Delaying the inevitable by transferring OUR money to a company with a proven track record of failure is pure folly.




Yeah, I guess that explains why GM still has quite a few cars on the road...

Guess I should check and see when my Cavalier expires.....

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: Scdevon
"Aww, come on people! Give us another chance............our quality isn't THAT lousy anymore.........."

That seems to be the best that GM and their cheerleading section
can come up with. It's frankly a little desperate and sounds kind of pathetic.



That is, unless you are willing to back that mouth with $$$$.......


I have no problem doing so....


Then again, I'm not afraid to buy much....

 

[OilNerd]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
That company is Toast... Let it sink already.

Fire!

That felt good.
Oops, now where do I get the dealer-only parts?

 

[OilNerd]

Originally Posted By: daves87rs

Yeah, I guess that explains why GM still has quite a few cars on the road...

And why the auto parts stores are doing so well...

 

[Nick R]

GM is one of those companies that everybody loves to hate. Here is what I have seen here, other forums, and off the internet. Nobody thinks that GM can ever turn around. Basically, "once [censored] management always [censored] management*. Come on, give me a break. I'm sorry, but if your viewpoint is that, you have a very narrow view on life. Why don't you try to be optimistic and HOPE that GM does better, instead of saying they need to die so foreign branded makes can take over even more market share. Don't mean to sound rude, but complaining about it is NOT helping anything.

 

[sciphi]

GM's problems came from not introducing enough new models with good-enough quality. I drive a 1999 Buick LeSabre. The interior is almost identical to the 1992 Buick LeSabre, and the chassis was new back in 1985, when it was designed. Some of the design choices smack of grafting new parts onto an old design. At least it's fairly easy to work on because it's such an old design.
In effect I'm driving a 24-year-old car, not a 10-year-old car.

I wonder how much old, warmed over technology is in GM's current cars, even the ones touted to be "all-new".

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: rudolphna
GM is one of those companies that everybody loves to hate. Here is what I have seen here, other forums, and off the internet. Nobody thinks that GM can ever turn around. Basically, "once [censored] management always [censored] management*. Come on, give me a break. I'm sorry, but if your viewpoint is that, you have a very narrow view on life. Why don't you try to be optimistic and HOPE that GM does better, instead of saying they need to die so foreign branded makes can take over even more market share. Don't mean to sound rude, but complaining about it is NOT helping anything.


No stating that they (GM and the unions) have screwed themselves and took the devils money (the first 53 BILLION is just the start) is a FACT.

As some one who loves their trucks and have plenty of trouble free miles with a few of them I'll buy a used one next time I need a truck.

I'll NEVER buy a new one. PERIOD.

And like their sales is showing most people will not either.

Once they pulled their cry baby going to the devil and giving in to the Unions that did it for most Americans.

They will continue to get our BILLIONS due to pay backs for last November. And will contiune to go further and further in the hole.

They are done. If the taxpayers stopped giving them $$ then they would be gone. The new GM (with out the devil ownership) would bounce back and prob do well.

But I doubt we will see that.

Bill

 

[DeeAgeaux]

Link: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news...azines_fortune

The New GM: A Quick Summary

Article quote:

For the next three years Henderson will be selling a lineup of cars developed under Wagoner's regime, which, short of cash, scrimped on product development. GM is introducing some attractive new models, such as the Chevrolet Equinox crossover and Buick LaCrosse. Early indications are that the new models are doing well, but GM is launching them at a slower rate than its competitors.

According to an analysis by Merrill Lynch's John Murphy, GM will be replacing an average of only 11% of its product line between 2010 and 2013, compared with 17% for Toyota (TM) and 25% for Ford (F, Fortune 500). Murphy believes GM's 18% to 19% market share target is optimistic, and a more realistic range is 15% to 16%. (GM calls his data worthless.)

There is no room for mistakes. "The days when GM would launch eight or nine cars, and two would be hits, four would be average, and the rest would be okay is just no longer the case," Henderson says. "We don't have the money to do that, and the market is far more demanding."

Yet GM finds itself in a better place than it has in a decade. The company that Henderson led out of bankruptcy on June 10 is smaller, nimbler, more focused, and less financially stretched. GM will have 34 assembly, powertrain, and stamping plants in 2010, down from 47 in 2008, and 68,500 hourly and salaried employees in 2009, down from 91,650 in 2008. It will market and distribute four brands with 34 nameplates, compared with eight brands and 48 nameplates a few months ago. Just as important, its overhead will be sharply reduced. Structural costs are projected to decrease from $51.5 billion in 2008 to about $30.4 billion in 2010. GM's U.S. hourly labor costs have been reduced from $7.6 billion in 2008 to an estimated $5 billion in 2010.

Something else has shrunk at GM too: its attitude. The old cocky, we're-GM-and-we-know-best way of thinking is beginning to disappear. "Bankruptcy was very humbling," Henderson admits. At times GM seems to be enjoying the unfamiliar emotion of humility. Around headquarters you feel as if you are watching an organization go through a 12-step recovery program. GM is somewhere between Step 5 -- "admitting the exact nature of our wrongs" -- and Step 8 -- "making a list of all persons we had harmed and being willing to make amends to them all."

