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North Troy, VT Car Consumer Discussions

Re: GM money woes [jeffyscott]

by Mr_Shiftright on Wed Nov 12 09:33:07 PST 2008

From recent GM letter to employees: (excerpts) "As you know, we have taken the tough, necessary actions over the last few years to strengthen our competitive position. With our UAW partners we have reshaped our business and will have reduced our structural costs by more than $13 billion by 2010 and have closed the quality and efficiency gaps with our competitors. We also are building products that have received great customer acceptance and acclaim..." "....And, there's more to come with the Chevy Volt which will position GM as a global technology leader..." "Today, I want you to take the time to contact your members of Congress to ask them to support America's domestic auto industry. Please call the following number to be connected with your legislators 1-866-927-2233. Directions and key messages are in the attached document to assist you with the calls. Also attached is a fact sheet that includes the economic figures cited above. Additionally, you can visit www.gmfactsandfiction.com to obtain further information on the auto industry and GM." Troy Clarke President GM North America --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - ---------------- I haven't seen the original letter/mass mailing/ so I can't verify all of this but it is a very sobering thing to read---it's kind of sad, really. I'm glad that some "facts" might be illuminated but I'm not so sure I agree whole heartedly with everything that is said here. The letter goes on to state how many jobs will be lost, etc. and that they need $25 billion bucks

Re: My Camry has moved on [troylikesbikes]

by kiawah on Wed Aug 13 21:06:36 PDT 2008

Troy, If you want.....post the file somewhere I can download it, and I'll see if I can convert it for you. Can email me at kiawah@carspace.com with download instructions. We used to be able to send attachments via the carspace email address, but I've had problems in the last month trying to do that...and don't know if a change was made by Edmunds restricting the mail attachments somehow.

Re: Another data point [troylikesbikes]

by kiawah on Fri Aug 08 11:35:41 PDT 2008

Troy, I'm looking for a set of replacement tires for our 2007 LE 4 cyl, and come to realize that my OEM tires are Michelin "Energy" MXV4S8's which are substantially more expensive than many other tires, even other Michelins. In looking at the Michelin website, they claim to 'go further on each tank of gas', as compared to other touring comparison tires. The local chain tire shops claim that it's a difference in the sidewalls as to how they are made which yields less rolling resistance, but doubt that any of them are really in the know. I'll probably just buy a set of Michelin Pilot Exalto's since the vehicle next month is going to be used primarily by my daughter in city driving. But I'm beginning to wonder if these 'energy' tires really DO make a difference in MPG, and that might be a contributing factor in why some posters have slightly less mpg experiences than others. Perhaps I'll take the car from her and do a highway run in the future, and see what it did to my mileage.

No need to argue over this

by kiawah on Mon Jul 21 18:19:38 PDT 2008

Guys, There is no reason to argue over this. It is clear, that different vehicle/driver/location characteristics matter (in some way), and yield different MPG for their owners. For all we know, it could be a sensor out of tolerance, an AC compressor creating drag on the engine, a vehicle w/brake pads dragging, an ECM software settings that got whacked up, or probably any number of problems. Your mileage is what it is. You check and do the obvious things, and then you live with the results. It's a hunk of metal, if you don't like it...get rid of it and get something else you'll be happier with. I can easily appreciated how frustrating it would be, if one cared about the mpg they got and couldn't figure out why their vehicle wasn't there. I've thought about phd's situation, and although I could easily understand how one particular vehicle didn't get rated mileage....can't explain why a group of ten or however many friends he has nobody gets some arbitrary number (unless it's "in the gas", or altitude). I think if I had 10 folks who all got a particular number, I'd think the same thing. I personally don't care what my mpg is, I didn't buy it for the cost of fuel, I bought it for the safety and reliability for a new driver. I have my share of gas hog vehicles, and mpg is an interesting number....but not something I would use to make a purchase decision on. I am lucky that financially I don't have to worry about the cost of fuel in this stage of life. So let's be civil about this, report the data as it is, refrain from making claims about whether somebody can or can't achieve some number...and move on. I have no axe to grind with Toyota, nor any allegiance (my first ever Toyota in 40 years of buying, driving, and maintaining our vehicles). Troy's work on collecting and reporting on the data was great. Anybody visiting the site can get a summary of many users worth of data, and understand the range of mileage that they might get. As with the stock market.....prior performance is no guarantee of the future. So lets move on, life is too short to quibble about variances in MPG. Group hug.........well, go hug your kids/spouse/significant other.

Re: On Topic [oldfarmer50]

by kdhspyder on Sat May 03 20:12:10 PDT 2008

It sounds like you're from Troy or Albany or even farther north? I was born in Troy and grew up in Schenectady...GE land.

