Foreign Cars.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

When Detroit is a ghost town and the State of Michigan is a wasteland I hope you foreign buyers choke on your lame excuses not to support the U.S.A.

We're almost at that point now.

[TKshreve]

Tahleel wrote:

Improve the Big 3 even more? You mean even more than the hundreds of billions of our tax dollars spent by bailing them out? What did they do? They paid off their creditors, and filed for bankruptcy anyways. Thanks for wasting my tax dollars!

I'm sorry, I know this was quoted well at the beginning of the thread, but.........

Care to show me where:
hundreds of billions of dollars were spent?

Or was it more like:
tens of billions of dollars were loaned.

My understanding was the bankruptcy also was done to save money in the long run. Where is your contempt for the bank bailouts where:
hundreds of billions of dollars were spent without any oversight or consequence?
How many executives did they ask to step down?

Pick your battles Tahleel.


BuyAmerican wrote:

When Detroit is a ghost town and the State of Michigan is a wasteland I hope you foreign buyers choke on your lame excuses not to support the U.S.A.

Detroit, Lansing, Pontiac, Saginaw, Flint, Downriver burbs, Kalamazoo, Ypsi, St. Joe, Muskegon, Benton Harbor, Toledo........ need I go on? We are there bub.

[CountrySquire]

"Second, and most important, you intentionally picked more expensive parts and tried to pass them off as the cheapest ones. How can they even be compared? How are you even credible anymore? "


Meaning "You caught me at my own game"

Rock Auto is a public site, try em again.

[tahleel]

"Second, and most important, you intentionally picked more expensive parts and tried to pass them off as the cheapest ones. How can they even be compared? How are you even credible anymore? "


Meaning "You caught me at my own game"

Rock Auto is a public site, try em again.

Who caught who? I caught you trying to pass off expensive parts as the cheapest when trying to compare two cars. I stated in my post that the ones I chose were the cheapest options, and they truly are, no number games.

By the way, we want to see the invoice of your friend's "$900 brake job." Let's see how truthful you are.

EDIT: Next time you need parts for your car, let us know how RockAuto works out for you. Also, you are for supporting a mail order company versus a company [[Autozone) that employs local and knowledgeable people that could answer your questions in person instead of e-mail? What happened to local/regional loyalty? I thought you were all about that.

-Tahleel

[darwinism]

"Second, and most important, you intentionally picked more expensive parts and tried to pass them off as the cheapest ones. How can they even be compared? How are you even credible anymore? "

Meaning "You caught me at my own game"

Rock Auto is a public site, try em again.

You are definitely a real [[[[[[ for pulling a game such as that in an open forum. Wow, absolutely unbelievable ! It is [[[[[[[[[s like you that are ruining any splinter of a chance that the domestic automakers have to shore up their reputation and their image across the United States. It is because of people that can't tell the truth, and because of a few bad apples in the entire orchard, the whole domestic auto manufacturing goes down in a painful way.

[CountrySquire]

You are definitely a real [[[[[[ for pulling a game such as that in an open forum. Wow, absolutely unbelievable !

So if Taheel does it, it's fun and games, but when I do it you cry foul. Thanks dittohead!

[darwinism]

So if Taheel does it, it's fun and games, but when I do it you cry foul. Thanks dittohead!

Listen, [[[[[[[[[ SOB, tahleel DID NOT play games - He presented his facts about auto parts pricing truthfully. Whereas you feel the need to f#*k with his facts by offering your "fun" [[[[[[-filled info to mislead the DetroitYes audience. So, nobody is crying foul here. You are foul, dittohead!

[wazootyman]

C'mon guys, the direction this discussion is going is absurd - on both sides. Look back at the original post and ask what any of this has to do with what you're arguing about.

There are no guarantees that any of these automakers will remain loyal to this country, and that goes particularly for the foreign-owned plants. Who's to say that when their sweet tax breaks expire that they won't shift production south of the border? Fact is, they're in a better position financially, partly due to unfair advantages regarding health care, trade policies and lack of retiree "burden". They can afford to build plants in the United States [[again, with major tax breaks) because these expenses do not burden them to the extent that they do the Detroit Three. There have been a lot of screw-ups by these companies, but at the same time, we're our own worst enemy when it comes to policy supporting domestic manufacturing.

