Impala article in NY Times

[Vstrom]

"So, with these $800.00 per engine cost savings, why is GM laying off an additional 30,000 employees" Why it would have been 40,000 if they used OHC Speaking of the Impala- the local county sheriff announced they are switching to them from Crown Vic to save money. The next day the next county over stated publicly the Impala costs them way more to run than the Crown Vic and they don't want anymore of them, too many problems!

 

[brianl703]

The local police have purchased a few Impalas. (About 10 years ago they were running Tauruses! Then dumped them all in favor of Crown Vics).

 

[LarryL]

The problem is that world wide the auto industry is boombing. The growth last year was 6.3% which, by industry rag reports equals over 100 thousand new jobs. I do software for a company that does business with auto manufacturers. Because of the way GM purchasing treated them, they will never do business with GM again. They already have cut off Ford and D/Chrysler. They now do business with Toyota, Honda and Korea. They get well defined jobs and get paid right on time, every time. And example of GM's way of doing business. They gave away engineering information to other companies to shop the price, information covered under an NDA. It was so blatiant that another supplier called and said what the heck is going on, and refuesed to quote the work. GM's morals and relationships are going to take them into the toilet where they belong. If they go bankrupt, I'll buy a round of drinks at the wake. If GM, Ford and D/Chrysler can't survive in a boombing world market then they need to look in the mirror to find out who is sinking the ship.

 

[PandaBear]

What's so difficult for GM to be broken up like ATT and being absorbed by their vendors, competitors, and customers? Why do they have to stay in one piece? Pride maybe? The way to fix a dino is to chop it up and make it "efficient". If those divisions are not profitable on their own, they have no business staying alive. Sell Saab to Ford or VW, sell Delphi to Denso or Showa, sell the dealer's network to whoever wanting to bid it, sell GMAC to a bank or institute, sell their plants (assets only, not the entire company, to avoid union contracts) to Toyota/Honda/Nissan/Hyundai like the way they sell NUMMI. Problem solved, plain and simple.

 

[bkrell]

quote:

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Sell Saab to Ford or VW

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No thank you and no thank you! Ford already owns Volvo so I don't think they'd even WANT Saab. AS for VW, they do their own thing. That's why the Porsche rumor is so appealing. They were looking for a way to extend their reach into more mass market sedans. As for camshafts, do you really think GM pays $250 for a camshaft? I think they could, uh, get so kinda volume discount. As for retirees, the closest parallel is the airline industry and what they are doing to their pilots and other employees. GM, I predict, will get patriotic popular support behind it and try and get contracts invalidated.

 

[Idoxash]

GM lost my busy when they stoped making lite-trucks (s10 ect) and replace it with that mid size thing that takes up way to much room, lol. ol well ~~~ always gotta kill a good thing ... at least i thot the s10 was a good thing for all these years. --Idoxash--

 

[labman]

Good point. Supose I won the lottery and was ready to replace my 1977 LUV. What is out there meant to be used as a light truck?

 

[Idoxash]

I'm sure there other auto makers that produce a lite-truck ... I know Toyota makes a small truck that's about the size of an s-10. Don't know to much about it ~ which I need to research since I'm ready to replace my s-10 and want another lite-truck. Since GM can't fill that spot for me any longer another company will. --Idoxash-- PS) From what I hear of ppl I work around and such that's why they dun buy GM, they make nothing they care to drive.

 

[LarryL]

AT&T joined with SBC. It's a done deal and the AT&T motto, now, is "We're back". GM is doing everything right. The executives get their pay raises and the year end bonus plan is in effect. Many top level execs are getting six figure rewards which, acording to their contracts is business as usual. The layoff of 30,000 employees will actually improve the balance sheet that measures executive performance and produce higher bonus levels. To the executives, the fact that they make cars if of no concern. Why would the top execs divide up their empire. That's crazy. Would you let someone talk you into a pay cut? I don't think so. They have to keep their position to the end. That's were they get their golden parachute. After that, who cares. As long as GM is run by self important executives there will be no change. And you may be right, their only chance is to fail.

 

[pastmaster]

I know this isn't news to anyone but, GM is in business to make a profit. To do this, GM must build vehicles that the customer wants to buy; at reasonable cost and reliability. To do this, GM cannot do this in the USA, today, for many of the aformentioned statements by the other BITOGers, and it's present Corporate structure. I don't think GM will be as we know it today, and what it does to survive should be of paramount interest to all of us, because of it's Tsunami effect on the USA and Global Economies. I have several notions on this but, have no direct effect except buying a GM product. Lots to discuss here!

