Were American cars really that bad?

[Laconian]

They advertised the hell out of Stow and Go and Swivel and Go.

I demand more X and Go products!

[the Teuton]

GM has many, many more platforms and engine families than that.

[Laconian]

Let's look at Nissan's example for wisdom.  Their company, thanks to Carlos Ghosn, was saved because of platform engineering.

Platform engineering with a proper engineering budget. Nerds can't do shit if you don't give them the resources.

[Secret Chimp]

GM and Chrysler need to hire in the people that helped turn around Kia/Hyundai starting in the early 2000s. They went from laughable to better than some domestic offerings in an incredibly short period of time.

[the Teuton]

I'm just quoting myself for reference.  I want to compare this to the current North American GM strategy.

Let's look at Nissan's example for wisdom.  Their company, thanks to Carlos Ghosn, was saved because of platform engineering.

Small:
Sentra
Derivatives:
Smaller:  Cube
Small SUV:  Rogue

Medium FWD:
Altima
Derivatives:
Large FWD:  Maxima
Minivan:  Quest
SUV: Murano

FM:
370Z
G37
FX
M35/45

Very loose derivative:  GT-R

Truck:
Titan
Derivatives:
Compact truck:  Frontier
Midsize SUV:  Pathfinder
Fullsize SUV:  Armada/QX56

Then the Patrol platform and other commercial platforms for Asia and Europe.

Engines families:

4 cylinders from Cube to Altima
VQ V6
Endurance V8s
VR (based on VQ)
4.5 liter V8 for lux cars

Sub Compact:
Aveo/G3

Compact:
G5/Cobalt
Astra

W Platform:
Impala
Lacrosse

G Platform:
Cadillac DTS/Buick Lucerne

Lambda:
Acadia/Traverse/Enclave/Outlook

Kappa:
Solstice/Sky

Premium RWD:
CTS
STS
SRX

"Cheap" RWD:
G8
Camaro

Sports car:
Corvette
XLR

Midsize FWD:
Malibu
G6
Aura
9-3

Outdated Fiat platform:
9-5

Small truck:
Canyon/Colorado/Isuzu I Series/H3

Compact SUV:
Equinox/Vue

Midsize SUV:
TrailBlazer/Ascender/Envoy/9-7x

Fullsize SUV:
Suburban/Tahoe/Yukon/XL/Escalade/ESV/H2

Fullsize Truck:
Silverado/Sierra/Escalade/Avalanche

Fullsize van:
Express/Savannah

Engines:

4 Cylinder car:
-Ecotec
-Aveo

V6 car:
-High Feature
-High Value
-Saab turbo motors (that date back to the early-1990s in some cases)

V8 car:
-LS
-Northstar
-LSA/LS9

Truck engines:
-Atlas 4/5/6
-4300 V6 (that dates back to 1985 or so)
-LS
-Duramax
-Oldie designs (carryovers from the 1990s or so)
-Vortec and MaxVortecs

The list is a little longer, isn't it?

[CJ]

GM and Chrysler need to hire in the people that helped turn around Kia/Hyundai starting in the early 2000s. They went from laughable to better than some domestic offerings in an incredibly short period of time.

Some?  Almost every Hyundai is better than the Domestic competition.  Kia still has some ways to go, but the Borrego, new Optima, and Sedona are very good. 

[the Teuton]

I just did some counting, and assuming that the full-size trucks are different enough from the SUVs to warrant a different platform designation, Nissan does in four basic platforms what GM does in 14 and GM doesn't even have a minivan anymore.  Does anyone else see a problem with this?

[GoCougs]

The C3 was from 1968 to 1982.

Holy gods - I forget - even worse - 15 years!

Meanwhile, true to form, Secret Chimp is wallowing in the peanut gallery, desperate for attention...

[Danish]

Teuton - Good point about the common platforms but one downside must be pointed out: weight.

The 350Z was a little overweight thanks to the platform. Of course, this did lead to a lower price.

