Why don't American car manufacturers make more reliable cars?

In My Humble Opinion
1

After looking through the recommendations in this thread, I see a correlation between Dodge Caravans and unreliability. This is noticeable in many domestic cars, and it leads me to ask: Why can’t/won’t/don’t American car manufacturers - Ford, GM, and Chrysler - produce quality products? The prices aren’t that much better than imports, but the Japanese blow the pants off of American cars in terms of quality, finish and reliability. I just don’t understand, for example, why someone would buy a Chevy Cavalier for $15,000 when they could get a Toyota Corolla for $14,600. The Corolla is more reliable, has better customer satisfaction, better performance, and better crash tests ratings. The Honda Civic is the same way and it starts at $12,810!

I don’t think it’s a matter of American workers, since many Japanese cars are made in the U.S. now and their quality hasn’t declined. Is there really enough of a patriotic “rah-rah, buy American” market to support these companies? What am I missing?

2

Well, my japanese truck was built right here in the USA. Same with a lot of the japanese imports.

Many of those american cars are assembled outside of the USA.

3

Why would someone buy a Corolla or a Cavalier?

Try looking at some big carsand trucks and then report back on what does the real work - hint, it is not the imports

4

Car-buying is often heavily-influenced by all sorts of non-pragmatic factors. You’re probably right about the patriotism aspect. There’s also “style”, “image”, “brand loyalty”…

I know people who have bought cars based on the brand’s extremely tenuous connection to their favorite NASCAR drivers.

I know people (usually women) who’ve bought cars based solely on the colors.

I even know people who’ve bought cars because (and I quote) “my daddy always drove Ford, and his daddy before him”.

5

Well, Cav’s do suck. But I’ve driven a few Corrollas and they are quite good cars.

6

IMHO it has everything to do with American workers vs. Japanese workers.

Americans no longer require themselves to do excellent work. “Pretty good” is good enough now — worse if you’re in a federal job. There is no striving, and why should there be? If you’ve got a union job or something like that, you can’t get fired. So why should you bust your ass when you’re gonna get paid the same no matter how hard you work? Plus I think there is a lack of morale among American workers in general. There is no job loyalty, however this is the fault of the companies. Treat your workers like shit and see how much they’ll care whether or not the company survives another year.

From what I can tell, the Japanese (and this is a very big brush I’m painting with, I admit) are constantly striving to do more, to make things better. They have more loyalty towards their companies … however, companies over there seem to treat their employees better than over here which I think engenders loyalty. They CARE about their company’s reputation. They’re embarassed if they put out a bad product – maybe this is a bad thing, personalizing it like that – but on the other hand I guess it can be good too because they are concerned about the quality of work they’re doing. Japanese bosses have lunch/go out for drinks with the office regularly: would a bigwig American boss deign to go out to lunch with a lowly new hire? Hell no. Harmony is the name of the game with them whereas in the US there’s always someone in the office trying to stir up trouble. I think their morale is higher over there, and (all together now!) a happy worker is a productive worker.

The reason Japanese cars made in the USA are so good is because the companies are still owned by the Japanese and they are damn picky about who gets hired. There is a Toyota plant here in WV and there is no way in hell you’re gonna get hired there without more than one interview … I know of one guy who had EIGHT (management position, I believe). These are damn good jobs, something WV has very few of, so they can be choosy: for example, if you have any history of drug use, you’re out. For even some of the lower positions you have to have a 4 year degree before they’ll even look at you. Not a team player? You’re not getting in. Picky, picky, picky. There is no coming in to work 5 minutes late at this plant. There is no screwing around on company time. There is no mediocrity allowed. Thus, they put out an excellent product.

I try to buy American whenever I can but I’m not sure my next car will be American made. Why should I go out of my way to buy an American auto when I can buy a Japanese one for less money that won’t break down on me and won’t be subject to recalls?

