The End FOr GM Is NEAR........

[§treet_§peed]

my 96 civic had over 300k miles. i dogged the piss out of it for the most part everyday. never had any issues other than simple and basic maintenance. ran high 15's which is not bad for a ungutted 2 door civic with a d16y7, just ebay bolt ons. but anyways i got around 40-45 mpg. it would burn maybe a few drops of oil 2-3 months from constant high revs. but i mean hell what car wouldn't? either way you can't really beat most imports for reliability. yeah maybe not much power but enough for the road. i mean i only know of maybe a handful of people that drive their 10 second and below cars daily. IMO Ford, Chevy, etc. should of cleaned their act up years ago. time for them to learn from their mistakes. i don't think we should bail them out period. tuff shit let them taste fail. maybe next time they will do better.

[BanginJimmy]

my 96 civic had over 300k miles. i dogged the piss out of it for the most part everyday. never had any issues other than simple and basic maintenance. ran high 15's which is not bad for a ungutted 2 door civic with a d16y7, just ebay bolt ons. but anyways i got around 40-45 mpg. it would burn maybe a few drops of oil 2-3 months from constant high revs. but i mean hell what car wouldn't? either way you can't really beat most imports for reliability. yeah maybe not much power but enough for the road. i mean i only know of maybe a handful of people that drive their 10 second and below cars daily. IMO Ford, Chevy, etc. should of cleaned their act up years ago. time for them to learn from their mistakes. i don't think we should bail them out period. tuff shit let them taste fail. maybe next time they will do better.

There are always exceptions and I would imagine you take better care of your vehicles than the average american does also. My dad got nearly 900K miles out of his Ford E-350 that had the 351 in it. That was longer than I have ever heard of a non-deisel engine going. The only maintenance was regular maintenance and the only major repair was a second tranny at nearly 400K miles.

Now look at other cars. My sis had a 96 civic. It had 0 power from the factory and got good gas milage, but was dead after less than 120k miles. She wasnt religious about oil changes but she did keep good records and she never went more than 5k miles without an oil change. If I remember correctly she threw a rod and scored the cylinder wall pretty bad. The only way to fix it was to put a liner into the cylinder or replace the block.

My sis in law had a 04 Mazda 6. Less than 90k miles and the tranny was shot on it. Does doesnt drive crazy, but she does spend alot of time in traffic. They quoted her more than 3k to replace the tranny with a new one. She also had a brake issue and would go through a set of breaks in 30k miles.

[Glides]

I would put any non-4cyl car up against an import any day in quality. The GM 350 and Ford 351 are the 2 best engines ever made for power, reliability, and ease of maintenance.

I agree. American 350's are, hands down, one of the best engines ever made.

Those Jap imports were great for MPG and for longivity, but they have no power at all. If you babied them they lasted forever, but if you were pushing them on a daily basis they just didnt last.

This statement though, I cannot agree with. Engines are engines in the longevity department. You baby them, they last. You don't, they don't. V8's are no different from 4 bangers in that respect. I know just as many 4 banging imports that need rebuilds after beating them as I do V8s and the same with ones that don't.

Fast forward to this decade. There is no appreciable difference in quality between a GM vehicle over an import. IMO americans still cant make a 4cyl for shit and they make you shoose between power or reliablilty when they do. American trucks are still the best in the world though and Americans still build the best V8's in the world.

Can't agree with you here either. Germans have the quality leaps and bounds over American cars. The Japanese have taken refinement to incredible new levels. Americans have sadly, lacked behind. I would spend more for an Audi or a VW then I would for the Emerican equivelant any day of the week simply because most American cars feel cheap. They are just sadly, not solid cars.

Americans had too long clung to the all or nothing theory of car building. What that means is that you either had a Cadillac or a Corvette. If you owned a Cadillac, it rode like you were going to church every day of the week. The exact opposite for the Corvette. Only recently have they started to combine the 2. Germans have been doing it for years, so have the Japanese. The CTSV is a prime example of combinations. But it is considered a "Niche" market car. BMWs have been luxury and sport or many many years.

Ford has grasped this concept of car building, that is why it is popular in other areas of the world. Problem is, the cars that you can get in other areas of the world, Ford won't release here until recently. GM has finally started seeing the light, but it's too little too late.

Now, what you said about the Unions, I wholeheartedly agree with. Unions ar eMUCH harder to get out then people think. But if there is a time to do it, that time is now. Soaring unemployment rates combined with an Auto Workers strike will do nothing but bring hoards of unemployed to fill the positions that the strikers leave open. That will take care of workers end of it. The political end is much harder. The Unions lines pockets with cash in hella large amounts. Politicians are made and broken by the Union.

The Union was a great thing back in the beginning. Workers were being treated unfairly and something needed to be done. But this ain't the days of hard knuckled Hoffa style tactics. This is the new world, where there are laws that protect workers and the unions are simply not needed and are a dinosaur of corruption.

[preferredduck]

well it was announced today that GM cannot continue to operate by it's auditors, which basically means bankruptcy is going to happen sooner or sooner. it cannot be dodged at this point which will have a big effect on a lot of other business also. we have already seen many parts suppliers go under and there will be more to come, unless the gov't takes over and makes green cars there is no hope.

[preferredduck]

There are always exceptions and I would imagine you take better care of your vehicles than the average american does also. My dad got nearly 900K miles out of his Ford E-350 that had the 351 in it. That was longer than I have ever heard of a non-deisel engine going. The only maintenance was regular maintenance and the only major repair was a second tranny at nearly 400K miles.

