Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Very different than the way Ford/GM/Chrysler are run (and subsequently treated). But again, different culture.
Forgotten the Ford Pinto have you - and how the execs knew all about the safety defect with the fuel tank location even as the cars were going boom in rear-end accidents, then calculated the cost of the recall to fix them versus the possible losses in lawsuits, and arrived at the decision it was cheaper to leave them as they were, and did exactly that.
This was criminal on the part of the then executives at Ford, and even though the management has changed hands several times since, that example is enough to completely torpedo your "different culture" argument, and overturns the "couldn't happen with US companies" rhetoric completely, since that is one example and it long predates the UA issue.
My take (as a lifelong, import exclusive buyer and current Toyota owner) on the "kittens and rainbows" stuff: there is a kernel of truth to that, but to understand why people are "blindly loyal to Toyota etc" (as one poster put it), there is no blindness involved. To the contrary - or is everyone's memory so short they all forget how the arrival on North American shores of cheaper, but still well built, imports was greeted by the US automakers?
Initially with disdain and indifference as the arrogant management of the times assumed that having had their monopoly on the NA auto market for so long, they were somehow entitled to it in perpetuity, with imports being dismissed completely as no threat to their hold on the market in NA.
Then when it turned out they got that wrong, as people bought imports in increasing numbers in preference to what Detroit was turning out, what did they do? Did they step down from their lofty perches to try and understand what was happening, so they could return the "import traitors" back to the fold? Nope, not at all. Instead they took their arrogance to the airwaves with commercials having Orwell-like tones, attacking imports as a "foreign invasion," a threat to US jobs, and more or less accusing buyers of them as being traitors to the country.
Well done Detroit: that smear campaign not only did nothing to turn the tide of people flocking to imports, it also alienated many of them completely from ever looking back.
To say nothing of the "cheap import" tag they also laid with, not in a less expensive alternative sense, but in the derogatory (and increasingly totally false) inferior quality sense. That may have scared a few people away, but still market share continued to be lost as they continued to sell in increasing numbers.
Finally, they eventually addressed it head on by introducing their own smaller, less expensive product to compete directly. Too bad they'd apparently drank the same Kool-aid they'd tried unsuccessfully with the "cheap" campaign, and what they put out to compete just reeked of it. It appeared to be little more than a bone to toss those who wanted what the less expensive imports were offering, but were still on the fence because of the propaganda Detroit had spent years (and millions of bucks) filling the airwaves with.
Whereas the imports were *the* premier models coming out of Japan, and the product reflected that, the Big 3 offered the consumer as an alternative something that seemed to ooze resentment at its own existence. The automakers made little secret of the fact that these were not the cars *they* wanted to build - and forgetting in the process, and thereby sowing the seeds for the hard times to come, that they had their role reversed: there's was not to push on the public what they wanted to make, but to try and understand what it was the public really wanted and match that preference to the best of their ability.
The rest truly is history; but one would do better in understanding the mindset of the import buyer (particularly if they're going to make sweeping generalizations about them and imply they are mindless sheep and the like) if they took into account that chapter of history.
FWIW I grew up during the transition period so I was just old enough to recall (with fondness) the muscle car heyday, but too young to experience it; old enough to see the energy crisis of the 1970s in real time and how OPEC was able to nearly bring our economies to its knees overnight (and the huge gas lineups that accompanied it), but not yet old enough to drive yet.
And my first car (which was a hand me down) was also my first and only American car, and it just happened to be one of the cheap alternatives Detroit was building at the time (1984 model whose manufacturer I'll spare naming), and which oozed the cheapness and how much of an afterthought its design and construction was to its manufacturer. It had some miles on it when I acquired it (about 100k of them), but not enough to justify the many trips to and from the dealer for warranty service during the period it spent under warranty (before I got it, but being a hand me down I was well acquainted with its history), the 3rd engine it was on, the way it wheezed anytime it approached the mildest grade (and forget making highway speed if the highway was uphill), and constant timing adjustments to keep it from stalling whenever it stopped at a light or stop sign.
My eyes were really opened when the 5 year older VW Rabbit I replaced it with (and which had at least double the mileage already when I bought it) still ran like a top, needed nothing other than a fan belt, water pump, and battery over the two years I owned it, and was an all around hassle free - and fun to drive - car that also had some personality and class (which the 1984 domestic was completely devoid of in both areas from the day my parents bought it new).
So even though I can't speak for every import owner (most of which - unlike me - have probably bought many domestics and imports alike in their lifetimes), I can explain the reasoning behind the fact that every time I've shopped, domestic has become my own afterthought to be considered only if I can't find or afford the import(s) that have been my top picks when entering the used car market. So far, there have been enough of them out there to pick from that I've never made it to the afterthought stage.
And in fairness to domestics, it does seem true that today things are very different in both markets and its much harder to make brand generalizations than it used to be, and harder still to assume any given import is superior to its domestic counterpart. That said, its still very telling that the phrase "cheap import" is long gone from the lexicon, and that any discussion on import vs domestic begins by first recognizing that the US is finally catching up (or caught up) to the Japanese in terms of quality and reliability - and not the other way around.
