Please, enlighten us. Include the appropriate links of course.

 

That is a bunch of horse hockey. Reading there report on the 2006 Covette is enough to prove that wrong. Lets review the highlights.

"highs"...uses regular fuel. - Wrong uses 92 octane.

"lows"...need to put into reverse to shut off and exit - Wrong, that was a 2005 feature. Problem fix in the 2006 model year.

"A six speed manual transmission is standard; a four speed automatic is an option." - Wrong it is a 6 speed automatic is the option.

Don't look like they have even seen the car much less driven it. They didn't even bother to look at GM's own web site to get acurate data. Sorry the rag has lost its purpose as far as cars are concerned IMO. If it can't get little facts correct that take all of 5 minutes to check they need to find another line of work.

 

http://www.jaef.or.jp/

Knock your lights out if you can read japanese. My only point is that many industries hide behind foundations to do their dirty work. I hope you don't believe that they are just nice people funding things for the good of mankind. They have an agenda. Foundations are tax-free means of funding their agendas.

 

Don't get your britches in such a wad. I simply repeated what they post on their web site.

Here, go and read

Consumer reports...

 

Yes there are industries that do as you claim. However, to this point you have offered no evidence, just speculation, that this is what CR is all about. If you can post something of substance, I'll debate it. Facts interest me; opinions don't.

 

A fact would be a list of organizations that donate to CR-haven't seen it, never will. It's up to CR to publish the list, not me. It's called full disclosure.

 

ANd you believe everything you read I suppose?

 

Okst1 makes a good point that I continue to overlook. We really do not know what the Texas Toyota truck plant will look like. Will they hire employees or contractors? I suspect that someone with knowledge about the structure of other Toyota plants could enlighten us. But for the sake of this discussion, let us set that plant aside- too many of the type of unknowns that clog forums with unknown bs.

Instead, let us consider the hundreds-of-thousands of vehicles produced by American labor in plants across the nation- plants owned by Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and Nissan. Okst1 brings up a valid concern about the quality of the wages paid at these new plants and labor statistics add validity to his concern. These new jobs are not the cradle to grave security once known to UAW members at GM and Ford. Unfortunately, no one is adding those jobs anymore. Therefore, the question in my mind is: Who is investing in US factories and hiring Americans? The answer to that question, these days, is largely the same firms that are successfully increasing their global market share. Some people have suggested that these firms are not hiring Americans to work in American plants.

While I can not speak for Okst1, I am sure that others who share his concern have solid American values and would in no way discriminate against someone due to race. Therefore the fact that many of these new jobs are being held by a new generation of American immigrants willing to work for the wages offered is just as legitimate as it was two generations ago for my German ancestors to take entry level jobs during the industrial era. It is highly unlikely that an industrial giant like Toyota is going to get away with filling a large factory with undocumented workers.

The only question then is how do we make sure the manufactures do not create external costs like health care that we all end up carrying instead of tying those costs to the cost of manufacture. There is a solution to that but I’ll save it for a different forum: Big350 will hammer me. But the problems of cost externalities very real and the longer we push health care costs onto individuals who can not afford it the greater the ultimate costs and the higher our costs of production.

Now tmyers has a C6 Corvette and I do not. This means that I am jealous as hell but not necessarily a fool. If you want to evaluate a C6, one would be better served by looking to people with expertise in 500 hp. cars rather than to a publication that is good at rating consumer goods like washers, dryers and toasters. To rely on Consumer Reports for an evaluation of such an extraordinary piece of equipment would be like asking the editors of Road and Track which blender was the best value. There are more important criteria for evaluating sports cars (500+ horsepower sports cars!!) than ride quality and reliability. And I am sure that the editors of consumer reports would agree that they lack the skills and expirence required to push a C6 up against its limits- an opportunity I deply envy and hope tmyers does at every opportunity.

But I respectfully submit to all who cry fowl at Consumer Reports that for the average family making their second largest purchase (after their home) the three things that rank up near the top of their new car concerns are; reliability, safety, and cost of ownership. I believe that an independant source is an important part of the information matrix used in making these evaluations (Yes, we can argue about how independent- but it is really only a question of degrees. We can expect them to be more independent than say, GM in evaluation their own cars and less of a booster club than my favorite enthusist magazines. And, the CR safety tests seem to have a history of being more relevant than some US gov’t tests.)

Now we all cry in our beer when Consumer Reports concludes that any given “Import” receives a better evaluation than our beloved Ford motor product but I think rational minds should pause to consider three things: 1) Do you really believe that even though you like ford trucks that FoMoCo makes the most reliable everything? 2) If consumer reports collects statistical reports of things like “visits to dealer per hundred cars” or “warrenty claims per hundred” it does not matter who subscribes to their magazine. It matters only that in the given sample, some fare worse than others. 3) It does not matter who pays your light bill if you are simply compiling and reporting the number of recalls per model. Hey, I don’t like the fact that the 6.0 had issues- but facts are facts and just as consumer reports publishes notice of bad Honda airbags, they are going to publish things like bad Ford ignitions. And I suspect that we are all better off for it. I would rather know than stick my head in sand and wave the flag.

