Ford Methods and the Ford shops

I can't wait until no cars at all are made in this country anymore. Most other places in the world, you can buy small heavy fuel-efficient trucks. Not here. The fleet is massively more fuel efficient everywhere else too. Ford, GM and Chrysler absolutely deserve to go out of business, and every US consumer will benefit.

Not everything about offshoring is bad. I love how people bitch about jobs going to Asia, typing the postings in on a low-priced computer that they can afford because it was made overseas.

GWE

rashid111 wrote:

On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:22:04 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, Grant Erwin quickly quoth:

Hey, it's the fickle American heart that causes the problem, Grant. The buyers drive the machine that builds 'em. Write to Ford, GM, and Chrysler with your concerns. With enough input, they'll test the waters. I'd love to have a little diesel pickup which could drag me around quickly and nimbly, carry a ton or better, get great mileage, and ride like a car (or my current '90 F-150 pickemup.) Oh, I want it cheap, too, and without a bloody -gray- colored interior, please.

Lose the Unions and we'll get better built cars for less money. Change the medical community and we'll all get cheap healthcare, too. Trim the legal community and everything will be friendlier, cheaper, and nicer. (POP, and then he woke up from the nice dream.)

Pop those on your New Year's Resolutions list, wot?

Nappy Hoo Year!

-- Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Turkey and Drive --

Which small heavy fuel-efficient trucks? Got particular makes and models you are interested in?

If these trucks of your dreams are made elsewhere why are they not imported here? We aren't bashfull about importing goods and exporting jobs.

If there is a viable US market wouldn't some firm be importing them for sale?

Wes S

On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:47:05 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, F. George McDuffee quickly quoth:

I disagree.

MUCH, MUCH more profitable to sell you that larger truck. If they get the request, they will percieve it as a potential buyer for a bigger truck, that needs more "marketing" If $500 worth of marketing will sell a truck for $20,000 more than a light cheap truck. Do it! To think otherwise is naive. Pete

That is why you can't buy a MB/Freightliner/Dodge Sprinter van for a decent price. No competition. There aren't any trucks made here that can make the mileage the Sprinter does. Advertised mileage in the Sprinter brochure ranges from 20-30 depending on model and load. You can't even buy a high top Chevy without going though the aftermarket. The only thing the Chevy dealer has is their $28,000 van is wider and has a few more horses. Advertised claims of mileage don't exist because over 3/4 ton it isn't required but real world for a Chevy with a Duramax seems to be 14- 15 loaded. Steve

As Henry Ford II said sometime in the late '50s or early '60s, "Small cars, small profits." Their system is geared toward making big margins per unit (which they no longer do) and a lack of competition for anything else (which they no longer have). That's oligopoly for you.

-- Ed Huntress

Marketing must explain why there are so many drivers around here that were duped into buying Expeditions when what they really wanted was a Ranger...

Look at the heavy trucks (over 12,000 Lbs GVW) around your area. You will see VERY few "big 3" makes. Volvo, International, Mitubishi Fuso, Mercedes (well, I guess they ARE in bed with Chrysler, now) and a host of other makes. Anything over a couple tons is predominantly not a big

But, many of those trucks, and a huge percentage of "foreign brand" cars ARE made in the US. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, etc. all have huge plants in the US.

Jon

Fuel cost is a BIG deal to the over-the-road truckers, which gobble huge amounts of fuel per hour at 60+ MPH. But, it must be a lot less important for delivery trucks. The only outfits that seem to take this seriously are UPS and Fed Ex, which design their own trucks. UPS runs Diesel-like engines on compressed natural gas. They are looking into hybrids for their next generation.

Jon

With the exception of the GMC/Isuzu Forward Control Cab-over chassis series. Unfortunately, not the best in class, although they were fuel efficient and fairly reliable.

Please define small and heavy and fuel efficient. I'm curious as to what numbers you chaps would put on these variables for trucks.

Mark Rand RTFM

=================== Better small cars and small profits than big cars and big losses...

This was not a "Pearl Harbor" as it took 30 or so years to get to this point.

Is it time to prohibit the MBA along with DDT, asbestos, lead, and Alar as a public health threat?

================== True but not correct.

In many cases Ford and GMC produce these vehicles in large numbers, but for the European/Asian market. A prime example is Diesel powered vehicles. Go to the Brit websites to see what is available.

All it takes is legislation by Congress that any vehicle that meets EEC emissions/safety requirements meets US emissions/safety requirements, including California, with a mandate to import.

You will however ride a flying pig to work before this happens.

I suspect that meeting EEC regulations will, in most cases, exceed US regulations. Particularly those relating to pedestrian/third party safety.

Mark Rand RTFM

Old ideas sometimes die hard. The US car industry carries such a monstrous burden of overhead that it may be true that they always have to chase the most profitable segments of the business and let the rest go. That's fine when oil is cheap and the economy is percolating along. But any monkey wrench can jam the gears of that machine.

Think about what it would take to revolutionize the US car industry. First they'd have to slough off the legacy of enormous retirement and health benefits -- which add an estimated $1500 to the cost of producing a car and which many foreign competitors escape entirely, often because their governments pick up the costs. Then you'd have to recover the costs of a lot of old plants. And so on.

The US car industry will have to be reborn. Maybe it can happen. Maybe not.

I think you're too inclined to blame MBAs when the real culprit is institutional stock holders, George.

-- Ed Huntress

Not on diesel particulates. That's the problem: US standards are tighter.

And the medical science supports them, as well as it supports the fact that higher concentrations of non-particulate diesel emissions are very risky, as well. If you search PubMed for "diesel particulates," you'll find nine pages of study references, quite a few from Europe. The science on it is quite solid. The politics of it is another matter.

-- Ed Huntress

Hmm. Are all the big trucks clean, burning their not-very-low-sulphur-diesel then?

I must admit that I was thinking more of safety standards rather than emissions standards.

Mark Rand RTFM