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Dewar, OK Car Consumer Discussions

Re: O come all ye Faithful , drink the cool -aid [kodename]

by sls002 on Sun Aug 17 15:49:50 PDT 2008

Obviously you have not read my posts. I have said that Cadillac was never the "standard of the world", whatever that means. Rather Cadillac has a Dewar Trophy for "Standardization" which is something else.

Re: jimbres [dallasdude1]

by grbeck on Mon Aug 04 10:17:24 PDT 2008

dallasdude: So you don't think that tax rebates work? The stimulus check was given to Americans because GW wanted to be remembered as a kind president? It wasn't just President Bush...the local paper ran a story yesterday that featured a quote from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi taking credit for the most recent stimulus package. dallasdude: You were mentioning that auto makers were unable to get the govt to enforce the Sherman anti trust Act. Where does it cost any firm to enforce the law of the land? Laws such as the Sherman Anti-trust Act are not enforced by private firms (or individuals). They are enforced by government, perhaps in response to a complaint by a company or individual. But companies do not enforce laws. The government can, in fact, choose not to act on a company's complaint. dallasdude: Without interchangeable parts the assembly line is worthless. Eli was the first machinist and inventor of the cotton gin. Interchangeable parts for the auto industry began when Henry Leland applied the principles of firearms production to Cadillacs, with the result that in 1908, the 1907 Model K Cadillac won the very prestigious Dewar Trophy. Henry Leland was noted for the use of precision manufacturing techniques that brought interchangeable parts to the automobile industry. Prior to his work, parts had to be either made individually for each car, or "forced" to fit. dallasdude: He would absolutely have been UAW. Given his talents and abilities, he would have OWNED any company (as the Lelands and Henry Ford did) producing his products, and therefore been in management. Which means that, by law, he could not have joined any union, even if he wanted to (which I doubt). dallasdude: Ford was not any great inventor but rather a pathetic soul. The assembly line is a no brainier. He was a superb visionary, and several of the cars developed on his watch - the Model T, the Model A and the 1932 V-8 - were brilliant for their times. He was personally responsible for their development. The layout of his factory and his use of inventory control methods were studied by the Japanese and later refined by Toyota. That hardly qualifies him as "pathetic." If the adoption of the assembly line was such a no-brainer, then one wonders why no one else adapted it to auto manufacturing to the extent that he did (although Ransom E. Olds had made tentative steps in that direction in the early 1900s). After all, he wasn't the only person making cars in 1908. His failures were in administration. Ford was a poorly run company by the mid-1930s, unable to adequately respond to the competitive threat represented by GM and Chrysler. He did not delegate enough responsibility to his son, Edsel Ford I, who showed brilliance in the area of styling and knew that Ford needed to adopt more advanced engineering features. Unfortunately, Henry Ford I insisted on keeping the solid axle front suspension, and even held off on adopting hydraulic brakes until the 1939 model year. He also put way too much faith in Harry Bennett, who was a thug and a bully. Ford's decision to allow Bennett to handle the company's response to early unionization attempts was disastrous. There is also evidence that in the late 1930s he suffered a series of minor strokes that impaired his abilities. But Ford was a family-owned company then, so unless his family moved against him (as his daughter-in-law finally did in 1945, when she demanded that he step aside in favor of her son, Henry Ford II, or else she would sell her share of the company), there was nothing that anyone could do. dallasdude: So then it reasonable to assume that all the qualified workers will compete to get hired by the union shop. Hence, the cream of the crop will work at the best paying job. Not necessarily. There are geographic considerations (unlike college-education people, most blue-collar people are reluctant to move great distances for a job), as well as other factors (some people prefer a more flexible work place, and don't like getting paid the same as a slacker). dallasdude: Its good to know that the skills and abilities of the UAW union worker are superior to those of the non union market rate job. There is no proof of this. If anything, assembly quality of transplant vehicles made by non-union labor in the U.S. is superior to that of vehicles made with UAW labor. Trust me, I've examined them closely. The gap has been narrowed greatly in the past decade, but it's still there. We can debate until the cows come home as to which party is responsible for this, but there is no proof whatsoever that having a unionized blue-collar workforce results in either better build quality or superior reliability in the auto industry.

While I've Participated Here...

by laurasdada on Sat Jul 26 23:23:32 PDT 2008

Round and round we go, how to define "Standard" nobody knows. It's been really pretty well covered from the Dewars trophy through tailfins, Cimarrons, Allantes, V8-6-4, downsizing, badge engineering to today. No car can be a standard to all people. The car that you purchase, that is your standard. It's well past my bedtime, but I'm actually working... So, I'm not sure of my coherency here...

Re: Mark of... [fintail]

by sls002 on Fri Jul 18 11:45:12 PDT 2008

The question is: what is the basis for the "Standard of the World". Cadillac's advertising theme was based on winning the Dewar Trophy for "Standardization". Cadillac was for many people, the car to own in their golden years, in the 60's. This is probably what led to the phase, "the Cadillac of this or that".

Re: Check Oil Level [rcantwell]

by sls002 on Fri Jun 13 08:26:22 PDT 2008

OK. I have looked back through your problems to refresh my memeory. While I think it was entirely reasonable for you to want a new engine, I also think that GM/Cadillac was being quite reasonable in wanting to tear your old engine down to see what the problem was first. Based on your (possibly biased) posts, I do not see how your old engine could have been repaired since they were unable to determine exactly what the problem was. My 2007 SRX northstar uses synthetic oil too, so I am aware of the cost (mostly because I used synthetic in my 2002 Seville). Perhaps I should point out that just replacing the engine without determining the problem would allow a problem with the manufacturing process to continue. This is what happen with the 4100 engine Cadillac started using in 1982. There were engine failures on about 25% of the engines. It took GM/Cadillac a number of years to resolve the problem, perhaps because they just replaced engines. The problem was a subtle design flaw that only occurred in engines with parts that were at the extreme limits of the "standard size" (I assume you understand the "Standard of the World" Dewar Trophy award).

Re: I'm counting on it! [circlew]

by sls002 on Mon Mar 17 11:21:08 PDT 2008

I remember Cadillac using the "standard of the world" in their advertising in the late 1950's and perhaps early 60's - but what I remember is 57 through 59 models being the "Standard of the World". At that time I wondered what that really meant, because it did not make sense to me. After I learned that Cadillac was awarded the Dewar trophy for having interchangable parts (like the Model T Ford of the same period), then the whole thing made sense. However, like all advertising slogans, is little more than nonsense - like "see the USA in your Chevrolet". I will comment again that this whole thead (forum or whatever) is complete nonsense. I made this comment at the beginning too..... :sick: :sick: :sick: