The right thing to do is the more painful thing to do upfront. But if we fix the system we wont be here again in another 15-20 years.
Edit: I back everything Silver Ecstasy says, and want him to help me lead an angry mob to burn down the headquarters of GM and Chrysler.
The worst part about this entire situation is...
No one really knows, or realizes any of this. They only see it (atleast in the metro Detroit area) as "poor us, that sucks, why won't people support us? Why won't people buy our cars?" Even an anonymous GM exec leaving the Ren Cen was interviewed one evening leaving and he goes "I'd sure like to ask all those people driving Japanese cars how they feel when we don't have a job!" Are you kidding buddy???
And when WE buy foreign, people look at us as unpatriotic or "not rooting for the home team" since we bought against what we grow lol. All the meanwhile, they don't take a second to realize that the s*** they are making is just pure, utter, garbage.
My dad has been doing auto-body work for the past 30 years. Bought GM his entire life. Each GM car failed and failed more miserably and earlier in it's lifespan as the car's got newer. Finally, his current GM car is his last one. He has a 2002 Chevy Suburban and the transmission just blew up without warning. He literally was fed up and wrote them off forever. He already sees the shittiness when he tears cars down and puts them back together but to continue to have it happen to him over and over, he couldn't take it anymore. He used to brag to his friends about how me and my gf both bought Mazdas and we freakin LOVE them!
My mom has had nothing but Ford Explorers (starting in 92) and they were all pieces of s***, one after the other. Each one got traded in when the repairs kept getting too expensive to justify. When it came time to buy a real nice car for her, something with a bit of luxury and style to it, I recommended the Mazda CX-7 GT AWD. She said "I will NOT drive a foreign car". She has no connections to the Big 3 other than her friend who is a Ford salesperson. But she felt it affected her image with Real Estate. Meanwhile her entire OFFICE drives BMW and M-B. Is that okay since they cost significantly more and are fantastic automobiles? I don't know, so she opted for a 2009 Lincoln MKX (Built on the same platform as the CX-7, and it's build in Canada hehe). She got every useless option you could imagine. Gigantic window for a roof that retracts (She never uses it). She got every feature but somehow her dumb ass friend lets her get it without HID. Regardless, the thing is a big turd, it's slow, it's heavy, it has humongous brake pedal travel and she paid about $13k MORE for it just because it's a Lincoln.
Now, like I said, I like Ford and give them a lot more respect nowadays..but let's look at the numbers:
CX-7 GT AWD $30,000
60-0 Braking: 116 ft. (my mom does a ton of stop and go driving and she's a lead foot to boot)
It can do everything the MKX can except tow s*** (we don't tow anything). The CX-7 gets all of it's peak HP and TQ in mid RPM with the help of the turbo. And it handles like a sports car with fantastic braking and suspension.
Lincoln MKX Ultimate $45,000
60-0 Braking: 168 ft.
Peak HP and TQ? Redline. Average to most people NEVER redline their car. They think they're "going to break something" LOL, Words straight from people. "Don't do that, you're going to **** up your car man!" LMFAO. You're right, we really shouldn't do that in your Malibu, the mirror might fall off and the engine will surrender from the torture!!
You can feel it too because it's that un-inspiring feel when you see the stop light and you press the brakes but nothing happens until you're almost to the light and you have to slam on it.
I don't mean to go off on a tangent but my God people. They need to wake up! But the point is, they won't because they never have to keep the cars long enough to realize what piss-poor quality they really are made of. And that's why they point the finger at the bad guys (us apparently). And talk about a lack of ingenuity or design (basically, they stretch the s*** out of old technology as long as they can), I had a 94 Grand Am and a 03 Grand Am. They both used the same pushrod V6 3.1 and 3.4 and they both had the EXACT transmissions only with minor tweaks. Both were sluggish, both had manifold gasket breakdowns (which cost $1400 each time, to repair and flush the coolant otherwise your oil sloshes with coolant and your oil pump dies, so will the engine). Oh and my 05 GTO? Short lived: Lemon Law. My 07 TBSS had ZERO problems. Oh wait..., rear end had to be replaced for grinding, rear air suspension continously went out of alignment and the air sensors had to be re-adjusted otherwise the right side of the car would sag, and my power steering pump was on the verge of blowing up. Search it up, it's known problems. And last time I checked, how the HELL does a brand new car blow out taillight and headlight bulbs every 3 months? I see more Tahoes and Yukons driving around with one taillight or headlight day time running bulb out than I do OLDER cars with older technology lol.
I'll tell you what though, if I had a family and needed a family car, I'd TOTALLY be buying a Ford Flex with the V6 TT EcoBoost and AWD! "Honey, why's the car louder when I push the gas?" Me: (dance)
and I watch tons of new and older GM shitboxes get dragged into the chevy dealer on the backs of flatbeds. Even the interiors of the corvettes are rental car quality. Cheap as plastics the rattle a squeek over every bump. They should have let them operate under chapter 11 and let them void the union contracts and legacy contracts for all former management that are still collecting large pensions and medical benefits, that is where a majority of the money they piss away every month goes to....just my 2cents
