Hot Asian Cars, Designed In Detroit

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_41/b4004058.htm?chan=sear
ch

Hot Asian Cars, Designed In Detroit
Toyota and others are hiring as Motown fast becomes an engineering mecca

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Sounds like paid-for spin from Toyota Motor to me. The sales figures
of the "old" Tundra are dismal, Nissan's Frontier even worse, and
Honda's Ridgeline are non-existant. When Toyota started slapping "1
Ton" stickers on the back of their minitrucks in the '90s and the
frames started breaking in half, they got a VERY bad reputation among
big truck buyers, and that's likely to hang around for quite awhile,
much like the Big 3 have been having big trouble trying to shake their
reputation for crappy cars. Like the heavy equipment market that they
tried to take over in the '90s, Japan Inc. will only get so much
incursion into the Big 3's truck market, for a variety of reasons.
Sloppy designs (a la Chevy) and bad reliability could change that over
time, however.

 

GM, Ford and Dodge still far out sell any of the Jap trucks. When it comes
to trucks, import brands are an also ran no matter where they are designed



mike

 

Sales figures for all Japanese "full sized" trucks bear this out.
They've tried three times now to crack the US full sized truck market,
with little success. The Nissan Frontier project hasn't even covered
its design costs yet, per Auto Week. I expect that one to be yanked
probably next model year.

 

DESERTBOB (not its real name) is a troll.
It regularly frequents at least twenty news groups,
including many rabid/sex/racist/liberal idiot/wannabee mechanic groups.

Normally, it starts off with reasonable, even witty lines,
but rapidly drifts into lies, abuse and stupidity.
Check its details at Google Groups at this URL:

http://groups.google.com/groups/pro...YFW4KG3QbhQogR222h-kUg4S0n7nbF1Te82ZIng&hl=en

See it's pathetic picture and myspace page at this URL- as it searches
for companionship at age 50- looks like a quart of oil for the car in
that hair...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=30321125

It had 2 Ebay usernames, both banned due to abuse, auction
interference, and harassment- they were VOXPOPPER and XCALIBER44- see
them here- search history of VOXPOPPER to see how it left (8) negative
feedbacks for a seller, for items that cost only a penny each !

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=voxpopper

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=xcaliber44


It is a sad creature, deserving of pity, not anger.
Any direct response simply feeds it,
but it will go away if you ignore it.

 

The redesigned Tundra, with telescoping rearview mirrors and a center

Alas, Toyota seems to be the teflon® auto company...any criticism just
seems to slide right off. How many articles in the press do you see
where they sound like they were written by Toyota's marketing dept?
Agreed, their trucks are wimpy, but their cars are no great shakes
either and look at the adulation they receive in the media.

 

Astute observation, and correct.

....and the "sheeple" fall for it every time. Although no one to my
knowledge has compiled the total receipts paid by Toyota USA to ad
agencies and the media, just a cursory glance at any TV outlet or
newspaper for years tells me that they've been outspending Ford, GM
and even DC probably by 3 to 1 or more, and have been giving lots of
"under-the-table" graft to writers of such manufacturer's rags as
"Motor Trend" and others.

The fact is Toyota's product a no better than the competition, but
huge sums of money spent on "spin" and massive ad campaigns make for
good sales. They're also quite adept at buying off pissed off buyers
whose trucks break in half or engines blow up. I know a guy who had
one of Toy's lousy "1 tons" do just that...break in half right behind
the cab. He put the thing on a flatbed and paraded all around Los
Angeles County, painted with "Toyota Quality...NOT!" and "Ohhh, what a
FEELING!" after he got jacked around by Toyota after they skilfully
outmaneuvered the state's "lemon law." After a week of that, Toyota
USA offered him any new Toyota vehicle of his choice or $25K cash, if
he'd just "go away." When's the last time you heard of any of the Big
3 doing that to buy off a wronged customer? Never.

Latest Toyota headache: exploding Lexus V8s in their "Tundra" trucks
when towing loads. One up here scattered engine parts all over the
road, similar to what Cadillac's first HT4100s did when new.

 

In 2001, Jesse Jackson did his signature deep-pockets corporate
"diversity and inclusion" blackmail routine to the tune of $7.8 billion
on Toyota
(http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstr...rence/Times Topics/People/J/Jackson, Jesse L.).


Perhaps that has had some "hidden hand" part in overly-favorable Toyota
press?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Not such a bad thing. If GM would have fixed my heated seat, (2 years but
over 36k miles) I'd be driving a Lucerne instead of a Sonata. That was the
start of a downhill slide with things breaking so after at least 12 GM cars
in a row, I went elsewhere.

 

I cannot speak to the Lucerne, but I got stuck with a '93 "Le
Slobber," easily one of the worst built cars I've ever owned, and I
dumped it post haste. Major gripes: crappy molded door panels whose
cheap fasteners would break off in normal use, the usual
self-destructing T60E transaxle, mediocre ride, handling, power and
economy, general "cheesy" feel to the car. This sled, with a Buick
231 V6, got worse mileage than my old fave, the M-body with a 318, AND
had about the same power...amazing, really, considering the Buick had
a far superior ECM package, FWD and MPFI, while the dear old Chrysler
5th Avenue has RWD, the usual "computer in the air cleaner" and a
Holley 2 bbl. carb.

I note Buick's really trying to "spin" the quality image with their
Lucerne ad campaign, but I see precious few of them on the road, and
the ones I do see are driven by oldsters who have probably been buying
Buicks since their '56 Roadmaster.

