Saving GM

So, can these cars get GM back on track?

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0808/gallery.gm_future_product/index.html

David S. Wallens wrote: So, can these cars get GM back on track? http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0808/gallery.gm_future_product/index.html

I think it would go a long way in saving GM. I think the Chevy (Trax), Hummer and Saturn versions are the most interesting to me. I don't know why it always takes having the Domestic manufacturers backs up against the wall before they consider bringing something cool to the market. Ford is finally going to bring the European models over, GM with these....things may be looking up.

I'll tell you what would save GM.

1. Bankruptcy.

2. Get rid of the UAW, all of the upper management and most of the engineers. Get rid of all of the sub-brands and rebadged lookalikes.

3. Acquisition by a more progressive car company.

4. Don't sell crap. Even though they have made great strides, it just takes one crappy knob or BS styling feature (like the plasti-chrome stripe across most of the current Chevys and Buicks,) to ruin an otherwise good car.

5. After all of this, a completely new lineup. Admit that your old stuff was crap, and spend a billion dollars on marketing about how everything is new and nothing that they sell is crap, even if it is inexpensive.

maybe.. I think they're on the right track... just way behind the 8 ball

Some interesting notes from an MBA... (atleast crap that they told me that made an impression, trust me it's earth shattering..)

1. its about the products, always. without new, innovative and constantly developed products you will lose.
2. its better to go forward than fix stuff.

Gm wasted valuable top talent resources shedding legacy costs. Yes it should have been done, but it seems like they did it at the expense of the products. Almost like they thought that if they could save some money they could continue going along at the same pace.. Very odd strategies at work.

The quality has definitely improved. The problem is that they have to atone for past sins.

I'm 30. When I was 16 and starting to drive, my friends and I bought or inherited 5-10 year old Chevys. That's right...the decade and a half of crap that was GM in the 80-90's is what my generation was forced to deal with. Brand image was established, and it lasts forever.

Now I'm in the prime new car buyer demographic...and I won't touch GM. Even if I "know" they have improved. Why take the chance?

That's why they need to stop trying to rebuild their image, and completely tear it down and start over.

ignorant wrote: Gm wasted valuable top talent resources shedding legacy costs. Yes it should have been done, but it seems like they did it at the expense of the products. Almost like they thought that if they could save some money they could continue going along at the same pace.. Very odd strategies at work.

Sounds to me like a compensation plan that rewards management for anything that improves the short-term financial situation. This kind of ADD/manic culture is increasingly common in corporate America today. Rather than working toward a common goal, management is rewarded for making that next quarterly report look good.

Here's how you fix GM, and it requires a complete change in the way they think about the product they produce. Instead of building the crappiest car you think people will still buy, build the best car you can at that price point. Stop trying to make us think you build a better car and just berkeleying build a better car. If it's really better than the competition people will buy it.

Just like Ford's new marketing thing, "our cars are as good as a Toyota". So what. Toyota's are still as good as a Toyota too. You need to be able to say "our cars totally blow a Toyota out of the berkeleying water!!!!"

skruffy wrote: Just like Ford's new marketing thing, "our cars are as good as a Toyota". So what. Toyota's are still as good as a Toyota too. You need to be able to say "our cars totally blow a Toyota out of the berkeleying water!!!!"

correct its about the product

They have been ruled by bean counters instead of car people for too long. On top of that letting UAW crap make their manufacturing operations inefficient killed the profits.

Answer? Sell to Honda!

Wow. GM is not getting much love on this board. I tend to agree.

to see how GM is messing up, all you need do is look at Saab. Once they were an independant that really did not have the money to tool up for new models more than once a decade or so. Even then, their new models were never that different from their old.. just better in all the right areas.

Once GM took over, they still only introduced a new model once a decade. They were still evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and all was good.

Then the bean counters decided to turn Saab into a BMW fighter. This meant they had to give up on their core buyers (who had kept Saab solvent for decades) and go more "mainstream" this meant that the 900/9-3 and the 9000/9-5 were soon joined by the 9-2 and the 9-7. Sorry, but neither of those are saabs. They are rebadged cars from the GM family... and not even the best of what they could have rebadged.