[ifcar]

The problem with the Big Three's products in the 1990s wasn't that they were all bad or that they were all unreliable. It was that they were inconsistent, the problem that still plagues them today.

There were a handful of modern American cars that people would happily compare to imports in 1999. The Malibu is the most obvious example. Chrysler's minivans, Intrepid, and cloud cars were another. Ford had the Windstar. These were Detroit's best mainstream cars in 1999 -- to test drive. All had reliability issues.

Then there were the in-between cars: decent and reliable but old-school. These are a half-dozen GM midsize/large sedans with couches for seats, 1980s-style dashboards (or worse, their own "unique" style), and big-displacement V6s; the ones that were recently redesigned with relatively fresh appearances but weren't really fresh: Century/Regal, Lumina, Grand Prix, Intrigue. The aging but still popular Escort, Saturn, and even Cavalier fall into this category in 1999. (The Neon is slightly different; a aging design but not reliable.)

Then there was also a vast quantity of crap during the 90s. Most was gone by 99 and only became considered pure crap when the same cars were selling against a newer generation of competitors five years later. But in 1995, you still had the circa-1982 Ciera/Century, the Corsica, the Grand Am/Achieva, and other designs that neither looked fresh nor were modern in any way.

The Taurus gets its own category: Ford killed it in 1996. They needed to take a risk with the original car because they didn't already have a popular car, but radically redesigning your bread-and-butter product is a foolish move that seems only to work for Honda. (Though the Civic would be selling as well or better if it didn't look like a spaceship.) What's more, the new look was all style over substance, cutting into headroom and trunk space and complicating the controls. A more conservative redesign with the same competitive driving dynamics would have kept people from abandoning it. It was officially 1999 when they lost the best-seller title, but they'd been shoveling Tauruses into fleets since 1996 to keep from losing.

[ChrisV]

As I mentioned in the Gran Torino thread, Domestics went downhill rapidly in the mid '70s Engineering was turned to band-aiding prior tech to meet new emissions and fuel economy regulations.



hoses and crap everywhere. Vacuum hoses ran the fuel delivery, spark advance, emissions equipment, etc, and were very prone to failure. And unlike '80s Japanese solutions, were not laid out very well at all.

Combine that with the decline of the union worker in the '70s, where the line worker didn't have to work hard or take pride in their work, and yet got paid more, so they didn't care how well they built the cars, and you have a recipe for disaster.

As for reliability, it's interesting. Buyers would put up with crap from their imports that they wouldn't from domestics. Pingy, wheezy, overheating Datsuns were still loved, while experience the same from a domestic and it was a POS that they'd never buy another of. Thin cardboard door panels with exposed metal were just par for the course from an import, but considered cheap crap in a domestic, even if the quality was exactly the same.

As for personal anecdotes, I've had imports that wer not reliable, and domestics that were completely reliable. my '81 Citation (that I posted a pic of here on the board) was ugly, but went 323k miles before I gave it away. That's 323 THOUSAND miles. Pretty it was not, but reliable it most definitely was. I had my PT Cruiser for 5 years and 70k miles and it was flawless the entire time. Useful, reliable, and never once needed repairs for anything. Most owners have had the same experience. My Contour was outstanding, as was my '96 Ranger.

Funny thing: reading around the boards, Americans are considered idiots. They constantly make bad choices. They are overweight. They shop at Wal Mart, putting price before anything else. They can't drive worth a crap. They are ignorant about world affairs.  But... let them choose a Toyota instead of a Ford or GM and they are suddenly mensa candidates that have made an informed decision and should be listened to...

[cozmik]

And STILL they discount the shit out of them while makers like Honda and Subaru barely have to offer anything to move their cars.

This is coming from someone who Sold Honda's 2 years ago when the economy was good. We had to discount the shit out of the cars to get them to move. We consistently had to sell near invoice to make sales. That's in large part due to competition more than anything, but to say the imports don't really have to discount is bullshit. I've been there selling, I know first hand.