7

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that in the past the Japanese car companies introduced new models in Japan first, worked out all the bugs, then introduced them to the U.S. The result was that while many GM/Ford/Chrysler products had first-year teething problems that made them look bad, japanese products seemed to just materialize on the market as a perfect car right off the bat. All considerations of reliability, et. al. have to take things like this into account, and it’s virtually impossible for American cars to compete on an equal basis.
I’m not sure if the Japanese car companies still do this, but they certainly still have a reputation that surpasses that of American companies, as this thread demonstrates. I have a few friends in the auto industry, and my personal impression is that the Japanese edge these days is more imagined than real.

I don’t think comparisons of “workers” have anything to do with it. In a modern plant there is virtually no thinking involved. The average worker has to think harder to make a Big Mac at McDonalds than to work in an auto plant. In the latter it’s just the same shit over and over. Every important decision is handled at the management or engineering level. But I don’t know enough to comment on those.

8

But I agree with SnoopyFan about the importance of morale (or lack of same) amongst American workers. I don’t know anyone who feels secure in their job or station right now. That can’t be good.

9

I think they still do that. The Toyota Prius hybrid was available in Japan for abut 4 years before it was introduced in the US. Honda jumped the gun and introduced it in the US first, which may be one reason the Prius seemed to get more favorable reviews.

I don’t buy the argument about worker loyalty and morale. If job security leads to better efficiency, how come Communism failed? I think it has more to do with having more demanding customers. Japanese customers seem to be really picky about product quality (fit and finish) and reliability. Most things sold in Japan are made to a ridiculously high tolerance and priced accordingly. In comparison, American products tend to be made “good enough.”

10

Anyone else seen the commericals, I think they’re put out by GM, where they basically say, “Oh yea, we made crappy cars for twenty years, but now it’s ok, we’re making em better now. Sorry about that!”

11

Actually the first nissan that was sold in the US was a pretty crappy car, even compared to the American cars of the time.

It is important to remember that japan’s auto industry had been utterly devastated by WWII and it took them quite a long time to get back to where they had been before the war, let alone improving on that level.

An excellent book to read about the whole US/Japan car issue is The Reckoning by David Halberstam.

One very interesting thing that Halberstam talks about is how revered W. edwards Deming and his business principles were by the Japanese auto makers. The Japanese willingness to adhere to and follow those principles is a large part of why they have been so successful in the auto market.

Over in the US, however, it was quite a different story. In the 1950’s, the Big 3 auto makers weren’t concerned with safety or with quality or durability as far as their cars went. in fact, they built cars with the expectation that a car owner would trade in their old car for a new one every 3 years. To the automakers, this meant that they didn’t have to focus on durability, or quality, as most owners would willingly put up with a lemon car for a year or two, knowing that it would be traded in.

Nowadays, cars are expected to last at least 10 years, if not longer.

12

If job security leads to better efficiency, how come Communism failed?

That wasn’t exactly my point but I can see where you’d think that’s that I was saying. Let me clarify.

If you are worried from day to day that you’re gonna lose your job, and you work for a company that could care less whether or not you lose your shirt, how good of a job are you going to do? You have no stake in the company, you’re not benefitting if the company thrives (no raises, bad benefits if any, etc.), and you’re certainly not feeling loyal to a place that kicks their employees to the curb. It’s depressing to work in an environment like that. Yeah, you may work, but you’re running scared (and probably bitter) the whole time. How good of a job can you do when you’re discouraged and waiting for the bomb to drop on you?

On the flip side, you’re also not going to do a very good job if you know that you can never get fired, no matter how much you suck. Take a look at tenured professors for a good example. Of course not ALL tenured professors are bad teachers, but it could be argued that some tenured professors would be out of a job tomorrow if they weren’t tenured because their job performance is so terrible.

You’ve gotta have SOME form of job security, IMHO, to be happy in a job, and I think it does encourage production. “Do a good job and you keep your job and there will be rewards based on your performance,” vs. “Doesn’t matter how hard you work, we’ll still screw you over,” vs. “Doesn’t matter how much you suck at your job, we’ll coddle you anyway and give you the same salary as those who actually do work.” Which philosophy is going to encourage excellence?

