tetraethylleadremovethis@yahoo.com (brent

Comparing a pinto to mid 80s japanese car is pretty unfair, since the
pinto entered the marketplace in 1971 and left practically unchanged in
1980. Spoting the japanese automakers ~15 years of advancement is unfair.

It's assembly line work... I'm sorry, but it's not the sort of job that
generally needs to be highly paid nor has a bottom line relationship
where it pays for its self.


Corporate culture drives the rest, part of corporate culture is the union
culture.

razz

Your perception of lower quality doesn't wash. Being a mechanic for a toyo
dealership for a number of years, back in the early 90's to mid 90's, opened
my eyes to what they really do. Keep everything quite, they had lots of
problems with their vehicles, just as much as the domestics if not more.
Their customer relations were far better than the domestics, and they bent
over backwards to appease the customer, probably what helped keep their
perception high.

harry in montreal

Razz, it is not my own perception. it is the collective north american
market. yes, toyota dealers bend over backwards - that is why they are
successful. japanese initial quality is better than detroit. that is a
fact, not opinion. just look at toyota's financial results. look at
GM's. don't insult me with conspiracy theories that GM makes just as
good of a car (reliability and quality) as toyota. if you truly believe
that domestics are a better cars, you should lobby for a seat on Ford's
board of directors. Harry in Montreal.

harry in montreal

brent, you are joking right? verygood, you are correct, they built the
Pinto in 1980... long after it should have been discontinued. So, lets
compare a 1980 Tercel with a 1980 Pinto. do you think this is a fairer
comparison? which do you think is superior?


people on assembly lines buy cars. a huge segment of the US population
earns wages in this bracket. they have children that become lawyers and
doctors too. besides, i did not say that 50,000 a year is highly paid.

very well, a big part of corporate culture are designers, engineers,
and marketers that devise these average products. the accountants, and
line workers later suffer at the back-end from this initial weakness.

Harry

nay-sayer

That's a damn good question....


TNS

tony

The Answer: It benefits the execs and members of the board.. They get rich
on ridiculous bonuses based on false performance, bleed the post-merger
company dry, retire with millions, if not billions, in the bank.. without a
care in the world... Why should they care if they leave a dry empty shell
behind?

Sounds like a good company to me.. at least, as far as the top level execs
are concerned..

Sounds "Not so Good" for the 10's of thousands of people and families that
once had jobs there...

(Sorry, just feeling angry and cynical today..)

tetraethylleadremovethis@yahoo.com (brent

I would say 70s car to 70s car. Now you might have named the one japanese
car of the era that I liked it's styling and was still RWD. I forget
which toyota it is... or even if it was a toyota... anyway... in most
instances I would end up choosing the fireball ford in the pinto class.

For putting tab A into slot B it is. And ultimately that's why
manufacturing ends up going to places like china, because that's
all people on the line often want to deal with.


Real engineers (does not include those who couldn't design their way out
of a wet paper bag being promoted into management) have little effect on
corporate culture in large US corporations. They are a worker bee class
that returns far more than their salaries. On just one product at one
employer I returned more to the bottom line than probably an entire
career's worth of pay. The larger the company, the less impact the real
engineer has because he doesn't play the politics.

razz

Insult you! Ha. Probably a brain washed Jap scrap owner who thinks it's
better. Initial quality by whom ........a magazine that says so. They also
said a Hyundai has better initial quality. Mine 01 Sonata is falling apart
after 5 years. Better quality my ass. My mustang hasn't given me a lick of
problems nor my wife's Contour. Maybe I've been lucky on my domestics. I've
had some that gave me problems, but not as many as the imports. But my 01
Hyundai is a piece of shit I've seen first hand Jap conspiracy on keeping
things very quite. That came right from the head office. Remember, I'm a
mechanic and worked at a toy store for a while. Like I said been there,
done that, seen that. So you insult my intelligence by proclaiming that
there initial quality is better. Remember things can be bought for a price.
I don't believe any of those J.D.Powers reports or consumers reports,
because who pays there bills, their advertisers do.

jeff

My father had a work truck that was a 1970 Chevy C-10 6-cylinder. The truck
had over 100,000 mi on it. It never needed any major engine work. It went on
thousands of trips of less than 1 mi and last about 20 years.

whitelightning

I didnt say the engine WOULD need the work. but it was the mind set then
because things
like valve jobs and re-rings were considered routine maintenance up until
the mid 70's. Nobody kept cars more than 3-4 years or 60,000 miles unless
they had to.
The drive trains were great. But you can not compare a truck of that era
with a truck of today. If you had built trucks to the level of "creature
comforts" today's buyer demands as standard equipment, your fathers 1970
C-10 would have cost as much as your grandfather's caddy sedan deville.
And would you like to make the average wage from that era? Hell in 73 you
could buy a three bedroom ranch with a one car garage, a full basement, on a
1/2 acre lot in Saratoga Springs NY for $22,000,(and that's one I will say
was built a heck of lot better than one costing $175,000 built today)

Whitelightning