[cozmik]

I'm just quoting myself for reference.  I want to compare this to the current North American GM strategy.

Sub Compact:
Aveo/G3

Compact:
G5/Cobalt
Astra

W Platform:
Impala
Lacrosse

G Platform:
Cadillac DTS/Buick Lucerne

Lambda:
Acadia/Traverse/Enclave/Outlook

Kappa:
Solstice/Sky

Premium RWD:
CTS
STS
SRX

"Cheap" RWD:
G8
Camaro

Sports car:
Corvette
XLR

Midsize FWD:
Malibu
G6
Aura
9-3

Outdated Fiat platform:
9-5

Small truck:
Canyon/Colorado/Isuzu I Series/H3

Compact SUV:
Equinox/Vue

Midsize SUV:
TrailBlazer/Ascender/Envoy/9-7x

Fullsize SUV:
Suburban/Tahoe/Yukon/XL/Escalade/ESV/H2

Fullsize Truck:
Silverado/Sierra/Escalade/Avalanche

Fullsize van:
Express/Savannah

Engines:

4 Cylinder car:
-Ecotec
-Aveo

V6 car:
-High Feature
-High Value
-Saab turbo motors (that date back to the early-1990s in some cases)

V8 car:
-LS
-Northstar
-LSA/LS9

Truck engines:
-Atlas 4/5/6
-4300 V6 (that dates back to 1985 or so)
-LS
-Duramax
-Oldie designs (carryovers from the 1990s or so)
-Vortec and MaxVortecs

The list is a little longer, isn't it?

The 2.0L Turbo in the 9-3 (and 9-5 internationally) is based on the Ecotec block, the rest is Saab designed, but it's new. Saab's turbo V6 is the GM HF V6. That's the only V6 Saab currently uses.

The 2.3L I4 is pretty ancient, if my history serves me, it's basic origins date back even farther than 1985, and it's based on a Triumph design that has been continually updated.

[ifcar]

This is coming from someone who Sold Honda's 2 years ago when the economy was good. We had to discount the shit out of the cars to get them to move. We consistently had to sell near invoice to make sales. That's in large part due to competition more than anything, but to say the imports don't really have to discount is bullshit. I've been there selling, I know first hand.

That's still above invoice, compared to below invoice for the average Big Three vehicle.

[2o6]

I'm just quoting myself for reference.  I want to compare this to the current North American GM strategy.

Sub Compact:
Aveo/G3

Compact:
G5/Cobalt
Astra

W Platform:
Impala
Lacrosse

G Platform:
Cadillac DTS/Buick Lucerne

Lambda:
Acadia/Traverse/Enclave/Outlook

Kappa:
Solstice/Sky

Premium RWD:
CTS
STS
SRX

"Cheap" RWD:
G8
Camaro

Sports car:
Corvette
XLR

Midsize FWD:
Malibu
G6
Aura
9-3

Outdated Fiat platform:
9-5

Small truck:
Canyon/Colorado/Isuzu I Series/H3

Compact SUV:
Equinox/Vue

Midsize SUV:
TrailBlazer/Ascender/Envoy/9-7x

Fullsize SUV:
Suburban/Tahoe/Yukon/XL/Escalade/ESV/H2

Fullsize Truck:
Silverado/Sierra/Escalade/Avalanche

Fullsize van:
Express/Savannah

Engines:

4 Cylinder car:
-Ecotec
-Aveo

V6 car:
-High Feature
-High Value
-Saab turbo motors (that date back to the early-1990s in some cases)

V8 car:
-LS
-Northstar
-LSA/LS9

Truck engines:
-Atlas 4/5/6
-4300 V6 (that dates back to 1985 or so)
-LS
-Duramax
-Oldie designs (carryovers from the 1990s or so)
-Vortec and MaxVortecs

The list is a little longer,


isn't it?