Can you honestly say that supporting Hyundai instead of GM is better for the future of this country? It may do well for your selfish needs - you view it as a better quality vehicle, that perhaps costs less. You may feel it's got a better value, even if you haven't given the domestic counterpart a fair test. You're entitled to do that, of course, but I don't think you're entitled to complain about the consequences it may bring [[particularly if you live in SE Michigan). If you do live here, you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing so, though I shouldn't say that because it makes me ignorant according to some academics around here - should I just admit I think Detroit is the center of the galaxy? Regardless of what is said about how un-important we are to the 49 other states, I think a lot of people nation-wide should be scared of what is happening to Detroit and what it stands for.

If you wanted to, I think a case could be made that a lot of the work-force is overpaid; what makes a middle-manager worth six figures, and furthermore, what makes him entitled to call out a UAW line worker just because he feels he is superior to him?

I've tried to keep up with this thread, and perhaps I've missed it, but where has anybody acknowledged the fact that foreign-owned automotive jobs are a bucket in a sinking US automotive job ship? As I understand it, the automobile is still the most complex mass-produced product in the world, the biggest consumer of glass to semiconductors, requiring everything from accountants to chemical engineers to make them roll off the assembly line. Should we really just be that willing to give up this source of national pride? If the Japanese were in a similar boat, do you think that their culture would permit such a "it's lost a lost cause...move on" attitude? I think the fact that Hyundai, Toyota and Honda built plants here to employ Americans is great for those that can get the jobs, but it comes at a significant cost to all those that are losing them in return. The Camry may be the "most American" car to some, but I have yet to see figures that quote how many jobs the Camry supports versus, say, the Malibu. I suspect it's not even close. Can we get past the fact already that there is SO much more to a vehicle's human involvement than the 3,000 jobs in a final assembly plant?

If I've learned one thing in this thread, it's that the Fusion is built in Mexico. Wait, I already knew that, I've just seen it repeated half a dozen times. I think it sucks that Ford, GM and Chrysler make cars outside this country. I probably wouldn't have bought the 2008 Vue - my 2007 was built and designed in this country, and I didn't want a Mexican-built car [[as it would sort of go against my beliefs). But consider this: Besides outright greed, what else would drive production down to Mexico? Cost cutting. In my experience with an automotive supplier, we HAD to send production to Mexico and China, despite the preference by myself and most of the engineers. The reason was cost. GM couldn't pay the domestic-made premium because the consumer wouldn't. Joe McWalMart would be driven to the foreign competition immediately if the domestic counterpart had a $2,000 add-on because it was 100% domestic. Problem is, we have it too good here, and making a decent wage is no longer acceptable in the "shiny new global economy" that's slowly killing our standard of living. My understanding is, as I mentioned earlier, that the advantages the foreign-owned companies have give them more available overhead for a domestic worker. In turn, it convinces some of you that they're a more caring, more American car company than our own.

I look toward the future as really uncertain. I don't think we're headed in the right direction by shifting ownership and manufacturing power overseas. A lot of the so-called growth over the last however-many years has been a fraud; our manufacturing base erodes while credit masks our financial strain. I know this is a much bigger issue than "foreign cars", it just is ultimately where my beliefs come from. If we don't maintain the capacity to design, produce and support our own product, how do we build wealth? Our loss is their gain.

So, whatever. I hope I've been somewhat coherent. How about this for homerism. Brings a tear to my [[ignorant) eye when I think about how far we've fallen since even this was made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoLtODutYNQ

To put my viewpoint in perspective: I'm 28, an electrical engineer, and in the midst of forming a start-up energy/engineering company while also working for a global [[locally-based) automotive supplier. My wife and I own two domestically-built and engineered GM cars, a 2007 and a 2009. Call me what you will, but I will never buy a foreign car.

[CountrySquire]

Listen, [[[[[[[[[ SOB, tahleel DID NOT play games - He presented his facts about auto parts pricing truthfully. Whereas you feel the need to f#*k with his facts by offering your "fun" [[[[[[-filled info to mislead the DetroitYes audience. So, nobody is crying foul here. You are foul, dittohead!