Why would you guys have such a hard time with that? I have had trucks that were better and worse in given areas than others. In this circumstance, in every consumer survey you care to cite, Toyota and Nissan fare better other brands in terms of reliability. Deal with it. Am I going to buy another Ford? Yes. Would I like to know if my 6.0 had bee nrecalled and has cronic problems with spontainous combustion while parked? Hell yes.

Does this mean that I would rather drive a Camry than a C6 or a Tundra instead of a F-450 C &C? Are you frickin’ kidding? But this does mean that if I were a cash strapped and looking for something efficient and reliable to safely transport my family, I would take things like the Consumer Reports crash testing and reliability statistics into consideration. Perhaps you who are upset would rather rely upon the Ford brocure or the US government for your safety data… Or we could give the car to brocoIInoob to crash test.

-Mike

 

Continued-

Fordsflylow makes an excellent point about the fairness of the global economy. For example, if I manufacture cars in the US, I must comply with US environmental, labor and safety (among other) regulations. But in largely unregulated states like Mexico, my manufacturing costs are lower not only because wages are low, but because my regulatory costs are lower. You are right, it is unfair to US workers / manufactures.

But there are only three responses to that problem. 1) Do nothing. (Which is where we are) 2) Deregulate everything so it is cheap to manufacture here. The current administration (an no doubt okst1) like this approach. We have deregulated clean air standards and waived environmental review in order to lower the costs of coal-fired electricity generators. Problem is that if you are 100% successful in this approach, you end up with a nation that looks more like Mexico City and less like the US. There is a reason the air in our cities is cleaner than the air in Mexico City. And there is a reason that our rivers are getting cleaner while those in the developing world are getting dirtier. To succeed at this approach is to win the race to the bottom. 3). The Third approach is one I like but its not very popular with the global free trade crowd. In this approach you level the playing field for those manufactures who are located in the US by taxing goods from nations that do not comply with US environmental and safety goods. For example, if Daimler saves $1500 per truck by manufacturing in Mexico rather than in the US, then Daimler must pay that $1500 before they can sell that truck here- thus protecting manufactures who chose to stay in the US and support our economy. Suddenly, that Mexican made cheap Dodge costs $1500 more because it was made in a place with no labor, environmental, health or safety protections while the US truck manufacture had to absorb all of those costs. You level the field.

Great idea? Well hold on. While the US manufacturer and the US worker win under option #3, the US consumer (in the short term) loses. They lose because my neighbor’s Dodge truck just got $1500 more expensive and that is $1500 that he can not spend at Wall Mart or at the Jet Ski dealer. Therefore, his quality of life is diminished by this option. Second, the cost of those trucks made here (think: Ford SD) are less inclined to go down because there is a tax on the competition. Why should Ford offer discounts when the competitors’ foreign-made trucks just got more expensive? That means that our trucks cost more.

I might argue that in the global picture, we are all better off with clean factories and workers who can afford to cloth and educate their children. And therefore we ought to protect American workers by leveling the field. But the current accepted economic theory says that the best way to help everyone is by supplying the cheapest goods possible.

So- If Daimler can make a cheaper product somewhere else and make a profit while Ford loses money, fires workers and goes out of business, the current economic trend says that is ok- the Ford worker should be picking up service industry job in this great economy.

Which brings me to my last point. Okst1 posted: “… underhanded political slap ...” My comment about the duration of the new deficit was neither underhanded nor political. The deficit exists and has grown with the size of government under the Bush administration. The deficit did not exist before he came to office. Hard fact. Neither underhanded nor political.

The deficit will take time to pay down – longer now that more of the burden has been shifted away from the upper class and onto the middle class. That deficit will consume a significant part of the available global capital restricting both our freedom to negotiate foreign policy with nations who finance our debt (like Korea and China) and INCREASE the cost of capital in this country. This means that eventually it will cost you and me more to finance a new truck and it will cost Ford more to borrow money for that new plant. While those costs go us, our competivness goes down.

Now I do not care who votes for whom, but facts are facts. The deficit is here, it wasn't here in 1999, and it will eventually harm both US consumers who need to borrow and US manufactures who want to build. The cost of capital combined with health care costs will continue to strap companies that are floundering, such as Ford and GM, and it will help companies with excellent cash flow, like Toyota and Nissan, continue to gain market share with new models produced in new more-flexible factories with newly trained low-wage workers.

