"DGDevin" wrote

When a company gets into trouble the first place to look for an
explanation is management. If the union is to blame, then why didn't Ford
(which signs contracts with the same union as GM and Chrysler) get into
the same trouble, or if you prefer, why did Ford do so much better than
the other Detroit auto makers? Unions can certainly be *part* of the
problem, but management is at the head of the list.

Everyone is to blame. The company made cars good enough to last the payment
book so they could sell you another. The union was more interested in money
and benefits than doing a good job. If the workers had good ideas, managers
ignored them Rather than have a strike, they gave to unions good money and
raised the price of the car and the customers kept buying . The consumer
would bitch a little about the old car, but buy the new model the day it hit
the showroom.

I'm sure many of you here remember the big reveal of the new models. People
would be lined up at showrooms to see them. Wow, look at those fins, look at
all the chrome!

I recall my father buying a couple of Chevy's and taking them back to the
dealer with a list of 20 or more items to be fixed. Paint blemishes, poor
fit body, leaks, mechanical items that did not work. etc. The dealer fixes
half of them so you had to go back again. Of the last 5 cars I bought, one
had two defects, two had one defect, the last two had zero defects. All US
built but not all US owned.

I have a 2010 Dark Cherry red Hyundai Sonata Limited. The paint is
flawless metallic, the body panels are a perfect fit, every seam exact. It
is better paint than any car I've ever owned, including a couple of luxury
cars. So far, 31,000 perfect miles.

Sure, I loved the style of some of the 50s cars, especially the 58 Impala,
but mechanically, today they are far superior.