So Saab lost their core demographic and failed to gain a new following.. way to go GM.

The only place GM seems to be doing it right.. Saturn. Here in the States Opel still has a tarnished image (from those that remember them) but by rebadging them as Saturns, they have compleatly remade their image and turned Saturn into that "import fighter" it was supposed to be from the beginning.

My dad is a died-in-the-wool GM man. This, despite the fact that his '05 DeVille is on it's THIRD engine!

I was right there with him until 1979, when the '80 Citation came out. Ugh.

GM actually has a model out right now that I like, at least in terms of looks and design theory. If it was a Toyota, I'd probably buy one. But it's a GM, and no matter how much I like it, I won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

For the record, the model I like is the HHR Panel truck.

Looking at the gallery, I'd say GM is lost, really lost. With the exception of one concept car, the Opel, it look like more of the recycled crap they've been selling for years... too big, too square (shapewise that is), too ugly and too few MPG. When are they going to look at the cars that do sell and not make excuses why they can't make and sell a small car at a profit.

Rick Wagoner (I think that was who it was) was on the news the other day, talking about GM's future and specifically the Volt. What he said just blew me away. He said, "we are going to take the automotive industry to the next plateau".

The next plateau. You gotta love it. Its like, yeah, we're going to rush the Volt to production and get things static again at the next plateau, and then start cranking out malaise-y junk for quite a while, while we're on that new plateau. If I were his boss, I'd fire him.

Evan_R wrote: My dad is a died-in-the-wool GM man. This, despite the fact that his '05 DeVille is on it's THIRD engine!

sound like my friends F-I-L. He is a salesman at a GM dealer. The first time I meet him he asked me what I thaught about GM's. Without missing a beat, I responded that they were loads of E36 M3. THEN, I found out about his job...

Anyhoo... Take one look at the dodge line up, is it really any better? I hate to say it, being raised a mopar fan, I feel at this point in time, Chevy has a better line up. For Chrysler, I am still waiting for the Cerberus Group to improve things. IMO, ford is currently the strongest domestic.

mattmacklind wrote: Rick Wagoner (I think that was who it was) was on the news the other day, talking about GM's future and specifically the Volt. What he said just blew me away. He said, "we are going to take the automotive industry to the next plateau". The next plateau. You gotta love it. Its like, yeah, we're going to rush the Volt to production and get things static again at the next plateau, and then start cranking out malaise-y junk for quite a while, while we're on that new plateau. If I were his boss, I'd fire him.

I'm really starting to hate all those business school "buzzwords". It started with "awesome", "extreme" and has moved on to "the next level", " the next plateau", "achieving synergy" and so on. All this babble to say nothing.

GM has been losing billions per year while staying in business. Is the "next plateau" to lose billions per month and not go out of business?

While achieving the "next plateau" may be a buzzword, I think that it says ALOT, not just about GM...but about many American companies. I doubt Honda or Toyota are looking for the next plateau....in Toyota's case they are shooting for world domination, or to be nicer, they want to envelope the world in Toyotas and Lexuses and Scions.

And Mad_Machine....Saab was trying to position itself as a "BMW fighter" BEFORE GM bought them. The "quirky little Swedish car company" that stayed with their roots for years after GM bought them has been pushed by beancounters towards profitability by taking on badge engineered cars and (horror of horrors) trucks and SUVs. Volvo "gave up" on the idea it could survive with just 1 or 2 sedans and wagons with RWD and decided it needed to grow into other segments. It's a shame that Saab never thought to offer something like their new all-wheel drive cars, until now. I agree, GM is killing the SAABNESS of Saab, but their cash is keeping Saab alive.

I hope GM makes it through their latest crisis, but I fear that they still "don't get it". They need to FINALLY get to the front of a "curve" instead of always (seeming?) to be FAR BEHIND the curve. A company as big as GM shouldn't, for example, be among the LAST to bring a hybrid car to market.