I know we are to avoid political debates and I have no desire to enter one other than to point to things we can all agree on- US manufacturing is in a bad spot. If we wish to turn that around I believe we should focus less upon publications like Consumer Reports that relay statistical information and convey normative positions like “seat comfort” and pay more attention to how the policies of our government either help or hurt the very people and companies we care about and wish to support.

Last, on Bias: Perception lags reality. I suspect that while “imported” cars once held the higher ground on reliability and quality control, much of that gap has been erased. But much of the buying public’s opinion today was formed during a time when things were not so rosy for domestic cars. (Remember your early 80’s F-350 with IFS and a tinfoil bed? How about that Granada? What about the 351 & 400M's? Could those heads be any hotter?) Perhaps that is why we see what some perceive to be a disconnect between the quality of the current generation of US cars and the lack of recognition they deserve. And I think that regardless of the question of quality, Ford and GM are doing more to stand behind their product than every before. In some part I think that publications like Consumer Reports deserve credit for that because even though they don’t know much about 500 horsepower C6s, they do publicize product failures and recalls. And I think we all benefit from that daylight.

As for broncoIInoob: I have no idea how to respond to “If the owner is German and lives in Germany, then it is a German car.” That is the point. The owners of these corporations are not one nationality and do not live in one country. Two of the largest GM shareholders (“owners” if you like) are Europeans. Ford is owned by investors located all over the globe. It is becoming very difficult to peg any multi-national automotive corporation with a single national identity. And if you think Bill Ford is going to choose between helping you and yours over the opportunity to increase global market share, you (like the majority of the middle class) are probably voting against your own self interest.

I respectfully submit that we should all welcome more information rather than getting all bent out of shape each time a particular source does not endorse our own biases, assumptions and preferences. It is a free country. If you disagree someone or something, you do not have to support them.

-Mike

 

Ok,

I heard low wages and bad benefits mentioned. Actually the Toyota plant in Nasvhille that I know of pays well, (less than other regions of the country, but the cost of living is less), they have health benefits, and a pension plan. Sounds like everything the UAW members enjoy to me. They do hire younger workers, not foregin people who expect less. Their demographics are probably similar to other plants in the area, just not older union members.

I can't speak for BMW or some of the other companies mentioned, but I know Toyota treats their employees just as well as UAW members in Detroit, without the Union.

 

Absolutely not. I take the time to research an issue rather than forming an opinion without fact. (I'm not referring to your comments on the 'Vette.) I posted the information they give on their website regarding how CR develops their vehicle ratings and whether or not they accept advertising money.

Did you read the link I posted? They describe how the ratings are produced, which includes actual testing of the vehicle NOT just the reader survey. In another area of their website, they tell how they receive their "income". Too bad if the information that they have on their website doesn't fit with your preconceived ideas.

As I said in my reply to okst1 yesterday. I'm interested in facts, not opinions. If you have evidence that shows that CR is corrupt and takes payoffs from the Japanese auto manufacturers, (or other manufacturers), in return for giving more favorable reviews for the their vehicles, then I'm all ears. If it's just your opinion because you or someone else thinks that the domestic manufacturers are getting cheated, then I'm not interested.

 

Yes, that would be a fact if it could be proven. However, until you can prove it your argument is full of holes.

Full disclosure? Why is CR required to do this? Show me the statute that reads that Consumer Reports has the legal obligation to publish the names of individuals and organizations that donate to them. Have you tried contacting Consumer Reports and asking for a list of donations that they received? Who knows, they might be very forthcoming.

As I said in my earlier post: if you want to debate the facts, great. But if it's just your opinion, then I'm not interested.

 

mschultz, excellent post. My only issue with your political statement about the deficit is that you know as well as I do that the world has changed since 1999 and that there is no way we would have the current budget deficit if not for our security issues. I consider that underhanded.

farmtwuck, I'll stick with my opinion.

 

farmtwuck, yes I have read it and I was a member for many years. And I stand by what I said. When there is such a marked difference between J.D. Powers and CR I look for the reasons. Being a ex member I can tell you they weight there subsrcibers input at a very high level. If you look closely at some of there ratings they use past history to achive some of there ratings, i.e. crash ratings and reliability. This is for a new model. How can you score reliabilty on a new vehicle. Take a look at last years I think Car and Drive picks for large 4 door sedans. First the 300C followed by the Ford 500. CT always seems to be out in left field compared to the rest of the industry.


Concerning wages and benefits at Toyota, they are pretty good. Average wage in the US is $25, they have a medical plan, 401k and a defined pension plan. Starting this year they are changing the medical for life plan where new employees will not be eligable. The real difference here is Toyota only employees about 30K people here, have only been here for about 20 years and does not have many people on the retirement rolls. At GM and probably Ford there are 5 people retired for every person that works. It is this cost along with retired medical that is killing them.

 

That's exactly what I figured. Sticking to your opinion is much easier than challenging your opinion and finding out you might be wrong.