New Car Buyers

[MobilOne]

To continue the used cars: a 1962 Chevy II, 6 cyl, auto; a 1984 Olds Cutlass V6 (231cc) auto, 4 door; a 1979 Pinto, 4 cyl, auto; a 1982 Olds Delta 88, 307 V8, auto, 4 door sedan 1.56 rear end (special order Texas car); a 1992 Toyota Camry, 4 cyl, 5 speed, 4 door; a 1998 Toyota Camry, 4 cyl, auto, 4 door; a 2005 Toyota Camry, 4 cyl, auto, 4 door. And that's all the used cars that I can remember.

We still have the Avalon, the Chevy truck, the 92 Toyo Camry and the 2005 Camry. As you can see: lots of Toyotas and NO FORDS!

[MobilOne]

Now, would I order a car? If I couldn't find what I wanted on a dealer's lot at a price I wanted to pay, then I would. Does it cost more? Not necessarily; only if you pay more. Talk to the fleet sales mgr and have him add what you want to the next fleet order and get the fleet price. If one dealer won't do it; well, there is ALWAYS another dealer.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

You seriously think the reason the Japanese had better quality was the lack of options?

KISS. Or maybe Build one car, build it well.

Fewer option choices also changes the perception of your product- selling Good, Better and Best is better marketing than Who the Hell knows, I hope it's a good one. I know I'd feel better browsing used cars if all I needed to see is DX, LX or LXI instead of a whole paragraph.

[gone-ot]

Not speaking for anybody else's experiences, but I've found almost ALL dealerships today actually shun *helping* a customer order a car, they are FAR MORE interested in clearing something off their lot instead.

[redpoint5]

Yeah, I hope Tesla disrupts the automotive industry to the extent that privately owned car lots become the exception rather than the norm. I'd much rather have the manufacturer sell the cars and provide a consistent sales experience.

Car lots should have a few base models for people to familiarize themselves with the basics of the vehicle, with most sales being ordered to each individual. I guess most people wouldn't make the purchase if they couldn't get caught up in the excitement of an impulse purchase and the prospect of driving home in a new car the same day. We'd probably see mostly base model vehicles on the road in this case.

It's looking like Grandpa is pulling the trigger on that Colorado. He wants me to buy his 2003 Chevy S10 ZR2 for $5k, which seems a little high to me. It is in perfect condition with only 100k on the odometer, but I already have a 1998.5 Dodge / Cummins 2500 longbed for heavy hauling. Plus, I like my bench seats instead of the buckets in the Chevy. 3 people up front is more fun. I was thinking I might bite at $4k and try to sell my truck for the same price. It would be nice to have working AC, speedometer, odometer, cruise control, and fully attached windshield.

[mcrews]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Look at the JDM and you'll see they actually have lots of options. Anyway, their "kanban" management system is the most important factor that improved the quality of Jap products in general, not just the cars.

you didn't pay attention to my point.
Yes, the home market for imports had all kinds of options. Every see a stripped bmw? in Germany but not the US.

My point (as validated in college case studies and in DeLoreans book 'On a Clear day.....') is that the idea of 'ordering any option' created crap for a product. No consistence.
THe importers shipped loaded up 1 option cars for consistency and uniformity in manufacturing (what was to be sent overseas AND because it added profit. 1000 loaded models all built the same way was very efficient.

[mcrews]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

You seriously think the reason the Japanese had better quality was the lack of options?.

actually, yeah, I do. THe point I was making was that BECAUSE of all the options the US cars had very bad quality which made the import quality seem better by comparison. And gee oh I don't know but MAYBE making the same car the same way....MAYBE improved the quality just a little bit.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

It doesn't take all that much to configure assembly-line work to allow multiple options. I know computers aren't quite the same as cars, but I could (and did) order a laptop from a Chinese manufacturer, specifiying dozens of options, and have it assembled and delivered in a few days. And it's been working just fine for years.

the understatement of the year.


Do you realize the cost of the parts and the size for computers compared to the size of parts and cost for a car!!????

"Oh wait....stop the line, this one has a v6 instead of a v8.....let me just grab one out of this box......."

Read DeLorean's book, "on a clear day....." THe whole idea of 'ordering a car' almost destroyed GM.
THe assembly lines have to keep running EFFECIENTLY.
"It doesn't take all that much to configure assembly-line work to allow multiple options. " REALLY?? So how much bigger is the factory floor for your version.
maybe I'm gullable, but I bet that in the yr 2016, the manufacturers have a system pretty well figured out. THe really cant afford NOT to.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by mcrews

THe entire concept of manufacturing is to create an economy of scale that creates lower costs.
There is a 'repetitiveness' to the manufacturing that creates the same model w same options in a string. Then a different option package is run thru. This way, the workers do the same action without having to think.

