Failed US Automaker GM Recalls 1.5 Million Cars!

[BlooInBloo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/gm-recall-list-of-15m-veh_n_186612.html

"WASHINGTON — General Motors Corp. is recalling 1.5 million vehicles because of potential engine fires.

GM says there have been no reports of any fires or injuries.

Some of the recalled vehicles are no longer in production. The recall includes the 1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue, the 1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix, 1997-2003 Buick Regal, and the 1998-2003 Chevrolet Lumina, Monte Carlo and Impala.

It involves vehicles with a 3.8-liter V6 engine. The government says drops of oil could fall into the exhaust system and cause a fire in the engine.

GM spokesman Kerry Christopher says it was a precautionary measure for consumers."



It's sooooo hard to see how they could have possibly failed.

[NeedleCast]

1. Silly Recall

How many of those cars are still on the road? GM just figured out that the cars it made in the late 90s/early00s might catch on fire?

Sounds like they're just trying to limit liability now.

[EOTE]

2. You think this is a knock against GM?

Because they've recalled cars due to an issue that hasn't even occurred as of yet? GM's 231 V6 had been on Ward's 10 Best Engines list for years at a time when they were still producing it. It remains an incredibly rock solid, smooth and fuel efficient engine to this very day. I fail to see how GM taking this precautionary measure is a terribly bad thing. Do you know how many recalls Toyota has been involved in over the past 5 years?

[denem]

3. Something stinks here. And it ain't drops of oil.

How VERY convenient.

[Occam Bandage]

4. GM doesn't have any quality problem.

They make the best cars in the world, and Consumer Reports is biased against them. GM doesn't have a direction problem. They sell the cars people want to buy, and the Japanese sell the same kind of cars anyway. GM doesn't have a labor costs problem. Even suggesting that is union-busting. GM doesn't have a management problem. It was offensive for Obama to demand Wagoner step down.

I don't get the eagerness of GM defenders to shoot down every single theory about GM's problems that suggests GM might be in some small way at fault here. Given how they're the first to demand GM receive government cheese, I have to worry. Does GM have that mindset as well? And if it does, why does anyone expect that any number of billions of dollars would allow them to change?

[BlooInBloo]

5. It's the standard American disease: the complete inability to acknowledge wrongdoing.

[JVS]

6. I think GM's problems are relatively straightforward.

For the last 20 years they've been claiming that there cars are about as good as the Japanese cars. While I believe this gap has been closing or might even be closed, even the assertion is an acknowledgement that they had some years of producing real clunkers and have had to suffer from the kind of reputation this has given them. Cars are not like can-openers, they cost a large portion of people's incomes and when people lay down that kind of dough they won't forget it if they've been burned.

The direction problem is relatively minor as far as I'm concerned. No car company is doing well right now because nobody has the money to buy cars. That having been said, the beginning of this economic downturn coincided with a massive spike in the price of gas, which had already been getting pretty high for the previous two years, and this hit the big three harder than imports because their big money makers have been SUVs. Now it is true that the imports make SUVs too, and the big three do make economy cars as well, but the bread and butter of GM had been SUVs and trucks, so they bit it harder on that. The reason I say that the direction problem is relatively minor is that GM already has more efficient models in the stable and could switch to emphasizing those, but right now that won't really help anyway because people without jobs don't buy cars no matter how efficient they are. If the economy picks up, GM's product direction should be ok. A future emphasis on the smaller cars is needed, but they seem to have started doing that anyway.

I think perhaps the biggest problems for GM are the financial crisis. Unlike Ford, they didn't get their credit in order before the banks ceased functioning. Also, since GM got itself involved in banking and home mortgages, they've taken a bath on that just like all the other firms in those fields.

[BlooInBloo]

7. I don't think Ford opened up their own shadow bank, did they?

[Occam Bandage]

9. And Ford is much healthier than GM.

[JVS]

10. Exactly. All the banks and mortgage companies have gotten reamed, GM joined in that game, not Ford

[Occam Bandage]

8. This is not the type of analysis that is healthy, I think.

It places the overwhelming majority of the blame on bad decisions made a full generation ago. If a company with GM's resources is still fatally crippled by the fact that they made bad cars thirty years ago (though the quality gap is supposedly closed by now), then what makes anyone think that anything that could happen in the next five years will fix anything?

I recall you have been in favor of allowing banks to fail and using government funds to set up new banks. Given that GM has similar toxic banking assets on its hands, and that GM will apparently be haunted forevermore by the ghost of the Vega, why not simply buy out GM (its market cap is pathetic) and use its resources under government direction to create a new auto company that can start from scratch?

[JVS]

12. Well there were awful decisions a generation ago, and I view the banking mortgage issue as a...

current decision issue. True, GM's dabbling in those areas started long ago, but in recent times they didn't decide to get out of that business. This makes it very much a current generation decision. Similarly, the dogged claim of quality is a current generation problem insofar as that's the same shit they've been saying for 20 years and continuing along that line without massive proof (i.e making better cars than the imports) has eroded their credibility. Maybe they should be emphasizing their price advantage, which is visible and thus provable.

The decision of letting companies fail is colored by political fallout. If either banks or car companies go under completely, there are going to be a lot of broke people in 401k land. In fact the only reasonable justification for the current bailout scheme seems to be that letting them collapse would destroy the retirement plans of the entire middle class. Taking over at market cap levels is essentially forcing everyone with any holdings to sell low after buying high. This would not be politically acceptable, yet the relief as it has been given seeks to prop up the banks in their current form. Basically the end of pensions has made pawn out of the middle class because if the big bankers go down, a huge number of people who really shouldn't ever have had to be involved in this racket go down harder. In order to make the establishment of new banks to replace the old, you could avoid the humanitarian crisis that the large banks failing would unleash by allowing holdings in the old banks to be converted at a ratio that favors small investors (similar to how post WWII reestablishment of German money had increasingly low conversion ratios for small quantities of money and larger ratios for amounts past certain benchmarks and then finally a cap where the old money could be converted) into holding in the new banks. But someone needs to take a haircut here and the elites are making damned sure it won't be them, so it's been pushed onto the taxpayers (who would be better served by establishing banks with good balances rather than pouring cash into busted banks). For the auto companies, setting up a new organization with old shareholders able to trade old stock up to say $100,000 per person (I don't know what specific number would be best, that could be determined by policy makers) for shares in the new organization, would be workable.

[madrchsod]

11. "drops of oil"..."no reports"

it`s almost impossible catch motor oil "drips" on fire. my 92 honda accord exhaust pipe was always coated with oil and never caught on fire.

i love how people pile on gm when every car with a leaky pan or valve cover gasket could leak oil or "drip" on the exhaust system.

this is a good one for myth busters

[blue_onyx]

13. Toyota recalled more than 1.35 million cars earlier this year

and they asked for government assistance from Japan. But I guess you'll overlook this :eyes:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50R10U20090128