really frustrating when you want to buy a north america made product, but can no longer find one. i for one will spend a little more to buy n.a. for the quality and job support. dave.  

True Story,

In '95 I toured both the car and truck assembly plants in Oshawa, Ontario. Cut me and I bleed Royal GM blue. Anyways, I was very impressed after both tours. A three hour (boy what a walk) through the truck assembly plant was unbelievable. Love to do it again, I was right on the production line, watching things happen.

Again two more great side stories.... Hope someone's keeping track of these side stories. I get to involved on this site and forget about them.

So when I flew back to Victoria, I stopped by my local Chevrolet dealer to order a new truck. Full size C class. So we do alll the option ordering, paint and trim choices didn't ask about the cost till the end.

My last statement hit the salesman like when his partent told him ("santa didn't really exist").
Oh, can we make sure my truck's in built in the Oshawa plant. I've been there and I want to make sure my money stays in Canada, their quality is really soemthing to see.

The guy sat there, mouth open for a minute in shock. When he came out of it his reply was "Sir, we can't have you telling us where your truck is going to be built". Well, I said, If I'm willing to drop what I consider to be a decent down payment on a house to order a truck. I think I get to have as much say as I want. Hadn't even dickered on the price.

Besides, I've been to the plant, I've talked to the workers and I've seen the quality they produce. In my books I'll be getting my money's worth. So the salesman gets out of his chair looking for the sales manager.

Sale manger comes in trying to tell me how the automotive market place works. I explained back to him the following rules that govern the market place. Supply and demand.

I was asking them to supply me with a truck, built to my specifications (limited only by what was available) by the manufacturer. My demand was that the truck be built in Oshawa Ontario. Wasn't asking for some weird paint colour or anything else. The Sales manager then tells me there's six plants producing trucks. My order goes into the system and the system then determines which plant can build the truck.

Well, I said. if you order this truck and when it arrives the first digit isn't a two then you now have one more truck you'll need to sell because I won't accept it. At which point I grabbed the sales contract which wasn't signed but had all my particulars on it and ripped it to shreds.

The salesman almost passed out, as he watched his sale go up in smoke. The last words I heard out of the sales managers mouth were "just because we can't quarantee your truck comes from the Oshawa plant you're going to cancel the deal?. My reply as I turned around at the door was "What deal, a deal is when to parties come to an agreement." We don't have an agreement so we have no deal!

I was also very impressed with the '95 Monte Carlo. Went to the other Chevrolet dealer with the same results. This time it was that I wanted the Monte Carlo LS without air conditioning and I wanted the cloth instead of the leather/vinyl interior.

Told sorry the LS model comes standard with leather/vinyl interior. My retort was doesn't the cloth interior fit in the Monte Carlo LS. Well of course it will sir, its just not part of the package. So, I said, I may have to wait a bit for the car because its a special order then.

No sir, you can't get the Monte Carlo LS with a cloth interior. If you want the cloth interior then order the Monte Carlo, it comes standard with the cloth interior. Well, if I wanted just the Monte Carlo then that's what I would of ordered, I want the Monte Carlo LS with the cloth interior, as I like the LS model package I just don't want leather/vinyl seats.

You don't even want to know what happens when you ask to have a vehicle without A/C. You'd think I asked them to build me a Ferrari but I wanted to pay the price of a Monte Carlo.
But sir, everyone wants A/C now, that's why its standard equipment. Well, I don't want A/C. I don't want the luxury tax added onto the price of my car because of A/C. Also I don't to tote around one hundred to hundred and some odd pounds of equipment that I don't really need. All I want is a heater, nothing else, plus it will help my gas milage as I won't have that extra one hundred odd pounds to lug around.

The guy wouldn't even pick up the phone and call back to Ontario to see if they'd do it. So I managed to piss off two sales managers and almost cause heart attacks in two salesmen.

When I was at the car assembly plant I asked about switching interiors, do you think the folks putting the cars together cared. As long as the parts fit the car they'd install them end of story.

Just couldn't be bothered to push the point in either case. When I walked away I was wondering, guess they have a lot of sales going on and don't need my money. I ended up saving myself $30,000 in the case of the Monte Carlo and over $50,000 on the truck.

That's why I drive the car I do, and I'm retoring the other one. Both Canadian made, I buy my parts from GM when I can. Its a real 'pain in the ass" finding things made in North America. But like Carl says I'm willing to pay a bit more for something knowing that it was made over here.

Todd, you should be CEO.
I have a company lease right now, waiting for the lease to run out so i can get a Black Impala SS, before they drop the HP rating I hope.
LOL

We've gotten lazy and demand the good life, but don't want to pay for North American quality, so we all buy imported crap. Me too.
Where are we going to be 20-30 years from now?