Now look at other cars. My sis had a 96 civic. It had 0 power from the factory and got good gas milage, but was dead after less than 120k miles. She wasnt religious about oil changes but she did keep good records and she never went more than 5k miles without an oil change. If I remember correctly she threw a rod and scored the cylinder wall pretty bad. The only way to fix it was to put a liner into the cylinder or replace the block.

My sis in law had a 04 Mazda 6. Less than 90k miles and the tranny was shot on it. Does doesnt drive crazy, but she does spend alot of time in traffic. They quoted her more than 3k to replace the tranny with a new one. She also had a brake issue and would go through a set of breaks in 30k miles.

ok 5k miles for an oil change is a little too long if running conventional oil. i have had several honda's, the first was a high mileage 94 civic ex, i might have ran with no oil for over 1500 miles(because i was 16 and ignorant) ans still ran fine, never left me on the side of the road. my ex-wife drove my 00 si with no oil from fla to ga and it did not miss a beat or throw a rod(thankfully). and yes the d-series 96-00 engines have a weakness and a lot of them throw rods for some reason or another. as far as mazda goes it is owned by ford motor company, so it is a ford really. going through brakes real fast sounds like most people(women) i see driving today. waiting to get to the stop sign and slamming them down etc. so brakes would be a driving habit more times than a brake problem. btw there is a gm non diesel truck that went over a million miles, the guy was given a new truck for advertising etc. and as for the german cars, they are good but the vw jetta sucked. several people i know(including me) had to have an $8,000 transmission replacememnt at 100k miles, and the electrical systems were always fritzing. my brother has a silverado truck, an 02 which has had 2 transmissions put in it thus far and he babies and maintains every car he owns.

[BanginJimmy]

Now, what you said about the Unions, I wholeheartedly agree with. Unions ar eMUCH harder to get out then people think. But if there is a time to do it, that time is now. Soaring unemployment rates combined with an Auto Workers strike will do nothing but bring hoards of unemployed to fill the positions that the strikers leave open. That will take care of workers end of it. The political end is much harder. The Unions lines pockets with cash in hella large amounts. Politicians are made and broken by the Union.

The Union was a great thing back in the beginning. Workers were being treated unfairly and something needed to be done. But this ain't the days of hard knuckled Hoffa style tactics. This is the new world, where there are laws that protect workers and the unions are simply not needed and are a dinosaur of corruption.

Cant argue with anything else you have said and I will agree with you about the Germans. They make one hell of a car over there.


We also agree on the unions. I'm not so much worried about having the actual workers because there will be plenty of people willing to work for GM. The problem is politics. Politicians can have a HUGE impact on the ability of a major corporation like GM to operate. If they want to expand they need political support for any number of reasons. Can GM operate without political support, yes, but I cannot see the unions giving up that easily. Remember, there are a few hundred people that are employed by the unions and they have a huge amount of power in Washington.

Unions have indeed outlived their origional purpose. They are no longer protecting anyone, they are strongarming business into paying outragous amounts for what basicly amounts to menial labor. They are also making it impossible for a business to compete globally and are forcing some to close their doors. I have been seeing these commercials trying to get new industry into Michigan, but if anyone is smart they will stay as far from there as possible. The union mindset is extremely strong there and they will quickly organize.

[preferredduck]

btw what happens to the billions of dollars us tax payers loaned them if they go under, nobody has raised that question yet.

[NAMNORI]

GM is done and they have been for about a year now it's over forget about the 2011 vette because it ain't coming out! Next is Chrysler(Dodge is included in that also). It's gonna get a lot harder than anyone wants to admit, but thats life.

[BanginJimmy]

GM is done and they have been for about a year now it's over forget about the 2011 vette because it ain't coming out! Next is Chrysler(Dodge is included in that also). It's gonna get a lot harder than anyone wants to admit, but thats life.

Even if they go into bankruptcy they arent going anywhere. They will cut back some more and restructure. If that happens and they can avoid the politics and get rid of the union GM will be fine. I'll have to find the numbers again, but it was either 06 or 07 where GM sold more than a million more vehicles than Toyota but GM had like 60B less profit. It comes down to the fact that GM is paying FAR too much to retired workers. That stat you hear about where GM employees are paid $75/hr isnt far from the truth. They arent paid that much, but when you break down the amount of money spent on salary and benefits for active and retired workers, then divide it by the hours spent to build every car that GM builds it works out to right around $75 per manhour. I believe Toyota is around $45. When your workers log close to 1B manhours a year that adds up quickly.

[NAMNORI]

true but they are done the only thing bankruptcy is going to do for them is help them pay thier debts it wont save them there isnt enough restructuring that they can do to keep them going union or no union. The problem is that the unions (not just auto) are killing the ability to make any sort of long term profits, look at walmart they will not allow thier empolyees to unoinize for that reason.

[BanginJimmy]

As soon as the union is gone, and a few adjustments to retirements and GM will be running at a profit. A drop from the curent 95% retirement rate to 80% alone would free up nearly $50B in cash on a yearly basis. That doesnt affect retirement healthcare, or any benefit for a current worker.

[Frög]

uhhh I can't believe we give them money..

All this is part of the reasons I can't sleep at night..

[NewGen33]

You know I'm not a pro union guy