Sorry Guys,
This is an industry that in some manner has provided me with a living for many years. Until my very recent retirement I provided vehicles for movie and television production in So. Cal and did so for many years. Shortly after College I also served as a Service Writer for VW and as a Service Manager for a Chrysler-Dodge Dealer.
The U.S. Auto industry has suffered "engineering by politician" for many decades. When this came into being the United States lost many imports. Alfa-Romeo, Peugeot, Citroen, were but a few of the casualties. These manufacturers left the U.S. because they simply did not sell enough cars to pay for the safety changes that were required for their cars to be sold in the United States.
Safety changes including huge projecting bumpers, door guard safety beams and all the rest added about 1,000 pounds in weight to the average full sized 1972 Chevrolet Impala over the same car built in 1962. That is a plain simple fact. In addition emissions control became more and more difficult. Foreign manufacturers were decades behind the U.S. in trying to clean up tailpipe emissions. All of this added a huge quantity of weight, reduced engine performance and efficiency AND added a great deal to the price of the vehicles all 3 manufacturers built. Foreign manufacturers did not really fall into this until about 10 years after those in the U.S. did.
In my business at the peak I bought as many as 200 cars per year. I did not destroy cars I did not own! If I had, I would not have been in business for very long.
The manufacturer hit the worst by quality control issues was GM. GM has always been the most profit oriented of the "big three" in the U.S.. GM owns Holden in Austrailia, Opel in Germany, Saab in Sweden and a large portion of Isuzu in Japan. GM out and out bought Daewoo in Korea in order to both get rid of them and to get a cheap "off-shore" manufacturer for it's crapy entry line cars.
GM absolutely forgot how to build quality, in the middle 1970's. To accomplish what legislators wanted the engine temperatures became too high, in order to meet emissions standards (Particularly in California) which shortened engine life. This raised automatic transmission temperatures because of shared cooling and so on and so forth. The technology did not exist at a reasonable price to do otherwise.
GM has tried valiantly and struggled to remain viable and has sold off the following assets to keep their automobile production afloat: Hughes Aircraft, Detroit Diesel, Allison Transmission, GM Heavy Truck, GM Bus, and they folded Oldsmobile Division again to save money. GM bought Hummer from a military manufacturer nammed AM General which was founded by the late AMC Corporation. They made Hummers for the military. GM is now trying to "dump" Hummer simply because it is no longer viable. The U.S. Military with our tax dollars has now gone to International Harvester to build a replacement for the Hummer H-1. The vehicle is far larger and more cumbersome than the H-1 and will not deliver the performance that an H-1 did.
Chrysler Corporation has suffered from a hit and miss leadership for many years. With respect to engineering Chrysler built some of the best vehicles the U.S. has ever seen. The problems with Chrysler have always been the inability to get on one course and stay on it. They try to follow trends and fads rather than intelligenet marketing. Lee Iacocca then CEO of Chrysler did secure a loan and bailed out the Corporation. That loan was paid back in total with Interest two years ahead of when it was due. Chrysler good or bad brought us the K-Car, it's 5,000 derivitives and the Mini-Van. In order to save money and cut corners to keep the whole thing alive Chrysler cut off the Plymouth Division. The Merger between Damiler-Benz and Chrysler Created Daimler-Chrysler. That Merger created some of the best automobiles that Chrysler had ever built. The problem was that Daimler-Benz devoted so much of its resources to Chrysler that their own product reliability went down the toilet. Mercedes went from the top of the ratings to the bottom as far as reliability.
Ford Motor Company has had it's trials and tribulations too. They bought Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and a number of other companies. In more recent years they have began to divest themselves of many of these other car lines. They dumped Jaguar to "Tata" of India.
All of the big three are not being killed by themselves as manufacturers as much as they are by dealer networks gone totally out of control.
GM has played fast and loose with the American Consumer for years. The Pontiac GTO was the best example of dealer networks that needed to be removed. GM designed the GTO to sell at competitive prices. The dealers marked those cars up over window sticler as much as $20,000. Of course the cars did not sell. GM discontinues the car based on bad sales. The reason it did not sell was not the car or it's quality it was pure price gouging by it's dealer network. In the late 1970's GM Dealers tacked $3,000-$5,000 mark ups on Oldsmobile diesel automobiles. When the engines which had many design and manufacturing flaws hit the streets, something that could have been outstanding made a mess. GM was in total denial of what the problems really were for years. (It was not a converted gas engine any more than the VW diesel was.)
GM techs at the dealers (again the dealers) never got the technical training to repair or service the diesels. As a result they did things to these engines that caused catastrophic failures to the customers cars. This was not helped by a batch of metal from Japan that did not meet specification and was forged into 5.7 diesel crakshafts.
What I fear most is that in the end there will be ONE American automobile manufacturer with zero competition that controls everything. That will result in the purchase of most of the foreign manufacturers by this GIANT and we will be guaranteed absolute garbage with positively zero as far as a recourse against it.
Think of a merger between GM and Chrysler.............
In my nearly 40 years of driving, I have been an avid car collector. I still have a collection to this day of some 15 cars. These include classic Chrysler 300's and a few other more esoteric things that have just been fun or kept for sentimental reasons.
Our home has currently a 1985 Mercedes 300SD Turbodiesel. It has about 350,000 miles on the original engine and still runs great. We have as another driver a 2002 Ford F-550 4x4 Powerstroke diesel pickup. We have a 1977 Ford F-150 with a 300 cid in line 6 cylinder and we also have a 1978 Ford LTD land-yacht. I am in the "biz", can still turn a wrench with the best of them. The Benz gets about 30mpg on the highway, the huge Ford Powerstroke on flat ground at 60mph gets about 18miles per gallon (pretty good for something that weighs 8,700 pounds empty) and the 1977 F-150 gets about 22 on the open road. The old LTD was hand picked out of a used car pile becuase it was the ONLY year that the last huge land-yacht was available with a 302 V8. With a 2.75 rear end gear that old land yacht with a rebuilt engine (by me) gets as high as 24 on the highway at 65-70miles per hour.
The U.S. has built some of the finest cars in the world. I can attest to many that I have owned and a couple of collectables I still own with over 300,000 miles on the original engines and transmissions which are still running well. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Bail out..........We're damned if we do, but we are going to be far worse off if we don't..............