No, Taheel went to a website of a company that supplies autoparts and copied prices, and I did the same. I might add that the prices I copied were real prices for those actual cars. So how was that misleading? Do you really think that AutoZone just carries one type of brake parts for each of its cars as TalHell would have you think? And you assume, merely because he said so, that he thoroughly researched the facts and presented an unbiased set of information. If pointing this out to you makes me a [[[[[[[[[, then I have no problem with that since your monicher for me is coming from a brainless dittohead.

[tahleel]

So if Taheel does it, it's fun and games, but when I do it you cry foul. Thanks dittohead!

I presented my information in an accurate and true manner. I posted the cheapest prices available for both cars. What you did was make an unfair comparison by falsifying the cheapest parts. In the big leagues, we call that "cookin the books." I thought ultra-conservative people like yourself were supposed to be the "ethical" ones?

If the Accord prices were higher than the Taurus, I would've stated it. Infact, I will admit that the Accord prices are slightly higher at Rock Auto than Autozone. This can be because each vendor has their own agreement with parts suppliers.

The fact is, I compared apples to apples. You, apples to [insert exotic fruit here].

-Tahleel

[CountrySquire]

"By the way, we want to see the invoice of your friend's "$900 brake job." Let's see how truthful you are."


Call Save A Buck Car Rental in Madison heights and tell them you want to rent his finest Toyota, then sit back and let him educate you.

[tahleel]

"By the way, we want to see the invoice of your friend's "$900 brake job." Let's see how truthful you are."


Call Save A Buck Car Rental in Madison heights and tell them you want to rent his finest Toyota, then sit back and let him educate you.

No thank you. We've already heard enough false information from you. We can only imagine what your buddy would say.

-Tahleel

[CountrySquire]

"EDIT: Next time you need parts for your car, let us know how RockAuto works out for you. Also, you are for supporting a mail order company versus a company [[Autozone) that employs local and knowledgeable people that could answer your questions in person instead of e-mail? What happened to local"

Rock Auto? I was merely having fun with web pages like you were. Personally I go one step better then you when you shop Corporatist Auto Zone that pay their people minimum wage and offer no healthcare. When I need parts I go to a little store in Southfield that's been owned by the same family for over 50 years.

[elganned]

Fact: in 1980, the Big 3 had 70% of the auto market share, with the "foreign" nameplates holding 30%.
Fact: in 2000, the Big 3 had 30% of the auto market share, with the "foreign" nameplates holding 70%.

The consumer has spoken. Deal with it.

[tahleel]

One thing I will admit for credibility purposes, is that at one point I was wrong. I went to Autozone's website, and punched in the two vehicles. I copied the first product thinking it sorts from lowest to highest by default. Some prices were wrong [[both Accord and Taurus prices are lower), here are the corrected price, check yourself the URLs are included:

2000 Honda Accord
Valucraft / Brake Pads - Front Part Number: MKD503V Price: $12.99
Duralast / Brake Rotor - Front Part Number: 31243 Price: $21.99

2000 Ford Taurus
Valucraft / Brake Pads - Front Part Number: MKD601V Price: $14.99
Valucraft / Brake Rotor - Front Part Number: 54010B Price: $24.99


But to get back to the original point, the Accord's prices for brakes are lower than the Taurus's and no where near $900 as CountrySquire stated.

-Tahleel

[CountrySquire]

Stop misleading!! For a break job you can't just look at part prices, you have consider labor costs, shop charges etc.

[tahleel]

Stop misleading!! For a break job you can't just look at part prices, you have consider labor costs, shop charges etc.

I've done the brakes [[not break) on my parent's vehicles [[Nissan Sentra, Honda Civics) with a simple set of metric sockets and wrenches in my driveway. I don't see why there would be a higher labor cost or shop charge since brakes, are brakes, are brakes. Either disc or drum, but besides that the only difference is price and availability in parts which I've shown are cheaper on the Accord versus the Taurus. Labor should be the same, as the same work is done.

P.S. Last Chevy's [[Astro) brakes I've seen, you needed hex-keyed sockets to simply take the caliper off. Who has those anyways? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a common design on Chevy products? It seemed like every time I did something on a GM product, it used hex-keyed sockets, special star tools, or a GM-specialty tool. All the work I've done on my parents [[foreign) cars over the years, I did with a simple American-Made Craftsman tool set.