For sure, there is no room for hubris. By the end of the year Henderson will have swept out 450 of the company's 1,300 executives, including a dozen of the highest ranking. He's replaced them with younger managers who weren't around when GM dominated the U.S. market. In one unorthodox move, he switched designer Bryan Nesbitt from the styling studio to the front office, making him general manager of Cadillac.

One holdover is Bob Lutz, who exchanged his job as head of product development for a new one running marketing and communications. Now 77, Lutz worked at BMW, Ford, and Chrysler before rejoining GM in 2001 and has been campaigning against GM's old, slow-moving, counterintuitive ways.

Lutz regales audiences with bureaucratic horror stories, like the one about the engineer who designed Cadillac ashtrays that met an ancient standard that they operate at -- 40 degrees, but were so rigid they could barely be opened. "GM had a zillion regulations that products had to meet," says Lutz. "Fritz hates to waste time and believes in a lean organization. He looks at the data and then decides."

Sometimes Henderson's speedy decision-making inflicts casualties, and earlier this year Lutz took a hit. Lutz had decided that the Australian-made Pontiac G8 sedan should be renamed the Chevrolet Caprice, since the Pontiac brand was being discontinued. But while Lutz may have decided, Henderson hadn't. He griped publicly that "there's way too much speculation" about the car, and noted, as an aside, "Bob Lutz says a lot of things, but he works for me." Lutz quickly backpedaled. In his blog on GM's FastLane website, he announced, "The G8 will not be a Caprice after all." Summing up the episode later, Lutz said, "I said yes, Fritz said no. It was a 48-hour job."

Full article at link.

 

[ViragoBry]

GM (Chevy, specifically) has begun their 'low blow' approach to marketing. Anyone else seen the truck commercial where Howie makes fun of the Ford truck owner's tailgate step?

How very desperate.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted By: KrisZ
... And following the industry standards is fine if you are turning profits and people are actually buying your product. GM is far from turning a profit and they should do everything to do so, just saying that everybody else does it doesn't cut it.

Hyundai is a perfect example of being proactive from a business perspective, they recognized their products were far behind the competition, but instead of complaining about perception gaps and basically telling the customers to "shut up and buy our cars because there is nothing wrong with them", they focused on the product, the warranty, they introduced the job loss program, which was laughed at at the time, and followed by most manufacturers shortly after sales fell of the cliff, Hyundai did not claim any "game changers", revolutionazing the automobile or any other PR shoot that GM is famous for, why can't GM saty under the radar for once?



Because that would mean GM was wrong and they can't admit they were wrong... Especially now because the Government is running it. They are kings of not admitting they were/are wrong.

GM IS HOPELESS...

 

[DeeAgeaux]

Originally Posted By: ViragoBry
GM (Chevy, specifically) has begun their 'low blow' approach to marketing. Anyone else seen the truck commercial where Howie makes fun of the Ford truck owner's tailgate step?

How very desperate. They're probably p*ssed that they didn't think of it first.


No, the Tailgate step is just retarded.

It is easy to make fun of that.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: rudolphna
GM is one of those companies that everybody loves to hate. Here is what I have seen here, other forums, and off the internet. Nobody thinks that GM can ever turn around. Basically, "once [censored] management always [censored] management*. Come on, give me a break. I'm sorry, but if your viewpoint is that, you have a very narrow view on life. Why don't you try to be optimistic and HOPE that GM does better, instead of saying they need to die so foreign branded makes can take over even more market share. Don't mean to sound rude, but complaining about it is NOT helping anything.


I guess giving GM almost $60 billion (more to come in near future) of our money is not helping. How can you "hope" GM will do better, when they did not turn a profit since yeary 2000? And the "new GM" plays exactly the same old and tired story of them being a victim of foreign competition, the downturn and soon the lack of bailouts when finally the government realizes that this hole can't be pluged with pouring more and more money in it.

I understand rooting for the home team, saving jobs in America and being patriotic and GM will play this card until it stops working, but we have to say stop, otherwise they will keep coming back for more money. Isn't this obvious by now?

If you had a family member that had a gambling problem or was an alkoholic, how long would you keep giving him/her your money? And if you found out that the person lost all that money, would you take out a second mortgage to help the person, knowing that he/she doeas not show any desire to help themselves?

This is exactly the same thing that GM is doing to the taxpayers, US and Canada do not ave any money, we mortgage ourselves out to China, so if anything, your piont of view appears to be narrow minded, as you don't see the damage being done to our future by these bailouts (I know GM is not alone in taking bailout money, but we discuss GM here).

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: DeeAgeaux
Originally Posted By: ViragoBry
GM (Chevy, specifically) has begun their 'low blow' approach to marketing. Anyone else seen the truck commercial where Howie makes fun of the Ford truck owner's tailgate step?

How very desperate. They're probably p*ssed that they didn't think of it first.