Yours is wrong.



Episilon

9-5, 9-3
Every GM car except the Lucerne, and Impala

Delta
GM has done good on this one. There isn't too many compact cars that are not on Delta.

GMDAT- Subcompact
Aveo/G3

Gamma - Subcompact
Why does the GMDAT one exist?

Zeta - RWD
All RWD's except the CTS and STS

Sigma - RWD
CTS and STS



GMT800 -

Tahoe, as well as the trucks

Isuzu D-Max platfrom
Colorado and Family

Engines-
Ecotec
GMDAT.........yet again. WHY?
LSX series
Northstar. Yet again. WHY?

Also, GM had a hand in developing the GM/Fiat premium platform.........and never used it. Seems like a waste of time and money. Only FIAT vehicles use that platform.

I just did some counting, and assuming that the full-size trucks are different enough from the SUVs to warrant a different platform designation, Nissan does in four basic platforms what GM does in 14 and GM doesn't even have a minivan anymore.  Does anyone else see a problem with this?

To be fair, these vehicles are based off one another.

Theta has Delta roots.

Kappa is a compilation of GM parts.

Gamma was Developed with FIAT.

You said it implicitly by saying that GM is fucked.
Also Chrysler dropped the ball on their minivans. The Pacifica was supposed to be using the same underpinnings as what would have been the next-gen of vans, then they just said fuck it to the Pacifica and gave their vans some weird Legoland styling and updated nothing, like GM did with theirs. They don't even bother advertising them now.

What are you talking about? The Chrysler minivans are more family-friendly than ever.

[Secret Chimp]

Meanwhile, true to form, Secret Chimp is wallowing in the peanut gallery, desperate for attention...

It's the internet, not 5th grade. Get over yourself.

[cozmik]

That's still above invoice, compared to below invoice for the average Big Three vehicle.

it wasn't uncommon to sell at or even below invoice, we had to let S2000s go at a couple grand below invoice. Accord, Pilots, etc, they got discounted heavily. Often to invoice or below. The only car we never really got below invoice with was the Civic, everything else was fair game, and that was when the new Civic just came out.


Also, the 9-5 is on an Opel platform, the one of the old Vectra (2 generations ago).

[Nethead]

Want some specifics about what's so bad about American cars?  Then check this  Popular Mechanics  article out and you'll be appalled--or you  should  be:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/reader_rides/4293188.html

[2o6]

Want some specifics about what's so bad about American cars?  Then check this  Popular Mechanics  article out and you'll be appalled--or you  should  be:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/reader_rides/4293188.html

Appalled? This is common knowledge. Besides, I don't think the Saturns should be up there. The J-body was a far worse car. The Saturns were charming, and had a loyal fan base, despite some nagging issues. It really was the ION that ruined Saturn's reputation. The ION was a dreadful car, the only redeeming part is the ION quad coupe redline. I also don't think the EV1 should be up there.......electric car technology was in it's infancy, and GM didn't have the means to keep it going. They did the right thing killing the project, it was too costly to keep it going. Even the Aztek wasn't a bad car. It's roomy, and Fuel-efficient for something so large. It's just ugly.

[the Teuton]

2o6, I am more right than you are.

Also, for the Saab turbo V6, if I'm not mistaken, it's still based on the 3.0 Opel unit that was used in the Catera.

[2o6]

2o6, I am more right than you are.

Also, for the Saab turbo V6, if I'm not mistaken, it's still based on the 3.0 Opel unit that was used in the Catera.

The 9-5 uses Opel Vectra parts.


Besides, you really think the Rogue is just a Sentra with larger suspension? No. There's a fair amount of engineering involved in that process. GM just gives their variants a name.


And you're both right. The one in the 9-5 is the Opel Omega unit, but the Turbo 9-3 is the GMHF V6.

[the Teuton]

So what's the point of keeping an aged old Fiat platform and a V6 no longer used in any other car for one low volume car?

