...I just started working at the local GM dealer as a tech. No more rally car building for me, but it's 10 minutes from home instead of an hour and a half, and they pay about twice as much.

cus mr goodwrench knows...its not just a car its a freedom

my brother is mr. goodwrench.
after building rally cars, you're going to be bored to fucking tears.

My fiancee's uncle was a mr goodwrench, they fired him and all of the other senior techs after 18 years with no cause just last month. i know every dealership is different, but you may not even have a job in two months if GM goes bankrupt.

Skelly and i were talking about this last night. I think the government is going to let the Not So Big Three Anymore fail... why? I think by letting them fail, they will no longer be obligated to adhere to the UAW contracts in place. That will allow these companies to shirk their legacy costs and restructure more along the lines of the Japanese companies with respects to labor.

I do not foresee the Big Three being allowed to disappear completely. There are too many jobs tied to the auto industry for that. What does, however, piss me off about the entire thing is the way that americans embrace imports when they don't realize that our cars are not allowed the same freedoms in their foreign markets. It's definitely skewed the playing field a might.

Second of all, so many people are blasting the auto industry for building trucks and SUV's for this long, knowing that fuel was finite. If you were in command of one of these companies and these products were keeping your balance sheet in the black, you're fucking right they'd keep rolling out the door.

Like I said, Skelly and I were gabbing about this and one thing that should be pointed out was that both Ford Motor Company and General Motors' turnaround programs were showing promising results. New product that was in step with new public demand were coming on line, their restructuring was working. Along comes the credit crisis and BANG! You can't sell a car to someone who can't get credit, no can you? Hence, nothing is selling. No sales, no money, no auto industry. It does warm my heart that the foreign competitors are suffering as well.

I have to agree. however i do agreee with Michael Moore, on certain things.

http://www.youtube...atch?v=j0bbOZ-nkJs

It hopefully will make several things better, not just the environment.

Posted by atomx I have to agree. however i do agreee with Michael Moore, on certain things. http://www.youtube...atch?v=j0bbOZ-nkJs It hopefully will make several things better, not just the environment.

i do agree on some his points, however, as I stated before, GM was starting to go in a direction where their cars were selling. I'll give you a case in point; The Chevy Cobalt/Pontiac Pursuit-G5 was one of the most consumer researched cars ever built by GM. A huge portion of the development budget were consumer clinics. What do you like? What don't you like? What can we do different to make you buy this car? Seriously. I think it was Autoweek or Car & Driver that did a pretty good piece on how GM was designing and building cars in 21st Century.

Another thing that I find to be a bite in the ass are these import-centric magazines that praise and preach nothing but IMPORT IMPORT IMPORT! When in reality, the import companies are starting to become victims of their own success. Regardless of the advertising hoopla, Toyota's are not as reliable as one is led to believe. Ditto with Honda.

In all honesty, though, that was not the case even five or six years ago. I just hate to see GM and Ford go into receivership... America invented the auto industry. I mean, the old saying that many of you I'm sure have never heard was "See the USA from your new Chevrolet." It wasn't '...from your new Honda' or 'Toyota'.

samurai, i have to agree, ford and GM were working on a rebound compared to chrysler who seems to only be interested in building huge boats

Posted by nostra-YOUPPI! samurai, i have to agree, ford and GM were working on a rebound compared to chrysler who seems to only be interested in building huge boats

Daimler was the worst thing to happen to Chrysler... EVER!
it was coming out shortly before all this transpired that Daimler approved questionable quality measures and approved designs that they knew where not going to sell, just to save money at the front end of the process. Now, here's Chrysler on the brink of immolation peddling cars that they couldn't even sell to a rental fleet!

What was doubly funny was that despite the easy profits of selling TO a rental company, both Ford and GM were shying away from them due to the fact that it devalued their models values. Duh. NOW they find that out!

Posted by Samurai Now, here's Chrysler on the brink of immolation peddling cars that they couldn't even sell to a rental fleet!

They call that the "Caliber"... by far, the biggest shitbox I have EVER driven in my life. Good god what an appalling vehicle.

Posted by bandi They call that the "Caliber"... by far, the biggest shitbox I have EVER driven in my life. Good god what an appalling vehicle.

I hate to be a brand fanboy, but I drove the Caliber, the Sebring, the Challenger and Avenger with my mom before she settled on the Pontiac G6 sedan and the whole time I was thinking to myself, "How the fuck can they seriously expect anyone to BUY these fucking things?"

they were horrible. I mean, when you tell someone that you can't believe they replaced the Neon with THAT unholy abortion of a car, that is saying something. Every Chrysler/Dodge I have seen here, especially the Avenger and Caliber, are having electrical problems up the ass. Owners are pissed off because they are getting equipment violation tickets left and right for blown headlights, blown brake lights, blown tailights... and these are NEW cars! Dodge Nitro owners, and their clones, are having a wonderful time with their transmission and all-wheel drive units... they vibrate, lockup, or generally just fucking fail. A garage here was playing a game with a cousin of mine... she bought a brand new Nitro and had nothing but problems with the transmission since day one. Always, the transmission. The garage kept writing each warranty service visit as something a little different so they couldn't lemon law it. Finally, she got so pissed off, she took the loss and bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT that 1)she has a hell of a time driving in the snow and 2) is so upside down in she'll have it paid off around the time I apply for social security!

again... think Ford and GM suck? Drive a Chrysler!