Don't get me wrong, I love the 60-70 GM's, but these days I actually prefer that North American built imported "crap", thank you very much.

Still have a job ?

I am a veteran. My relatives fought the Germans and the Japs... Now we buy their products, and send the profits to Germany,and Japan  Who won?

 Actually, speaking of Germans. Have you seen the new Audi A4?
 Absolutely stunning. Still not huge power, but very balanced overall with the refined Quattro all wheel drive. Efficiant in that ever present Tutonic sort of way.
 Unfortunately it won't be here till Sept. Better get your name in soon though, at the new "Canadian pricing" $57k, it's said they'll quickly sell out.
 
But they'll always be loads of new Cadillac all wheel drive CTS's to choose from, and that's a very good car these days. Exceptional even! Big power. It's even the same price as the new Audi.  

Great thing this freedom of choice is eh? The products now available to us are top notch. We can simply choose as we see fit how we spend our hard earned dollar. We'll buy what we determine to be the best engineering, safety, resale, performance and styling that is available in our market. How could that a bad thing? We get to drive cars today who's performance and quality was only a dream even 15 years ago! Tell me how that's bad? How is getting value for my dollar bad? How could quality competition even be bad for the big 3? If anything it's awakened them into building what is today a pretty decent product. 
The problems they face today are very complex no doubt, but imop this is just more or less a "hangover" from their poor quality products from 75-95.
Sorry to say that, blame what you will for the woe's, but they failed to produce a consistant quality product more or less in those years, and now bear the weight of that. That cannot be denied...
 
 2009 Audi A4
 

 

Are you suggesting the import crap was better from 1975 to 1995 ? I don't even see any of that stuff still on the road !

 The Germand have beat their breat quite a lot about "the best product in the world" Benz sure isn't what they claim, all them beetles are no better than Chevy's Corvair etc...

69Laurentian wrote:

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The Chinese!

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        Thank you   I forgot them.. the owners of Walmart have thier headquarters in China, but they will be in US waving a flag, when things go wrong..

67BBSD wrote:

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Are you suggesting the import crap was better from 1975 to 1995 ? I don't even see any of that stuff still on the road !

 

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I'm not.

Most of their stuff was of suspect quality as well, but the one thing they could do, even then, was build a very good small motor.

I think you don't see any of that stuff, because they had no real market share then. It was miniscule. It was really all a big three show. The big three imports really have not begun to gain any real market share but for the last 10 years.

Why is it that the so called imports seem to be doing so well lately?

Are they pulling a fast one on the us?
Do they enjoy some sort of unfair marketing advantage?
Are their market leaders cheaper than the big three's comparable offerings?

What is the one major thing that allows them the phenomenal growth they're seeing today?

first I agree with Todd-over maintained-helps longivity a lot

second yes, the magazine editors often lean toward an import for no apparent reason other than possibly they spend more money advertising in the magazine.

third yuppees

fourth the next generation wants something different-not Dad's buick or a Camaro or whatever

imports are better lately ? does that mean your owning up to the hyundai's of the 1980's etc...

I see plently of undermaintained North American "lemons" going 300-400 kms-Tempos, sunfires, cavaliers etc.. these are all low end $ cars that people just drive and kick the hell out of without maintaining anything.

 If imports are "better lately" I still do not see that they are better than what our manufacturers now build do to what they imported in the past.

If your neighbour spends the big bucks to buy a Benz he doesn't whine to you about the troubles not to mention the ratio of caddies to Benz would mean even if the problems were the same you would hear about the caddy 50 times more often.

Japs build good small engines too bad the bodies that their bolted too rot out faster than to find out how long the engine might last.

 A guy bought my Corvair the other day driving a Volvo bragging about the "19yrs average life" of a volvo-I don't even see 19 year old volvos let alone 38 year old ones to bring that kind of average. He laughed at the poor quality ancient design of my wife's 1994 buick roadmaster-well its 14 years old with 145,000 kms, orig paint, no rust, no problems (starter, brakes, tires) never even a tune up-it gets 25mpg highway-20 mpg city and feels like your sitting on the living room couch the whole ride not to mention it'll burn rubber for a block !

I sold the same car to a friend last year with 355,000 kms on it-had a new waterpump.

yesterday I looked at a 95 sunfire with 425,000 kms ! no rust-orig paint

it is no doubt that mechanicals are far better on all cars these days than they were in the hay day-the reason for this is the demand for commuting-often someone drives a car 100km a day without checking the oil between changes-that was unheard of in the past

short end-if we buy everything foreign there will be no domestic product just like shoes, now fruit, clothes, or whatever. When North Americans bought what they built we were further ahead

drive domestic and be proud