 

[brianl703]

quote:

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As for camshafts, do you really think GM pays $250 for a camshaft? I think they could, uh, get so kinda volume discount.

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Volume discount or not, camshafts are an expensive component. Unless your idea of volume discount is that if you buy enough of them they become free...

 

[glennc]

There are economies of scale in anything. I read once that a typical GM price for a shock absorber is $1 - $2, and that the Euros were paying $3 - $5, explaining the superiority at the time of Euro-car suspension componentry. I'd be the price GM pays for a camshaft that it ain't anywhere near $250 unless you're doing some tricky accounting, like amortizing the entire cost of a new plant across one year's supply of cams or something. - Glenn

 

[brianl703]

Hmm, I wonder what GM pays for an oil filter. Must be 10 cents, if they pay $1-$2 for a shock absorber.

 

[bkrell]

brian, I don't know what business you are in but you must realize the price you see on the shelf is reeeeally inflated compared to the cost of production. Plus, since GM sets up it's own suppliers, it's not like there's a middleman. It's funny how every other car company in the world is able to turn a profit on all those OHC engines.

 

[brianl703]

It depends on the product being sold. Years ago I worked for a small computer store. The margins for computer hardware are slim (10-20%) due to the competitive nature of that market. The ex-locksmith office manager convinced the boss that because he was able to sell lock hardware at 50% markup, it should work for computer hardware. It didn't. They folded a year later.

 

[bkrell]

If GM has thin margins, which it does, it doesn't help to produce a product considered second rate. Last I heard, GM made between $2-500 profit on average per vehicle whereas Honda made about $1500. If the cars were of higher PERCEIVED quality and included all the bits everyone wants, including DOHC, perhaps they wouldn't have to discount w/ rebates and incentives and make a higher margin. Its the same issue w/ Saab. For years now they've made practically nothing but 4 cyl front wheel drive cars. They've had to start using sixes though b/c people think that's what a luxo car should have at a minimum. Same w/ awd, which they've just barely and unsucessfully brought to the table w/ the 9-2x Saabaru. If they'd put that money into awd for the 9-3 from the start, they maybe would be in a different position. Same w/ the 9-3 v-6 Aero. Another marque that GM is missing an opportunity w/ is Saturn. When Saturn first came out, it was viewed as a sort of progressive car. However, all GM ever advertised was no haggle pricing and dent resistant panels. If they could have perhaps refined their engines for more fuel economy and done other things to paint Saturn as green, they could have parlayed Saturn's granola cred into sales.Saturn could have been GM's Prius.

 

[LarryL]

The Saturn was a corporate clean sheet of paper corporation. The plastic fendered car sounded like three bolts in a beer can. There was nothing special about the car, not the look, not the mechanicals, nothing but the no hassle price. If that is the best of GM, then as Don Meredith used to sing, when the score got out of hand on Monday night, "Turn out the lights, the part's over".

 

[Ray H]

Hmmm... If GM tanks, might the worker ants take over and pull a "Harley-Davidson" Phoenix from the ashes?

 

[SaturnIonVue]

I've been wondering for more than 30 years how long the Big 3 could/would continue to market cars to the country with employees costing 5 to 10 times the national minimum wage and benefit scale, and their executives pulling down saleries and bonus options in the millions of dollar range. All the while produceing cars that wher/are, by world standards, less than stellar. Who buys their cars, as new or used? Often it is the very people who earn so much less than those who build them! In an automobile based economy, I've never been able to figure out how long the system could work. The Big 3 has for years been mismanaged at the executive level, in the stock market, and in the union halls, all of which has been a drag on profit and loss while international competition has kept the pressure on. Chysler has been, is, or was a symptom of disease in the American automotive market place, even more so than the failure of, for example, Kaiser, Nash and American Motors; companies that died competing with each other and the Big 3. Now the Big 3, or Big 2 are at risk of the same fate from international competition and companies that do not have to deal in the same ways with their governments, unions and executive suites. Some decades ago, a GM executive said that: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country!" If that has been the case and GM fails, what then? It sure makes me wonder.

 

[bulwnkl]

Does no one think that ending the $1-$5000 (or is the top end higher?) kickback to GMAC on every single car they sell to them would help profitability?