-Tahleel

[rooms222]

The brake jobs can vary in how the brakes wear, what parts are salvageable, how and when the brakes give you a warning they need service, and how much damage is done when the warning happens and how quickly.

I have had American, European, and Japanese cars [[am not from here and get no employee discounts), and I have to say that the Honda Civic I had was by far the most expensive for brakes. I had some $7-800 brake jobs, especially for the rear discs, and they happened with surprising frequency [[my mechanic is a personal friend, and the prices on all my and my family and friend's other cars have been much lower).

For other repairs, the Honda was second only to my Audi 5000 Turbo Diesel both in cost and frequency [[but both were fun cars with incredible mileage). Cars that have been cheap and reliable: Ford Escort ZX2 [[made in Mexico), Toyota Corolla, Plymouth Voyager,German made Jetta, US and UAW made Golf and Rabbit.......

[CountrySquire]

Taheel are you talking about Torx Bits? Lots of applications for those on all cars. Get yourself a nice set of Lisles, good american made tools with a life time guarantee. I've snapped a many while wrenching on something rusty at Parts Glore and the man at the parts store just gives me another, no questions asked.

The worst I ever heard about a brake job was a late 70s Datsun Z with dual piston calipers a waiter I used to work with years ago would talk about. He got several repair estimates around $1200 and decided to say "scew it" and kept driving the car. This car was all ready a rusty peice of junk and no were near worth $1200; so when the brakes got real bad he would downshift to slow down and just shut the ignition off and let the engine stop the car. I guess he did this until he replaced the heap with a nice American used car that he could afford.

[tahleel]

Taheel are you talking about Torx Bits? Lots of applications for those on all cars. Get yourself a nice set of Lisles, good american made tools with a life time guarantee. I've snapped a many while wrenching on something rusty at Parts Glore and the man at the parts store just gives me another, no questions asked.

No, I know what torx bits are. I'm talking about hex-keyed sockets.

The worst I ever heard about a brake job was a late 70s Datsun Z with dual piston calipers a waiter I used to work with years ago would talk about. He got several repair estimates around $1200 and decided to say "scew it" and kept driving the car. This car was all ready a rusty peice of junk and no were near worth $1200; so when the brakes got real bad he would downshift to slow down and just shut the ignition off and let the engine stop the car. I guess he did this until he replaced the heap with a nice American used car that he could afford.

My truck [[Ford) has dual piston calipers. Doing the brakes on that is the same as doing it on single piston calipers. Only difference is I have to push in the second caliper, which takes less than 10 seconds per side. Again, brakes are brakes are brakes.

I feel like people are getting shafted left and right, because it DOES NOT cost that much in parts nor labor. I'd say for brake pads and rotors, it shouldn't cost more than $150-200 in parts for most cars. Labor definitely shouldn't be $600-700. Labor charge for most mechanics is $60-70 hour. That means if they charge you $600-700 in labor, they bill you for 10 hours of work, which is absurd. It would take a mechanic at most two hours to replace four discs and four sets of pads.

P.S. For those people who don't know what the Datsun/Nissan Z is, it was marketed as a sports car that anyone could buy. It became a hit when it came out. Many generations later, the Fairlady Z name is still held by the new Nissan 370Z. I would like to own a classic Z one day.

-Tahleel

[CountrySquire]

Yah the big problem with those 70s Japanese cars is they rusted out quick. Dad's '74 Corolla had no floorbooards or lower fenders left after five years on the road. He still remembers that car as one of his faves though, said it was "reliable".

[tahleel]

Yah the big problem with those 70s Japanese cars is they rusted out quick. Dad's '74 Corolla had no floorbooards or lower fenders left after five years on the road. He still remembers that car as one of his faves though, said it was "reliable".

I will definitely agree with you on that. Early Japanese cars were really never known for their ability to deter rust.

-Tahleel

[TKshreve]

Very nice post wazootyman. I enjoyed it.

[Det_ard]

I realize that you're in the industry, that's why it's so strange that you seem ignorant of the major improvements in automotive technology over the last 20 years.