Evan_R wrote: For the record, the model I like is the HHR Panel truck.

I've driven several, often (but not only) as rentals..

it's a turd, IMHO. Looks cool, no doubt, but an absolute turd to drive.

Sometimes I'm amazed this is actually a motorsports board. GM has the Corvette, Solstice, Impalla SS, G8, CTSV, etc. Toyota and Honda have a lot of absolutely boring cars with the S2000 as the only exeption. We bought a new Solstice GXP for my Wife in late 2006. It has 260HP, handles great, and is dead reliable. She had an Audi Cabriolet previous to the Solstice and the Audi was quite a bit of trouble to say the least. We've owned all kinds of cars.....American, German, Japanese and curently own a mix of American and German cars and Japanese motorcycles. The General is turning out some sweet cars these days.

Cotton wrote: Sometimes I'm amazed this is actually a motorsports board. GM has the Corvette, Solstice, Impalla SS, G8, CTSV, etc. Toyota and Honda have a lot of absolutely boring cars with the S2000 as the only exeption. We bought a new Solstice GXP for my Wife in late 2006. It has 260HP, handles great, and is dead reliable. She had an Audi Cabriolet previous to the Solstice and the Audi was quite a bit of trouble to say the least. We've owned all kinds of cars.....American, German, Japanese and curently own a mix of American and German cars and Japanese motorcycles. The General is turning out some sweet cars these days.

Yeah, there are a lot of "haters" here that think it makes them look cool to hate on GM for some reason. Pretty lame in my oppinion.

The reality is that GM products are no worse than most others out there and they produce some really exceptionaly cool cars as well.

This turd kinda sums up my feelings of GM products

Ewww....

I've got two extreme GM opinions from this weekend alone.

First, I went car shopping with my sister-in-law to replace her '97 Camry. We looked at about a dozen or more cars including GM, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, and Honda. Side by side, there is no comparison. The GM, mainly the new Malibu, drove acceptable and was nice looking, but materials and fit and finish leave something to be desired when you have a Camry and Altima side by side with it.

And for the same money, it makes the GM choice tough. The problem is with their overhead. When you start in such a hole money-wise, it's tough to compete, and unfortunately a place where you have to cut costs is in materials, and it shows. Cleaning up the UAW crap would certainly help, but they have a LONG way to go make up for this. Still it was a nice car.

In the end, she went with the Altima as it was by far the best driving car of the bunch, and the sportiest of the mid size sedans. That is was almost the cheapest also helped, even lower priced than the Malibu in comparable trim. And dealers, don't even get me started on how crappy the local Chevy dealer is.

Other extreme. I picked up another '85 MR2 this weekend, and borrowed a friend's turbo diesel, quad cab dually to go get it. 400 miles later, I was very impressed with what GM had done with this truck. It was quiet, relatively speaking, pulled great, and had much better road manners than the last comparable Ford I had driven. The difference in steering was amazing compared to the F series. The fit and finish was also excellent. If GM could turn out similar small cars, they would be in much better shape! it left me with a very good impression.

Two extremes, its easy to see what the General does best, and why the economy is killing them.

Why save it? If they can't "fix it" by now, they need to go away.

Sucks , that we will loose the option , and the Z-06... but the free market will settle it all

What y'all are missing about the 'boring cars': that's what the vast majority want. They will trade excitement for reliability, comfort, reliability, a small amount of style, reliability, decent gas mileage, reliability and some luggage space.

Did I mention they want reliability? The average person views the breakdown of a car, even something so simple as a flat tire, as one of the worst things that can happen. They simply aren't equipped to deal with that type of thing. When they turn the key and nothing happens or a funky noise occurs, to the vast majority that's a lot like a dentist visit only more painful.

Here's the thing: Honda and Toyota crank out zillions of boringly reliable cars. That's what the vast majority want and that's why those two are ripping the Big 3 a new one.

ditchdigger wrote: This turd kinda sums up my feelings of GM products Ewww....

I HATE those damn things with a passion... replaced one in my Tahoe, what a PITA... all because the flasher button cracked