Historic UAW contracts forged from angry words, picket lines, harsh reality

by rockylee on Wed Nov 21 02:07:07 PST 2007

After 10 straight days of hard bargaining, the team from General Motors Corp. felt confident on Sunday, Sept. 23, that a deal was nearly done on a new, four-year contract with the United Auto Workers. But Ron Gettelfinger had other ideas. Late in the evening, the UAW president burst into the seventh-floor conference room at the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources in Detroit and shattered the notion that an agreement was imminent. "You guys think you're making so much progress. But I don't think we're getting a final agreement," Gettelfinger said, according to people familiar with the situation. "We're going to set a strike deadline." And at 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 24, more than 73,000 GM workers walked off the job in what would prove to be a pivotal event in the historic 2007 auto talks. The national strike immediately injected a sense of urgency and high drama into the marathon talks between GM and the UAW. Within two days, the two sides had finalized a landmark contract that created a health care trust for UAW retirees, instituted a precedent-setting two-tier wage system for hourly workers, and provided iron-clad job guarantees at GM factories across the nation. Yet the contract was more than just another labor agreement between the largest U.S. automaker and its union. The GM-UAW deal, followed by similar pacts between the union and Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, promises to alter the competitive landscape of the American auto industry, possibly for decades to come. After struggling under a labor cost gap with Japanese automakers of up to $30-an-hour, Detroit's beleaguered Big Three now have a chance to compete without the burden of spiraling medical bills and high-wage, non-core manufacturing jobs. For the shrinking membership of the UAW, the contracts provide unprecedented commitments that new products will be built in U.S. factories rather than Mexico, South America or China. With UAW members completing their ratification vote on Tuesday at Ford, the watershed contracts are in the books -- a full two months after the previous four-year agreements expired on Sept. 14. In a series of interviews with key players at the companies and the union, The Detroit News has reconstructed events leading to the agreements. Participants agreed to discuss the talks on the condition of anonymity. Progress slow over summer The ceremonial handshakes between UAW and company officials took place in July, but progress on the major issues of health care and job security was minimal during the summer. GM and Ford actively sought to be the lead company in the negotiations. But throughout July and August, Gettelfinger gave little indication that he would pick one over the other. GM Chairman Rick Wagoner had already staked out a leadership role in the Big Three's epic restructuring. In the fall of 2005, GM had negotiated health care concessions from the UAW that shifted some medical costs onto retirees. Ford later got the same agreement. GM also led the way on offering buyout and early-retirement programs to slash its hourly work force. Wagoner had privately told GM officials that the 2007 contract talks were essential to fixing the company without resorting to drastic measures such as bankruptcy or a sale to private investors. "We can do this on our own," Wagoner told company insiders. "We don't need the courts, we don't need outsiders. We can figure this out." On Sept. 13, GM got the opportunity to control its own destiny. That day, Cal Rapson, the head of the UAW's GM division, told company officials that Gettelfinger wanted to see Troy Clarke, president of the automaker's North American operations. In a tense meeting, Gettelfinger laid out the union's stance on the tough talks to come. "We're going to negotiate hard," he told Clarke. "We're not going to bend over backwards." Clarke showed little emotion, and repeatedly stated that GM needed to dramatically close the cost gap with Toyota Motor Corp. "We've got this problem," he said. Later that day, the UAW informed its membership that GM would be the "strike target." A few GM officials warily noted that "strike target" sounded far different than "lead company." With the contract set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, the UAW granted Ford and Chrysler open-ended extensions. GM's contract, the union said, would be extended on an hour-by-hour basis. The central issue before the negotiators was never in doubt. GM was pushing hard for the creation of a union-run trust -- a Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Association, or VEBA -- to finance $47 billion in future health care obligations for 340,000 GM retirees and surviving spouses. Gettelfinger, in fact, had supported the idea of a VEBA ever since the 2005 health care talks. But the challenge was how to fund the trust to cover unforeseen increases in medical coverage. The sides staked out widely divergent positions. GM, at first, proposed putting up cash and stock totaling 50 percent of the overall health care obligation. The union wanted 100-percent funding. Bridging the huge gulf would take days of painstaking talks. The union relied heavily on experts from investment banking giant Lazard Ltd. GM's strategy was driven almost exclusively by Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson. While the VEBA talks went on, subcommittees tackled equally sensitive topics such as lower wages for noncore jobs in GM factories, transfer policies for laid-off workers, and the placement of new vehicle programs in specific assembly plants. Gettelfinger had lead role Dozens of people played roles in the talks, but the central figure was always, unquestionably Gettelfinger. The UAW president, 63, was an enigma to many on the GM side. During much of the talks, he sat secluded at a computer in a spare office in the Center for Human Resources. He often slept there overnight, refusing a pillow offered him by GM employees. Instead, he used a plastic bag stuffed with shredded documents from the negotiation sessions. But both sides knew instantly when Gettelfinger was engaged. On one occasion, Rapson hinted that his UAW boss wanted to turn up the heat at the table. "I'm supposed to be mad at you today," Rapson told the GM team. In fact, Gettelfinger was playing for high stakes. As badly as GM wanted the VEBA, the union wanted rock-solid guarantees that GM would keep its U.S. assembly plants churning out new vehicles into 2011 and beyond. On Sept. 18, the talks seemed at an impasse when Gettelfinger declared the VEBA was "off the table." GM's lead negotiator, Diana Tremblay, then presented what company officials dubbed "plan B" -- a series of deep cuts to union wages and drastic hikes in health care bills for active workers. con't..........