"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
...

You've obviously never actually run a company of any size. You cannot
"run a business like a business" when every do-gooder, union wart,
anti-Capitalist, earth hugger, and various other societal bottom feeders
are demanding you do things their way even if it is irrational or,
possibly
even (in the case of the UAW), insane. The Big Three are not free to run
their business to the satisfaction of their shareholders. They have
a culture full of science dropouts and closet Marxists in their face
on a regular basis telling them what to do.

You obviousely are out of the loop. I have only run 2 companies. Both
made/make a very nice return on investment, bottom line. I mave managed
numerous departments in several companies.



It also has very little to do with the
quality of their cars or whether people like their products.

And that is BS also. Having made my living selling GM products and
retired
at 40 I can assure you that the quality of the competition blows away the
Big 3 quality.

And I can tell your from immediate and recent experience that you're
dead wrong - at least for trucks. We have owned many Japanese products
in my household as well as a number of GM, I am in pretty good
position to have seen the span of quality. What you say was true 20
years ago, it's not any more. My 2008 Chev Tahoe is easily the better
of my previously owned Nissan Pathfinder. This Tahoe replaces a 1995
model that gave me 138000 miles of happy trails with only two major
mechanical malfunctions.

I drove a 97 Chev PU for 10 years, traded last year. I had great incentive
to purchase GMC or Chevrolet. My son worked for the Chevrolet dealer until
the dealership folded 2 months ago. Not a problem, he has 2 other jobs. I
had deep employee priceing incentives + hundreds of dollare crdits through
the GM CCard program. I test drove a GMC and Checy PU last summer. They
really were no more comfortable or felt any better while driving than amy
older truck. The GMC dealer even offered to sell me a GMC PU with power
doore windows. etc, V8, take my 97 Chev in trade, "sight unseen" for a drive
out price of $18K, inc TTL. We test drove 6 different GMC trucks moving up
in trim levels each time trying to find one that was comfortable to sit in
and to find one that did not have a back door that moved while on the
freeway. You could literally see the door rack inside the opening while the
vehicle was going down the freeway. I walked away discusted and decided not
to buy a new truck.
Then we honored our appointment with the Toyota dealer and drove the Tundra.
At the time I did not like the looks of the new Tundra but all it took was 1
test drive. I gladly paid $6k more for the New Tundra over the similarily
equipped GMC. Since I have had it, 18 months, it has been in for warranty
work 1 time for a break light switch. No other warranty work needed.
My neighbor has a 3 year old Yukon, a totally different animal. Its drive
quality is totally different from that of a Pickup.



Cars are another matter. No one in Detroit seems to know how to
build a car worth a crap until you get into the luxury segment, and
even there, they're not incredible. Honda consistently builds
outstanding cars and if I wanted a car, that's what I'd buy.

Yeah, I own an Accord too.

Toyota is overrated and is starting to look like GM 20 years ago
with their maintenance problems and poor customer service.


That is a dealer problem, Have worked as a manager at all the positions in
an Oldsmobile dealership, I know what to look out for. My Toyota dealer is
better than most any dealership I have purchased from. Service is great and
that is not only focusing on the repair work. I am treated like I own the
place.



Nissan
has been fine, if a little disconnected in their customer support.
(The new 2008 Tahoe would have been a 2008 Pathfinder if the dealer
had ever called me back as he promised.)

Nissan is getting ready to have Dodge build their Titan, the Titan is
plagued with problems.


But again, I don't think this is the major problem with the Big Three
money issues. They just can't afford to be competitive, invest in
new technology, reengineer their cars regularly, and so on when
they're paying layed off workers full salary and benefits for
life (not an exaggeration).

Totally agree however it has been management that got them in this
situation. They operate like our government does. It's the what's in it
form me right now attitude.



In actual
fact, Detroit has never built better, more reliable cars that today
are easily on par with the best of Japan or Europe.

Partially true, they have never built better, a few of their vehicles are
on
par but as a whole, still way behind.

As I said, they build the best trucks in the world, and most of their cars
are uninspiring. How they can manage to get the fit and finish right on
a light truck, but not a Malibu is just beyond me.

I wuld say they probably did build good trucks but the Tundra has been
gaining momentum for several years now and for the first time I did not buy
a GM truck.