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Battle Ground, WA Car Consumer Discussions

keep your Camry

by mrpushrod on Wed Aug 13 20:52:46 PDT 2008

The reason it is not built here is our fault. GM carries a premium of ~ $2500 per every vehicle made in the US over the foreign vehicle transplant factories (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) in the US. due to legacy union deals. The UAW United Auto Workers union is choking our car companies. I personally wanted to puke every time the UAW has held a strike in the past years. Just the payoffs alone for GM to layoff an employee is sick. The amount of money these selfish people on the assembly line make is outrageous and then they have the gall to strike or make threats to hurt their own employee. They don’t care that GM is sucking wind, they want to ride it to the ground. When American’s work they demand top dollar, the best health insurance, the best working conditions, protection against every grievance of with their employee, etc, etc – But when they shop, they want to shop at Wall-mart where the products are made somewhere in a sweatshop in China by employees making $10 a day with no insurance. I too worked in high tech as an engineer. We had a development crew both here and in India where the engineers made 25k VS 100k respectively. It is a global economy and we need to get use to it. Why do Americans blame Bush for the price of oil when China & India are buying up every gallon they can to produce our goods. There is no mystery to the price of oil, It is just simple supply and demand. GM is still one of the largest employer in the US NOT your Toyota or Honda. Now here is the kicker. You say “Conversely, a Toyota Camry built in Kentucky puts money in the pockets of US-based bla bla”. This leads me to believe you are a typical American trying to hurt the country. I bet you too wanted Microsoft to lose the monopoly suite. Too bad Sony didn’t create windows… Toyota a Japanese car company builds some cars in the US. Some of these vehicles are exported too. That’s ok. Yet GM builds some cars in Australia and export them and GM is lame. Toyota and Honda seem to be doing ok with this business model. Don’t forget why Toyota & Honda started building cars here in the first place. It was to avoid tariffs. I don’t know if you realize this, but GM is just about bankrupt. If GM goes down (again, one of our biggest employers) this country is going to the dogs. GM needs all help it can get to dig out of this mess. I am sure if the $2500 legacy UAW per vehicle premium was put toward R&D GM could give the foreign competition a run for its money. My hopes are GM can raise some capital from subsidiaries such as Holden. Certainly I realize they are in no position to retool American factories or to over invest as much in R&D which they should be doing. Having a winner (hopefully) like the G8 built out of their Holden plant costs them very little and could just help their bottom line. Wouldn’t it be good for America if mazda, Jaguar, and Volvo could help Ford out of this mess instead of bleeding it to death. Futhermore, it would be nice if GM was first out of the shoot on an all electric vehicle. I bet you are rooting for Toyota. You are dreaming if you think a healthy Toyota & Honda is better for America than having a healthy Ford and GM. Yaa, like you I would rather see the G8 made in America or even Canada for that matter. But I also realize the uphill battle GM faces over its foreign rivals. You need to put on your business hat and be more realistic though. GM needs short term help, period. One last point. You make it sound like the G8 is totally an Australian design from the ground up. Yet one of the major selling points is the pushrod engine itself. GM has daunted every foreign manufacture with compact lightweight reliable design. Nobody believes me when I say my 6 speed C5 vette easily achieves 33MPG on the highway. I can and did beat a 6 cylinder Camry in a gas mileage test. And I run it on regualar unleaded to boot. GMs full-size trucks are the most fuel efficient in the business.

Re: Electronics Problem [tom17]

by mitch1947 on Sun Jul 20 15:01:45 PDT 2008

For some reason they didn't get a loaner from the dealer but the dealer paid for a rental PT Cruiser.

Electronics Problem

by mitch1947 on Sat Jul 19 18:19:36 PDT 2008

My sister and brother-in-law purchased the third Genesis sold in California and after a week began having problems. The ABS light and several others lit up on the dash and the vehicle would not go into park. They left it at the dealer and after a week they were told the dealer found a loose connection and the car was ready for use. Four miles down the road the lights came on again and they'll be taking it back to the dealer on Monday. has anyone else had this problem?

Re: did anybody notice [nippononly]