No, the Tailgate step is just retarded.

It is easy to make fun of that.


The tailgate step is definitely retarded, but it does seem like every recent GM commercial has an undertone of desperation.

 

[swalve]

Originally Posted By: Scdevon
GM's philosophy has always been to produce millions of lousy vehicles like popcorn hoping that enough of the vehicles would be "good enough" to keep the ponzi scheme going. (The ponzi scheme of drawing in enough new money with more new lousy vehicles to cover the cost of warranty repairs and recalls on older, lousy vehicles and to cover the consequences of a dwindling market share.)

This company is sinking slowly and painfully like the Titanic....... listing heavily........the bilge pumps losing ground hour by hour........


The scheme isn't to cover warranty repairs. It's to continue paying people who don't work there any more.

 

[swalve]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: rudolphna
GM is one of those companies that everybody loves to hate. Here is what I have seen here, other forums, and off the internet. Nobody thinks that GM can ever turn around. Basically, "once [censored] management always [censored] management*. Come on, give me a break. I'm sorry, but if your viewpoint is that, you have a very narrow view on life. Why don't you try to be optimistic and HOPE that GM does better, instead of saying they need to die so foreign branded makes can take over even more market share. Don't mean to sound rude, but complaining about it is NOT helping anything.


No stating that they (GM and the unions) have screwed themselves and took the devils money (the first 53 BILLION is just the start) is a FACT.

As some one who loves their trucks and have plenty of trouble free miles with a few of them I'll buy a used one next time I need a truck.

I'll NEVER buy a new one. PERIOD.

And like their sales is showing most people will not either.

Once they pulled their cry baby going to the devil and giving in to the Unions that did it for most Americans.

They will continue to get our BILLIONS due to pay backs for last November. And will contiune to go further and further in the hole.

They are done. If the taxpayers stopped giving them $$ then they would be gone. The new GM (with out the devil ownership) would bounce back and prob do well.

But I doubt we will see that.

Bill


Who exactly are you calling the devil?? You don't know what you are talking about. The bailouts have been in the works for at least a year, if not more. It's got nothing to do with "November".

If GM were to go through bankruptcy without government assistance, there would not be anything left. All their assets would be liquidated to the highest bidder and there'd be nothing left. Except for a giant unemployment insurance bill, unpaid taxes, bankrupt supply chains, etc. Good luck explaining that to all the workers who wouldn't have jobs under your plan.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: swalve
Who exactly are you calling the devil?? You don't know what you are talking about. The bailouts have been in the works for at least a year, if not more. It's got nothing to do with "November".

If GM were to go through bankruptcy without government assistance, there would not be anything left. All their assets would be liquidated to the highest bidder and there'd be nothing left. Except for a giant unemployment insurance bill, unpaid taxes, bankrupt supply chains, etc. Good luck explaining that to all the workers who wouldn't have jobs under your plan.


Talk about NOT knowing what you are talking about!

The devil is who bailed them out. All GM did is seal the fact that they are going down with their stunt.

Let's review what I said about November;

Quote:
They will continue to get our BILLIONS due to pay backs for last November. And will continue to go further and further in the hole.


Notice the word CONTINUE. That would be the next bail out. That would be for the payback which they paid for before November and after since we all know who is in "charge" of the purse (for the last few years) and putting us (as ALL OF US for the next few generations) so far in debt that AMERICA is in bad shape.

If you fail you FAIL. You do not continue bad business practices by giving them more money that YOU DON'T HAVE.

You LEARN from past errors and continue on. GM going bankrupt would have had them back as a stronger company without all their DUMB deals that they made decades ago.

Do you really think a 18 year old should work at GM for 20 years, retire at 38 and receive full benefits, a pension forever? There are people who have been retired a lot LONGER then 20 years and still have prob another 20 years to go AT LEAST. And they get raises and such. They are on retirement for a LOT LONGER than they ever worked for them.

Hello? Anyone got a clue?

All the workers who wanted a job would end up learning that they were overpaid and better get with it or learn a new trade. Time to pay the piper.

I'll never forget a show on TV where they were following a Explorer down the line. There was a guy who's job was to put on the mirrors and some other part. When the car came to him he put on one mirror and had some problems. He finally got it on (I think he had 8 minutes to put both on) but the other one was slammed on with out all the wires put on. He would run out of his "zone" and QC would fix it.

Sure they would. The Stealership would end up selling the car with the wire disconnected and fix it when the customer took time out of their day to get it repaired.

Nothing is positive what happened to GM. Hopefully America has learned something from the tragedy of bailing out the dead.

Bill

 

[PT1]

Originally Posted By: StevieC
Originally Posted By: KrisZ
GM Downsizes 100,000 Mile/5 Year Warranty

Yeah, that perception gap is really killing GM and is the only reason GM is suffering. I guess removing stuff from the warranty coverage will install confidence in GM, mean while more people will turn to Ford, Hyundai and Japanese manufacturers.

That company is Toast... Let it sink already.

Don't worry...they will do it fast enough on their own.