-Spyder
Very different than the way Ford/GM/Chrysler are run (and subsequently treated). But again, different culture.
Forgotten the Ford Pinto have you - and how the execs knew all about the safety defect with the fuel tank location even as the cars were going boom in rear-end accidents, then calculated the cost of the recall to fix them versus the possible losses in lawsuits, and arrived at the decision it was cheaper to leave them as they were, and did exactly that.
This was criminal on the part of the then executives at Ford, and even though the management has changed hands several times since, that example is enough to completely torpedo your "different culture" argument, and overturns the "couldn't happen with US companies" rhetoric completely, since that is one example and it long predates the UA issue.
My take (as a lifelong, import exclusive buyer and current Toyota owner) on the "kittens and rainbows" stuff: there is a kernel of truth to that, but to understand why people are "blindly loyal to Toyota etc" (as one poster put it), there is no blindness involved. To the contrary - or is everyone's memory so short they all forget how the arrival on North American shores of cheaper, but still well built, imports was greeted by the US automakers?
Initially with disdain and indifference as the arrogant management of the times assumed that having had their monopoly on the NA auto market for so long, they were somehow entitled to it in perpetuity, with imports being dismissed completely as no threat to their hold on the market in NA.
Then when it turned out they got that wrong, as people bought imports in increasing numbers in preference to what Detroit was turning out, what did they do? Did they step down from their lofty perches to try and understand what was happening, so they could return the "import traitors" back to the fold? Nope, not at all. Instead they took their arrogance to the airwaves with commercials having Orwell-like tones, attacking imports as a "foreign invasion," a threat to US jobs, and more or less accusing buyers of them as being traitors to the country.
Well done Detroit: that smear campaign not only did nothing to turn the tide of people flocking to imports, it also alienated many of them completely from ever looking back.
To say nothing of the "cheap import" tag they also laid with, not in a less expensive alternative sense, but in the derogatory (and increasingly totally false) inferior quality sense. That may have scared a few people away, but still market share continued to be lost as they continued to sell in increasing numbers.
Finally, they eventually addressed it head on by introducing their own smaller, less expensive product to compete directly. Too bad they'd apparently drank the same Kool-aid they'd tried unsuccessfully with the "cheap" campaign, and what they put out to compete just reeked of it. It appeared to be little more than a bone to toss those who wanted what the less expensive imports were offering, but were still on the fence because of the propaganda Detroit had spent years (and millions of bucks) filling the airwaves with.
Whereas the imports were *the* premier models coming out of Japan, and the product reflected that, the Big 3 offered the consumer as an alternative something that seemed to ooze resentment at its own existence. The automakers made little secret of the fact that these were not the cars *they* wanted to build - and forgetting in the process, and thereby sowing the seeds for the hard times to come, that they had their role reversed: there's was not to push on the public what they wanted to make, but to try and understand what it was the public really wanted and match that preference to the best of their ability.
The rest truly is history; but one would do better in understanding the mindset of the import buyer (particularly if they're going to make sweeping generalizations about them and imply they are mindless sheep and the like) if they took into account that chapter of history.
FWIW I grew up during the transition period so I was just old enough to recall (with fondness) the muscle car heyday, but too young to experience it; old enough to see the energy crisis of the 1970s in real time and how OPEC was able to nearly bring our economies to its knees overnight (and the huge gas lineups that accompanied it), but not yet old enough to drive yet.
And my first car (which was a hand me down) was also my first and only American car, and it just happened to be one of the cheap alternatives Detroit was building at the time (1984 model whose manufacturer I'll spare naming), and which oozed the cheapness and how much of an afterthought its design and construction was to its manufacturer. It had some miles on it when I acquired it (about 100k of them), but not enough to justify the many trips to and from the dealer for warranty service during the period it spent under warranty (before I got it, but being a hand me down I was well acquainted with its history), the 3rd engine it was on, the way it wheezed anytime it approached the mildest grade (and forget making highway speed if the highway was uphill), and constant timing adjustments to keep it from stalling whenever it stopped at a light or stop sign.
My eyes were really opened when the 5 year older VW Rabbit I replaced it with (and which had at least double the mileage already when I bought it) still ran like a top, needed nothing other than a fan belt, water pump, and battery over the two years I owned it, and was an all around hassle free - and fun to drive - car that also had some personality and class (which the 1984 domestic was completely devoid of in both areas from the day my parents bought it new).
So even though I can't speak for every import owner (most of which - unlike me - have probably bought many domestics and imports alike in their lifetimes), I can explain the reasoning behind the fact that every time I've shopped, domestic has become my own afterthought to be considered only if I can't find or afford the import(s) that have been my top picks when entering the used car market. So far, there have been enough of them out there to pick from that I've never made it to the afterthought stage.
And in fairness to domestics, it does seem true that today things are very different in both markets and its much harder to make brand generalizations than it used to be, and harder still to assume any given import is superior to its domestic counterpart. That said, its still very telling that the phrase "cheap import" is long gone from the lexicon, and that any discussion on import vs domestic begins by first recognizing that the US is finally catching up (or caught up) to the Japanese in terms of quality and reliability - and not the other way around.
-Spyder
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