Makes no practical difference what colour the dash board is, if it has NAV, upgraded audio, climate etc. The fit procedure will be largely the same save for maybe an extra connector. Manual seats/ electric seats? Just a connector. Cloth/ leather, no difference.

They'll also do option in groups 'today we're building manuals' - all the major assemblies preassembled individually and just plugged in on the assembly line. Sports suspension? The appropriate cradle is just plugged in. Of line, one team is busy building stock suspension cradles, another team is building sports suspension cradles. Makes no difference to efficiency in a modern factory.

This is what happen to GM during the 70s. There were sooo many individual options. everybody went in and 'ordered' their cars. Quality went to crap in a hand basket.
THen the Japanese and Germans starting shipping in cars with only 1 or 2 option packages and they had MUCH better quality than US manufactures.
I remember reading that a Camaro could be delivered 400 different ways!!!
the bmws and Mercedes only came 1 way. with everything. Maybe an option sunroof.

Nope, the decision for Euro brands to limit options is based on practicalities of building vehicles and shipping them vast distances. I special ordered a Renault in August, I'm still waiting. That's about the standard wait for a European vehicle in Australia, the US wouldn't be much different. Some brands prefer to pile on the options so orders can be filled from locally held stock nationwide (this does mean higher prices but also higher profits). That's what happened with my Jeep, came from the other side of the country in two weeks.

Do you know that certain European vehicles can be had in 1000's of combinations? Something as basic as a Ford Transit van has 450 models, five upholstery styles, dozens of options and 150 paint colours? That works out to something like 10,000 possibilities. Likewise Porsche will paint your car literally any colour you want, it's an extra $10k last I checked though. My guess is there isn't a European car today that can't be ordered at least 400 ways. Just because GM couldn't work it out in the 70's doesn't mean it can't be done.

I'll only ever buy Japanese cars used, anything else is too much of a risk of buying someone else's lemon. That and most used cars have a delightful aroma that's a mix of diesel fumes and puke.

[user removed]

The quality of Japanese cars was astounding when they first came into the US in decent quantities in the late 60s to early 70s. Detroit was riding a wave of arrogance and build quality. I worked in a Lincoln Mercury dealership when they first started importing Subarus in 1973.

I was the guy they got to fix all the squeaks and rattles, plenty of them in the Lincoln's and Mercurys, none in the Subarus. Doing bodywork at the time, I once saw a 68 Plymouth factory replacement fender that was built so shoddily that the recess for the front bumper was actually OUTSIDE the bumper when it was installed. I had to cut the inner construction out and reweld it in the right place.

You NEVER saw that kind of crap with Japanese made parts. When you replaced the fender on a Japanese car, the holes for the bolts lined up perfectly in the center of the hole in the car, everyone exactly the same. The same US fender you always had to grind some of the hole for it to even allow the bolt to be installed.

Once Detroit had it's arse handed to it on a platter, it still took until the 1990s for US made cars to improve considerably, probably mostly due to computer design.

I have seen holes drilled in engine blocks by frustrated workers, destroying their customers cars to spite the manufacturer. I will never forget that, an adversarial relationship so caustic, they succeeded in accelerating the rate of automation.

Today GM has 1/20th of the workers they had in 1955. Those jobs are gone forever.
Most of the GM cars I worked on included adjusting the door gaps where they were not twice as wide at the bottom as the top. You won't see that crap at Barrett Jackson, but on the lots full of new cars, in the early 1970s, you could not miss it.

One time the body shop manager got every bodyman to walk around a Plymouth and tell him what was wrong with it. On one side the rocker panel molding was there. The other side had not even a single stud that was welded on to hold the clips for the molding before the body was painted. My reward for being the only one to see the missing molding was to install a new one, for the .3 hour warranty allowed.

Don't even get me going on Vegas, the engines cylinder walls sank in the block because owners immediately changed their antifreeze to Prestone, within a month of buying the car. 40 engine a month replaced on 3 month old cars, or the Buick that came in from New York, produced 6 months earlier, with a rust hole in the fender 6 inches in diameter.

regards
mech

[MobilOne]

Mech is right; GM, Ford, and Chrysler caused all of their own problems. I worked in Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint in 1960. We Built Buick sedans and Chevy wagons. The guys I worked with tried to build the best car they could.

Maybe DeLorean wasn't a very good manufacturing manager. He was an auto designer wasn't he? Was he also an engineer? I don't remember. I have not read his book. My experience is that failed entrepreneurs write books to put the blame for their failure on someone else.