by kdhspyder on Tue Jul 01 21:06:22 PDT 2008

Yes strange grouping of 'I love my ________'. I think that there's a disconnect here somehow and I'm not sure what it is exactly. The 8 basic vehicles are the Camry, Corolla, RAV, Prius, Sienna, Highlander, Tundra and Tacoma. The 4 Runner would have been there but it's going the way of the other midsized BOFs. The Corolla, Camry and Prius are all at or near record sales levels. The RAV is OK but down a little. The Sienna is a solid 1st or 2nd in the industry...but down a little. The new Highlander also seems very solid...but down a little. The Tacoma is generally considered the best small pickup in NA...but it's down a little. 2nd Qtr Summary and Outlook...( personal viewpoint of course ) Small cars The Yaris is benefitting from a massive surge toward small vehicles. +40% The Scions are doing decently and will likely beat last year's down numbers and possibly approach the best numbers of 2 yrs ago ( 150,000+ units ). +5% The Corolla has regained its stride after the 3 month model changeover and in both of the last two months outsold the Camry solidly. After the Prius the Corolla seems to have the shortest time on the lot which is really impressive given the volumes involved. Spot shortages seem to be commonplace. I'd expect it to be a solid first or 2nd place auto at year end with about 400,000 to 450,000 units. It and the Civic will battle for supremacy IMO. A BIG advantage it has over the Civic is that there is much more capacity available to meet demand. The Prius is and has been a winner since it's debut. 180,000 units is likely again, limited only by battery availability. It's the icon and still the best hybrid on the road. Production is expected to increase 60% next year but we may not get 'our share' due to currency problems. If fuel stays at $4-ish it may remain sold out all through it's short 09 MY. 09's are due here abt 10-1 but the Gen3 '10s should hit next summer ( announcement in January at NAIAS ). Midsized / Large Autos: Camry is the center of everything Toyota in NA. Bringing out the 09s early again like the 07s were early was a great marketing move giving a airbrush to an unchanged vehicle. It will probably lose volume to the rest of the industry beginning now as the 'Camry' Solara sales finish up. The Venza probably will not be a 'Camry' Venza so the 'Camry' model will lose about 45000 units of sales annually due to the elimination of the Solara. OTOH... with the way fuel prices are going, the defectors from the BOF segment are NOT automatically stepping down to a bare bones Yaris. The Camry may catch a lot of these defectors in its net. Word is that in addition to the 100K units offloaded to the Subaru plant that Toyota is looking at having Princeton make Camry's as well. The Camry Hybrid seems solid but also limited by battery availability. IMO it's the future for the next decade. The Avalon is suffering from being big. The V6 is world class but the model has been moved upscale to near-Lexus in price and target. Most buyers don't even think of the $28000 XL trim. The XLE V6 Camry is a better value. Effectively it's a $34000-$38000 vehicle. It does act as a foot soldier though covering the flank of the ES350. Utility Vehicles: xB... see Scions Matrix... the non-hybrid Prius. It could and should be a great hit as a less expensive option to it's hybrid 5-door hatchback cousin. It's slow to move in comparison to the show-stopping Prius and it's Corolla sibling. It should do a lot better but it doesn't have the glitz either in features or fuel economy. The RAV4 is a solid, affordable, reliable, fun-to-drive entry level utility vehicle. Sales are starting to level off after two full years of growth and it's brushed with the tar of being a 'utility vehicle'. In fact it gets only slightly worse fuel economy than the Camry or Matrix and it's bigger than both. Maybe it's more to do with the overall economy than the vehicle itself. The new RAV plant in Canada this fall may allow some ordering flexibility and potentially increased sales. Prices range from ~$23000 to just under $30000. . . Gap ( Venza due here ) . . The Highlander surprised me by seeming to be pricey when it first came out. In fact it isn't that much more in MSRP than the outgoing Gen1. A FWD V6 lists for under $30000 today. The big benefit, for those that need more room, is that it's a lot bigger, more powerful and more comfortable yet it has the same fuel economy as the Gen 1. With the new world class 3.5L V6 it should be very competitive with all others if utility vehicles get out of the doldrums. The Sienna is due for a change in the Fall ( Sept? ). It's past its 5th anniversary. It's still right at the top of the list ( there's really only two now ) of all minivan shoppers. IMO though the first vehicle maker that can provide a 30+ mpg minivan will OWN that market segment. Some sort of hybrid version is desperately needed here. Families needing to save fuel costs would snap these up if priced like the TCH at a small to moderate premium. The FJ and the 4Runner. The 4runner is too good a franchise to let slip away but this entire segment is past DOA. The funerals are being scheduled and some are in the ground already. At the minimum I think both will slip back to being just what they were originally; i.e. offroad utility vehicles for specific uses. It's days as an image-building commuter vehicle for the 'active lifestylers' are finished. Surprisingly I think that the Sequoia like the Suburban may have a longer life as a super-sized minivan. It can do more. It can do more than a Sienna or a Highlander or a 4Runner and it's at least as nice if not nicer. For those not so concerned with fuel prices the 16 mpg rating is not that much of a concern. The Tahoe and or Yukon may disappear in favor of the GM lambda triplets but the Suburban will stay. If the Sequoia can get a diesel option and jump it's fuel rating to 25-ish mpg it would be a solid long term player ( biodiesel? ) Land Cruiser.... 'If you need to ask the price.....'

Illegals CAN vote to become Unionized!

by gagrice on Sun May 18 05:43:40 PDT 2008

Rocky, you are going to love this one. This is the company in Iowa that was raided and found to have at least 390 illegal immigrants working there under false SS IDs. Agriprocessors has faced other troubles, as well. In 2006, it paid a $600,000 settlement to the Environmental Protection Agency to resolve wastewater pollution problems, and this March it was assessed $182,000 in fines for 39 state health, safety and labor violations. In 2004, the U.S. Agriculture Department's inspector general accused the company of "acts of inhumane slaughter" after animal rights advocates publicized an unauthorized video of a stumbling, dying cow, and some Jewish groups attacked its worker practices. And last month, the company lost a federal appellate court battle over whether it could ignore a vote by workers at its Brooklyn distribution center to unionize, on grounds that those in favor were illegal immigrants and not entitled to federal labor protections. "This employer has a long history of violating every law that's out there -- labor laws, environmental laws, now immigration laws," said Mark Lauritsen, international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has waged a bitter battle to organize the Postville plant. The union charged that the immigration raid disrupted a separate U.S. Labor Department investigation into alleged child labor law violations and other infractions. ICE may be "deporting 390 witnesses" to the labor investigation, Lauritsen said, adding, "This administration seems to place a larger value on big, splashy shows in this immigration raid than in vigorously enforcing other labor laws." The question? Should illegals be able to vote to go UNION? PS I want to see the whole Rubashkin family in jail where they belong...