 

One reason Buick change the names of their cars was to attract new, younger
buyers.

My first GM car was a '62 Corvair. I'd probably buy another if they still
made them. It was a Monza with comfy bucket seats and was fun to drive with
the larger sized tires I put on it. Got me home reliably, even in a
blizzard. I later had two, yes, two, Pontiac Tempest with the half a V-8
and flex shaft transaxle.

 

Just don't spin any doughnuts with it.

Corvairs, like VWs in the same era, had it all over RWD/front engine
cars for drive wheel traction.

The 2 speed auto? Those 194s were torque monsters for a 4 banger! Too
bad half its output was wasted in that horrible transmission.

 

I hear so much negative here and at GM on Toyota, I feel I should buy
one and form my own opinion.
Such an increasing number of people buy Toyotas and keep them so long,
there must be a few good Toyotas sold.
<

 

The last GM product I had was a long '71 Van.
Basically solid, but several components I won't go into detail on were
what I'd call a "Micky Mouse" design.
I left GM after that and oh my how long it took for GM to start it's
downward spiral.

Previous to the Van I had a '63 6 cyl Chev II. It also was basically
solid, but had some quality & design weaknesses.
-Valve rocker bearings failed many times before a permanent fix. I felt
like I was part of the GM test group.
-Leak in the body into the trunk.
-front brakes seriously affected by water, pulled car abruptly to either
side; dangerous to drive in wet weather.

I also had a '70 Datsun 510. It was well designed, but suffered from a
dealer who was just learning it and a body that rusted in rain faster
than bare steel.

Then switched to Chrysler in '79, much better design and quality than
GM. Improved significantly from '79 to '01- our new car yrs.
Also very responsive to THEIR problems, until DC took over.
Now Chrysler have become very evasive and expensive for service and
have given up building efficient easy to repair vehicles.
The Caliper may be a return to Chrysler's better past, but just a bit
too small for me.

 

It suits them. Not me I'm only 72!
Column shift and soft suspension I left back in the 50s, when I went
European, but never would have bought one of those ugly dumb port hole
monsters anyway.

 

So true.
I had a VW that went anywhere with summer tires, but stopped solid when
deep snow piled up under it. That was always in my driveway.
The Corvair interested me, but early quality problems delayed me buying
one, then Nader killed it.
The Corvair was just another example of GM not fully developing a car
before putting it on the market. Perhaps they did the best they could,
but I'm not one to buy a car that is obviously under developed.

 

I never found anything that as under developed about it. Nader can kiss my
ass because it handled better than anything else I drove at that time.

 

....as IF they didn't have enough time! Hell, the pancake 6 engine was
first developed in 1936! The problem with GM (even to this day) is a
very long, drawnout administrative process to get a new model to
market, with too much time being spent on real engineering and
testing. Yes, Nader killed the Corvair for its handling faults (which
were truly dangerous to the unskilled driver,) but the Corvair also
had other problems that GM simply refused to address once the line was
on the market.

 

Don't forget the purposely ineffecient DynaFlush tranmission,
engineered to yield miserable gas mileage "to keep the oil companies
happy," as stated by Buick Division's then president. When you look
at the entire GM line for '55, Buick surely had the stodgiest styling
of them all, especially when compared to the edgier Pontiac and Olds
offerings. They knew who they were targeting....richer, upscale
conservative men like bankers who were too "humble" to go for a
Cadillac, a far better car mechanically.

I think the "fat cat" styling of the Buick had a large part in the
decision by the California Highway Patrol to go with their 'Century in
a Special body' in '55 over the more efficient and more powerful Olds
Super 88. That, and the CHP had experienced bad oil sludging and
stuck lifters in '54 with their previous Olds fleet, a problem cured
by switching to Texaco Havoline in mid-'54. But the cost to the
taxpayers was considerable, when you figure the Olds 88 got 20 MPG
average in road patrol service, while the Buick barely got 10! I'm
sure Standard Oil of California, who had the CHP fuel contract for
decades (and a named co-conspirator in several anti-trust actions with
GM), was most grateful for the Buicks.

After the Buicks, the CHP went with Dodge Division, and never went
back to GM again until 1967, when Ronnie RayGun's graft-filled
administration forced the CHP to buy a fleet of short-lived Olds
Delmonts and then some '69 Merc Marquis 428s. Both were disasters in
regular beat service and were quickly retired, replaced by more Dodges
in mid-year orders. Both GM and Ford, it should be noted, were also
huge Republican Party donors, while Chrysler was not. After an exposé
in the Sacramento Bee about RayGun's handlers "guiding" CHP fleet
purchasing to Ford and GM, the graft stopped, and there were no more
non-Chrysler patrol cars until the end of the M-bodies. The City of
Los Angeles wouldn't even invite bids from GM and Ford, and never
bought anything but Chrysler products for many years. The only thing
that upset that long-lived relationship was AMC, who had pleaded with
the LAPD to try their Matadors in LAPD beat service, where they were
quite successful. The city also went to AMC after the '74 oil embargo
for economy cars, and the fleet of LA City Hornets proved AMC could
build a relaible, economical car.

 

You hit the nail on one of GM's big problems.
They put out new models with problems, then are far to slow to correct
those problems, if they ever do. Chrysler smokes GM in that regard.

GM is just a big slow moving company. It must be very frustrating to be
a creative designer there.