For starters, the base 1990 Taurus had a 4 cylinder that put out 90 h.p. It had a 3 speed auto. It didn't have port fuel injection. It didn't have ABS. It didn't have airbags. ABS was optional as was a driver's side airbag, but they were very costly options back then. They were also first generation designs, unlike the much more advanced designs today.

No standard power locks. No standard power windows. Much less sophisticated engine management hardware and software. Much higher level of defects. Noisier. A/C is optional, not standard. AM radio is standard, FM and tape are optional. CDs? In Town Cars, not base Tauruses. Fuel efficiency is higher per horsepower and emissions are lower. Durability is better. Manufacturing processes are less variable resulting in higher quality parts at lower cost. The list goes on and on.

Ask one of your older supplier coworkers if there's a difference in technology between 1990 and now. It's night and day. It's great you're furthering your education but your position on this thread belies a level of ignorance about basic truths in the industry that you ought to be aware of. If you have a chance, talk to someone at the car company about this. They do year over year comparisons of content, technology, performance, efficiency, things formerly optional made standard, betterment of components like when ABS went from 2 channel to 4 channel, all so that they have an accurate picture of the yearly product change when they make their introductory pricing decisions. Since it's a compelling value story, this info is communicated to dealership sales managers and salespersons. It's pretty common knowledge. I've been in the industry since the 80's and the inexorable march toward better value every year was apparent and readily acknowledged back then.

[CountrySquire]

I realize that you're in the industry, that's why it's so strange that you seem ignorant of the major improvements in automotive technology over the last 20 years.

For starters, the base 1990 Taurus had a 4 cylinder that put out 90 h.p. It had a 3 speed auto. It didn't have port fuel injection. It didn't have ABS. It didn't have airbags. ABS was optional as was a driver's side airbag, but they were very costly options back then. They were also first generation designs, unlike the much more advanced designs today.

No standard power locks. No standard power windows. Much less sophisticated engine management hardware and software. Much higher level of defects. Noisier. A/C is optional, not standard. AM radio is standard, FM and tape are optional. CDs? In Town Cars, not base Tauruses. Fuel efficiency is higher per horsepower and emissions are lower. Durability is better. Manufacturing processes are less variable resulting in higher quality parts at lower cost. The list goes on and on.

Ask one of your older supplier coworkers if there's a difference in technology between 1990 and now. It's night and day. It's great you're furthering your education but your position on this thread belies a level of ignorance about basic truths in the industry that you ought to be aware of. If you have a chance, talk to someone at the car company about this. They do year over year comparisons of content, technology, performance, efficiency, things formerly optional made standard, betterment of components like when ABS went from 2 channel to 4 channel, all so that they have an accurate picture of the yearly product change when they make their introductory pricing decisions. Since it's a compelling value story, this info is communicated to dealership sales managers and salespersons. It's pretty common knowledge. I've been in the industry since the 80's and the inexorable march toward better value every year was apparent and readily acknowledged back then.

Sorry, you are plain wrong on a few of your points and show your ignorance and still evade my basic question as to why you feel a few of these improvements like passenger side airbags make the new cars stay beneath normal inflation. In 1990 The Standard engine was not a 4 cylinder, you are thinking Escort, you had a choice of two six cylinders, a 3.0 liter and a 3.8 Liter. The standard radio was not an AM, it would have been so in maybe 1980, by 1990 it would have been an AM FM Stereo, AC would have been a standard feature. Standard power locks / windows, I believe you would be getting these in 1990. Manufacturing processes are more robust creating higher quality? True, but Ford received numerous quality awards in the late 80s and Early 90s for its Taurus Line and it was on par with the imports of the time. And so what? As a consumer why do I care about the machines that build my car so long as the final product is what I want? Why would Joe consumer want to pay more for a car simply because it was built with more state of the art automated tooling than the next car? You do point out a few things like the two channel ABS but most of your paragraph is laden with conjecture. I still want to know where is my significant direct savings Ford has realized by putting hundreds of thousands out of work [[which includes indirect people dependant on Auto industry) and awarding that work to lower wage countries. Why doesn't that 2010 Taurus cost $11K? That's what I would expect as a company like a Ford is so much leaner now and cut out all that unnecessary fat.