13

It isn’t the assembly line workers who are responsible for poor quality, it’s the designers. All the workers do is put the parts together.

The important thing is design standards. Every company that designs a new product first lays down the requirements: It shoud be X big, it should weigh X much, it should last X long, it should use the drivetrain from Y. Every requirement is a balance between “goodness” and cost.

At GM, for a long time, cost was in the ascendant; GM would do anything to a car to reduce cost, even if it meant reducing the quality of the part; as a result, GM cars got worse and worse over time, until nowadays nobody with any brains is buying them.

And those decisions get into the system, and you can’t get them out. Joe Designer designs a new clip to hold a door panel. Sure, it breaks every time you remove the door panel, but what the hell, it’s five cents cheaper per thousand. And the whole organization realizes that it’s a POS part, and when the next car design comes along the door panel engineer wants to design a better clip. He goes to his boss, and the boss says, wow, that is a better design, but whoa, it’s five cents per thousand more expensive. You’d better put together a Business Case for the change.

Yeah, that’s right, put together a study comparing the costs and benefits of putting a better door panel clip on the car. Of course, no-one can put together a business case to justify a new door panel clip. The costs are obvious (look at the invoice here) and the benefits are intangible: the door panels are not easier to install at the factory; the only real benefit is that when the customer has to tear his door apart to replace the fking door speaker that failed because it, too, was purchased for the lowest possible cost, he doesn’t swear at the fking door panel clips that break every fking time he takes the fking door panel off this f**king POS goddamned sunnuvabitchin never-gonna-buy-another-one car.

So the old part, the no-good part, goes on the new car. Until they redesign it to cut the cost a bit more.

Now, repeat over and over and over again for every component on the car, the engine control computer, the stereo, the power window mechanism, the wheel bearings, the interior trim, the little bolt that holds the battery in: Cheapen for cost reasons, kill any improvement effort because the Business Case doesn’t “close” because the benefits can’t be quantified.

And pretty soon your entire car is completely worthless.

14

Lots of outdated information in this thread it seems. American carmakers are putting forward some VERY good cars right now, it just will take people a while to notice, and get over their preconceived notions, if they can.

I will put the initial quality and reliability of my 2003 Cadillac against any car in it’s price segment, including Japanese and Euro makers. For some reason I’m pretty sure that Cadillac beat BMW in JD Power surveys this year…

15

I looked at the paperwork for a PT Cruiser, some of it was made in Mexico, some in Canada & some in the USA. I wonder if Japanese cars are 100% Japanese parts?

I think that making ‘mutt cars’ is what effects reliability. That & planned obsolesce.

16

I think it’s often a case of selective memory with brand loyal customers. Toyota fans seem to forget the total amount of maintenance that was actually required to keep their car running.

My wife is convinced that her Toyota Tercel ran great for years. I remember that we had to replace the entire radiator in the thing and darn near every other part under the hood but the engine. Yes, it made it will past 100,000 miles, but so did my Sunfire. And my Sunfire only required a new air conditioning compressor.

17

With regards to the workers assembling the cars, aren’t many Japanese cars now made here in the states?

Last I heard, there were some pretty massive cuts that had to be made in some of the Japanese automakers. Didn’t Renault take over Nissan? I’m pretty sure I heard that they had to make some pretty big layoffs.

18

Yeah, I was wondering that too. Is there any statistical evidence to show that Japanese cars are more reliable than American cars?

19

The comparison I was making in the OP was based on data from Consumer Reports, a major consumer information / watchdog magazine produced by Consumers Union here in the U.S. They survey thousands of readers each year about what cars they own and what sort of repairs they’ve needed - and the surveys aren’t just “Do you think your car is reliable” but “Has it needed repair work on the air conditioner in 1 year? 2 years? The transmittion in 1 year?” etc. They have reliablility indexes for most cars by year and part of the car, going back about 7 years.

20

Here’s the info on how they do it from their Annual Auto Issue, published April 2003: