Honda Car Forum

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:00:38 -0500, "Mike Hunter"
<mikehunt2@lycos/com> wrote:

>If Jap vehicles are so good why are the owners trading them on domestics?
>Look on the GM and Ford dealers lots and you will plenty of Jap cars and
>trucks that were traded on GM and Ford vehicles.

That is an anecdotal report, at best. Since Import brands are taking
more market share every year, it is obvious that more people are
trading domestics for imports than the other way around.

>If Jap vehicles are so good where are all of the old Jap cars? If you go
>to old car shows you will hardly ever see and old Jap car.

If you go to a domestic car dealer, you may find they have closed
their doors.

>Finally if GM vehicles are so bad, why is GM still selling more of them than
>ANY of the Japs?

If GM sales are so great, why are they threatening to declare
bankruptcy?













>
>
>"Rock Hardson" <RH232@yahooo.com> wrote in message
>news:4959910a$0$26496$822641b3@news.adtechcompute rs.com...
>>
>
>>>
>> So if I say the same thing about a crappy Toyota and Mazda that family
>> members owned that didnt hold what exactly does that tell you especially
>> when I have an American car that runs and looks great going on 146k miles,
>> or a 82 Dodge I had that I put 180k miles on with regular maintenance? It
>> lasted a lot longer than the 83 Toyota Camery.
>

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:21:06 -0500, "Mike Hunter"
<mikehunt2@lycos/com> wrote:

>THAT was an insane notion. If the vehicle you owned was a good one, WHY
>would you?

Why don't you ask GM owners that question? GM's market share has
dropped from 50% to 22%.

>"AZ Nomad" <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote in message
>news:slrngll5p8.269.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net...
>> On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:00:38 -0500, Mike Hunter <mikehunt2@lycos/com>
>> wrote:
>>>If Jap vehicles are so good why are the owners trading them on domestics?
>>>Look on the GM and Ford dealers lots and you will plenty of Jap cars and
>>>trucks that were traded on GM and Ford vehicles.
>>
>> What an idiotic statement!
>>
>> Where did you get the insane notion that people never switch from
>> owning an import to owning a domestic and visa versa?
>>
>>
>

Jim Higgins wrote:
>On Dec 21, 4:16�am, "rantonr...@mail.com" <rantonr...@mail.com> wrote:
>> CharlesTheCurmudgeon wrote:
>>
>>>"Rock Hardson" <RH...@yahooo.com> wrote in message
>>>news:494d1c7a$1$1548$822641b3@news.adtechcomput ers.com...
>>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...08/12/19/AR200....
>>
>>>>I suspect once the US auto industry gets on a level field the foriegn
>>>>companies may be in for an ass kicking.
>>
>>>Sorry, you are WRONG. US auto makers do not encourage the culture of
>>>quality that the Japanese auto makers embraced about 50 years ago. Until
>>>the American automakers demonstrate they are truly commited to quality and
>>>not just dependent on whether the head of the company is commited to quality
>>>or not, there's not only going to not be a level playing field, there's not
>>>gong to be any play.
>>
>>The Japanese may have embraced it 50 years ago, but they continued to
>>have horrible quality (can you say 'Toyopet'?) for another 25 years. It'salso a myth that
>>Japanese car makers universally have better quality because when
>>Toyota, Honda, and Subaru are excluded, their quality falls to being
>>only par with ours.
>>
>>What's been more important to Japanese success is the culture of
>>engineers versus our culture of business majors. This is especially
>>true because development of new products never makes sense from a
>>financial standpoint. Business majors understand this, but engineers
>>fortunately don't.
>
>
>"...when Toyota, Honda, and Subaru are excluded, their quality falls
>to being only par with ours."
>
>By your own admission Toyota and Honda's quality is superior to
>Detroit's. Congratulations on finally coming around to that
>conclusion, there is hope for you yet :-)
>
I'm no Detroit defender. I haven't bought an American brand car since
the early 1980 and have no expectations to purchase anything except
Toyotas in the future. But it's wrong to say Detroit hasn't embraced
a culture of quality. They have, only not nearly enough, and much of
their attitude remains completely wrong (Toyota stops its production
lines 100-300 times as often as Chrysler does; Chrysler wants to
reduce the number of stoppages).

Derek Gee wrote:
>
><rantonrave@mail.com> wrote in message
>news:37ae352e-9ab8-4f37-a60c-b9a0948620a2@r10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>> CharlesTheCurmudgeon wrote:
>>>
>>>"Rock Hardson" <RH232@yahooo.com> wrote in message
>>>news:494d1c7a$1$1548$822641b3@news.adtechcomput ers.com...
>>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-d
n/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903675.html?hpid=topnews
> >>>
>>>>I suspect once the US auto industry gets on a level field the foriegn
>>>>companies may be in for an ass kicking.
>>>
>>>
>>>Sorry, you are WRONG. US auto makers do not encourage the culture of
>>>quality that the Japanese auto makers embraced about 50 years ago. Until
>>>the American automakers demonstrate they are truly commited to quality and
>>>not just dependent on whether the head of the company is commited to
>>>quality or not, there's not only going to not be a level playing field, there's
>>>not gong to be any play.
>>>
>>The Japanese may have embraced it 50 years ago, but they continued to
>>have horrible quality (can you say 'Toyopet'?) for another 25 years. It's also a myth that
>>Japanese car makers universally have better quality because when
>>Toyota, Honda, and Subaru are excluded, their quality falls to being
>>only par with ours.
>
>Where did you get the idea that Subaru's are some model of reliability? In
>the 2008 JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study, they rank well below the
> industry average. (Just ahead of Chrysler and Dodge!) Of the Japanese
>makes, only Toyota, Honda, and Mitsubishi are above the industry average.
>US makes scoring exceptionally well on the same survey are Mercury,
>Cadillac, Buick, and Lincoln. (Mercury and Cadillac are both scoring higher
>than Toyota, Acura, and Honda!!!)
>
>http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/new...spx?ID=2008115
>
My information is from reputable sources, not sources that mistakenly
ranked Cadillac highly. Some Fuji factories appeared to be run as well
as similar Honda factories.

A Plumbers Helper Named Joe wrote:
>
>You can talk all day long about the quality of American cars, but some US
>American citizens are hell bent on seeing this whole country go down the
>tubes beginning with the big industry and US auto manufactures. I can't
>figure out where this self sabotage mentality comes from but it can be very
>dangerous to our society.
>
Chamber of Commerce anti-unionist types haven't been of help, but the
main problem is American auto executives who simply won't listen to
reason or face reality. Frankly the U.S. auto bureaucracy hasn't
attracted the smartest people in the world, unlike Japan's auto
industry or the U.S. semiconductor and biomedical businesses.

On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 00:20:45 -0800 (PST), "rantonrave@mail.com"
<rantonrave@mail.com> wrote:

> Frankly the U.S. auto bureaucracy hasn't
>attracted the smartest people in the world, unlike Japan's auto
>industry or the U.S. semiconductor and biomedical businesses.

When GM does attract talent, they drive them off the board quickly.
Innovation is not favored at GM. One has to assume that they mentality
pervades management on down the line (making their dismal performance
easy to understand).

On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:41:18 -0500, "Mike Hunter"
<mikehunt2@lycos/com> wrote:

>Get real, you don't know what you are talking about. I spent my last ten
>years in the business as Group Sales Manager for one of the largest
>mega-dealership groups on the east cost that operated in six states. NO
>new car dealership worth its salt BUYS used cars, they MUST retail or
>wholesale their used cars within three months so as not to tie up capital.

Where did I say anything about dealers buying used cars? I said that
the Jap dealers wholesale out anything that doesn't match what their
buyers want i.e. Japanese cars. The GM dealers, sensing that their
buyers want foreign cars, keep/sell their trades on their lot, even
Japanese cars, instead of wholesaling them, because they know they
will sell. Try reading more carefully.

>If a dealership NEEDS to buy used cars they are not selling enough NEW cars.
>When the partners were looking to buy a another dealership, with growth
>potential, the first thing they had me look for those that were buying USED
>cars at the Manheim auctions

Again, this has nothing to do with my post.

>If we traded an 'off brand,' say a Toyota or Honda, at one of our domestic
>dealerships we moved it to one of our Toyota or Honda stores, where we could
>make more profit off of the buyers. Why, because WE thought they were
>better cars? No, we did it because our import buyers THOUGHT they were
>better cars and we could get more out of the import buyers

Perhaps you should re-read what YOU wrote then: "If Jap vehicles are
so good why are the owners trading them on domestics? Look on the GM
and Ford dealers lots and you will plenty of Jap cars and trucks that
were traded on GM and Ford vehicles."

What dismal performance? Do you live in a cave in Afghanistan? GM
outsells every other manufacturer in the US


"me" <noemail@nothere.com> wrote in message
news:c90tl41g9oeqhum7krsgt9c9ottggubs59@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 00:20:45 -0800 (PST), "rantonrave@mail.com"
> <rantonrave@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> Frankly the U.S. auto bureaucracy hasn't
>>attracted the smartest people in the world, unlike Japan's auto
>>industry or the U.S. semiconductor and biomedical businesses.
>
> When GM does attract talent, they drive them off the board quickly.
> Innovation is not favored at GM. One has to assume that they mentality
> pervades management on down the line (making their dismal performance
> easy to understand).

What part of "If Jap vehicles are so good why are the owners trading them on
domestics? Look on the GM and Ford dealers lots and you will plenty of Jap
cars and trucks that were traded on GM and Ford vehicles," do you not
understand? LOL


"me" <noemail@nothere.com> wrote in message
news:3d0tl4lreug9tgqs2h2q7akjho8su2k4u6@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:41:18 -0500, "Mike Hunter"
> <mikehunt2@lycos/com> wrote:
>
>>Get real, you don't know what you are talking about. I spent my last ten
>>years in the business as Group Sales Manager for one of the largest
>>mega-dealership groups on the east cost that operated in six states. NO
>>new car dealership worth its salt BUYS used cars, they MUST retail or
>>wholesale their used cars within three months so as not to tie up capital.
>
> Where did I say anything about dealers buying used cars? I said that
> the Jap dealers wholesale out anything that doesn't match what their
> buyers want i.e. Japanese cars. The GM dealers, sensing that their
> buyers want foreign cars, keep/sell their trades on their lot, even
> Japanese cars, instead of wholesaling them, because they know they
> will sell. Try reading more carefully.
>
>>If a dealership NEEDS to buy used cars they are not selling enough NEW
>>cars.
>>When the partners were looking to buy a another dealership, with growth
>>potential, the first thing they had me look for those that were buying
>>USED
>>cars at the Manheim auctions
>
> Again, this has nothing to do with my post.
>
>>If we traded an 'off brand,' say a Toyota or Honda, at one of our domestic
>>dealerships we moved it to one of our Toyota or Honda stores, where we
>>could
>>make more profit off of the buyers. Why, because WE thought they were
>>better cars? No, we did it because our import buyers THOUGHT they were
>>better cars and we could get more out of the import buyers
>
> Perhaps you should re-read what YOU wrote then: "If Jap vehicles are
> so good why are the owners trading them on domestics? Look on the GM
> and Ford dealers lots and you will plenty of Jap cars and trucks that
> were traded on GM and Ford vehicles."
>
>

On Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:04:53 -0500, me <noemail@nothere.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 00:20:45 -0800 (PST), "rantonrave@mail.com"
><rantonrave@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> Frankly the U.S. auto bureaucracy hasn't
>>attracted the smartest people in the world, unlike Japan's auto
>>industry or the U.S. semiconductor and biomedical businesses.
>
>When GM does attract talent, they drive them off the board quickly.
>Innovation is not favored at GM. One has to assume that they mentality
>pervades management on down the line (making their dismal performance
>easy to understand).

They've got plenty of "innovative" talent. What they don't have is a
long-term quality-driven ideology.
Poorly executed "innovation" is what got them where they are.

--Vic