As a Mopar guy, I do have to say that DB broke a lot of promises and never did understand the American car market (sounds like the Renault-AMC merger ha) A good example of this is the Jeep Liberty which was to be actually an Jeep TJ with an IFS system and 4 doors but because the DalmlerChrylser management freaked out at the reviews of the Toyota RAV4 which was described as "cute" by many car magazines they wanted to go in that direction instead but forgetting that their research said that customers wanted an IFS Jeep!

Samarui mentioned the Dodge Caliper and Nitro with its infamous electrial system. My understanding this is the bastard child of Dalmler's idea of letting their engineers meddle in American cars by adding a Mercedes-Benz electrical system which lets just say don't scale well. I've met a few Mopar Engineers (friends of my grandfather actually) who always made comments such as that when they were forced by the Board to work with Mercedes engineers on cars. Oh and Samarui, you would love these guys as they have BOAT LOADS of Ford jokes! The transmission I think on those two cards two are from Mercedes-Benz so that might explain it to.

The only German automaker I think that even understands the American market is VW but thats because they were the pioneer in that regard way back in 1955.

In the that same conversation with Samarui, we also mentioned what GM could do to save itself. GM needs to shed divisions. GMC should become fleet/commerical sales only. Saturn should go away since it no longer has the chance it had in the 90s. Chevy of course needs to stick around along with Cadillac and Buick. Hummer should be sold to Chrysler who will intergrate it back into the Jeep line where it belongs (Hey, I am an AMC purist!) Ponitac? well, I can't tell the difference between Chevy and them, so it needs to go. GM should though create a new division to make "green cars" so it can compete on the same level as Toyota with the Prius. Ideally, I could see GM forming a partnership with Tesla Motors to allow them to market and manufacture Tesla-designed electric vehicles. SAAB could be sold off as well.

Ford however pretty much needs to sell Vovlo and dump Mercury and get rid of their entire R&D group for people with brains.

Chrysler I think needs to bring back Plymouth (which I hear they just might).

Posted by Samurai What does, however, piss me off about the entire thing is the way that americans embrace imports when they don't realize that our cars are not allowed the same freedoms in their foreign markets. It's definitely skewed the playing field a might.

My parents live in Costa Rica, which is in Central America. They love american cars, but the american trade laws make it so that they are unaffordable. therefore nobody opens a dealership. it's a country that is only 1,000 miles away from the USA, yet when i am there, i see nothing but Citroens, Peugots, and all manner of Japanese Car (they still have brand new Isuzu's there) it's not that they don't want an american car, it's that the wonderful export taxes make it so that no-one can afford them. i'm sure it's not the same case everywhere in the world. but with 5,000,000 people who want american cars, but can't get them, you'd think that the US Government would have it's priorities straight

(sidenote, earlier this year Costa rica, and USA entered into a free trade agreement, so this may change with some time)

a place i find funny is the french islands of st-pierre et miquelon. the government vehicules are mostly french but the people living there mostly have american cars for personal use. architecturally iits the same, very north american for houses but government buildings look straight out of europe

Posted by SoNaive My parents live in Costa Rica, which is in Central America. They love american cars, but the american trade laws make it so that they are unaffordable. therefore nobody opens a dealership. it's a country that is only 1,000 miles away from the USA, yet when i am there, i see nothing but Citroens, Peugots, and all manner of Japanese Car (they still have brand new Isuzu's there) it's not that they don't want an american car, it's that the wonderful export taxes make it so that no-one can afford them. i'm sure it's not the same case everywhere in the world. but with 5,000,000 people who want american cars, but can't get them, you'd think that the US Government would have it's priorities straight (sidenote, earlier this year Costa rica, and USA entered into a free trade agreement, so this may change with some time)

i didn't know that about Central America... i was more talking about the American vs Japanese trade discrepancy.

Posted by Samurai i didn't know that about Central America... i was more talking about the American vs Japanese trade discrepancy.

I can only think of one Chevy that GM Japan sells...the Corvette.

Posted by Agent Skelly I can only think of one Chevy that GM Japan sells...the Corvette.

in the past, any high volume Chevrolet that was to be sold in Asia/Japan was never sold as a Chevrolet. Case in point? The Cavalier was sold in the late 90's/early 2000's as a Toyota Cavalier... in fact, the Toyota Cavalier conversion is a dream modification by the J-body community.

I did NOT know that!
I just googled the Toyota Cavalier... that's so disappointing!

I mean... yeah, J bodies are tough little cars, but not without having their problems (front wheel bearings at every oil change, purge solenoids, strut bearings, etc...)



We just got a G6 GXP in at the dealership. The lines are a bit odd but it's kind of a cool car... that thing must haul ass with a 3.6 liter V6 in it.

bandi, i love my 3.8 v6, thats a car!

Posted by bandi I did NOT know that! I just googled the Toyota Cavalier... that's so disappointing! I mean... yeah, J bodies are tough little cars, but not without having their problems (front wheel bearings at every oil change, purge solenoids, strut bearings, etc...) We just got a G6 GXP in at the dealership. The lines are a bit odd but it's kind of a cool car... that thing must haul ass with a 3.6 liter V6 in it.

see, i never really had the whole bearing problem, or the purge solenoid problem, but yeah, the strut bearing thing got a little old. You want to know what quieted that down? When i put the strut bar in the front.

My mother just bought (well, in April) a leftover 2007 G6 sedan with the 2.4L VVT engine... it's a nice little car, but it is the Value Leader package which means 4 cylinder, hubcaps, no frills and NO CRUISE. She loves it, but on the highway, I hate driving it. Even my winter beater Lumina has cruise that works!

the 3.6L is going to be a motor that GM is going to aggressively push, like the 60-degree series. It's a mean little shit. I'd like to see how it drove with a standard transmission behind it rather than the manumatic