I think now we're beginning to see some reasons for a GM mess.

[2o6]

So what's the point of keeping an aged old Fiat platform and a V6 no longer used in any other car for one low volume car?

I think now we're beginning to see some reasons for a GM mess.

Well, the 9-5 is on it's way out. But I do agree that it was wasteful to develop a platform then not use it on ANY car. Currently, only Alfa Brera and Alfa 159 are using it. There was supposed to be a Buick and some Saabs on it, but it never happened.

[the Teuton]

I think you're thinking of the premium FWD platform GM was supposed to use but then backed out of and subsequently paid Fiat $1 billion so that GM wouldn't have any more dealings with them.

This old platform dates back to 1989 with the Opel Calibra.

[MX793]

So what's the point of keeping an aged old Fiat platform and a V6 no longer used in any other car for one low volume car?

I think now we're beginning to see some reasons for a GM mess.

The 2.8L HFV6 is one of a family of engines.  In NA form, it was the base motor in the Caddy CTS.  IIRC, the 3.6L DOHC is a member of this engine family as well.

[2o6]

I think you're thinking of the premium FWD platform GM was supposed to use but then backed out of and subsequently paid Fiat $1 billion so that GM wouldn't have any more dealings with them.

This old platform dates back to 1989 with the Opel Calibra.

After some research, you're right.



However, it's not an old platform. It was mainly developed for Saab, but nothing ever formulated out of it. The Opel Calibra was using the GM 2900.

[S204STi]

Comparably.


Otherwise, they were not horrid. The 80's really did them in, as well as no work on their car lineup during the Mid 90's. There were a lot of good cars, but the minority usually has the loudest voice. The domestics had too many failures which has tarnished their reputation.

I've been told by people old enough to actually remember that the 80s weren't great for Japanese cars either, but the key difference is perception.  The Japanese carmakers basically went out of their way to make the customer happy, which gave them a good image.  Quality was more or less a wash at the time.  Fast forward to the 90s, the quality edge starts to go in favor of the Japanese automakers, who as already mentioned were much more resolute in improving their current vehicles rather than letting the platforms ride out to a bitter end 15 years after they should have canned them.  Now because of this pattern the Japanese are still far ahead of the domestics, who have to panic to catch up.

In terms of reliability, the very existence of japanese repair facilities tends to indicate that they break at least occasionally, does it not?  The Buicks I work on generally just have three endemic problem areas, but are otherwise long lasting vehicles.  GM trucks tend to be also very robust, if somewhat cheap on the inside.  The only brands I truly despise are Saturn, Pontiac, and certain Chevy vehicles.  The only redeeming vehicles from those branches are the new Aura, Malibu, G8, and Solstice/Sky.

[cozmik]

The 9-5 uses Opel Vectra parts.


Besides, you really think the Rogue is just a Sentra with larger suspension? No. There's a fair amount of engineering involved in that process. GM just gives their variants a name.


And you're both right. The one in the 9-5 is the Opel Omega unit, but the Turbo 9-3 is the GMHF V6.

To my knowledge Saab no longer uses the old 3.0 in the 9-5, in the US market it's only the 2.3 that's available now. The old 2.5 and 3.0 V6s were based on the Opel engines though, the 3.0's turbo being driven by only one bank of cylinders.

[NomisR]

Whatever happened to Chrysler cars anyways?  I remember when they came out with the retro boxy cars earlier this decade, they were considered to be decent cars and people actually bought them.  What happened with that now that all of their cars are POS and not worth buying?

[2o6]

Whatever happened to Chrysler cars anyways?  I remember when they came out with the retro boxy cars earlier this decade, they were considered to be decent cars and people actually bought them.  What happened with that now that all of their cars are POS and not worth buying?

Retro Boxy? The PT cruiser and the Neon were the only desirable products. The neon was replaced with the Crapliber, and the PT Is still decent, but compared to others it's shown it's age.