American Cars III: What about the dealers?
Mac Tonite left an interesting comment on an earlier post about American Cars, and brings up shady dealer practices. He uses the example of Saab, pre- and post-GM, and finds the need for repairs increased once Saab repairs were moved over to the local Cadillac service center.
His suggestion seems to be that dealers representing the Big Three are snakes, while foreign car dealers have more integrity.
I am wondering if this negative perception of dealers ties into the quality perception of American cars discussed earlier -- that is, quality rankings for American cars are affected by excessive bogus repairs authorized by greedy dealers. The cars may not need the repairs, and the quality is actually good, but the dealers for the Big Three recommend them anyway to boost their profits.
Meanwhile, foreign car dealers restrain themselves, either because they have more integrity/less greed, or because customers are extremely sensitive to high priced foreign-made parts and the dealers don't want to scare them away.
Does this sound plausible? Any dealer stories that support/contradict this?
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A few years ago, one or more of the big automakers wanted to sell their cars online over the web. A huge uproar ensued from just about every dealer in every state that they would be put out of business. Subsequently, I think every state passed some sort of law that basically says if you're going to sell cars in their state, you have to have a locally located (physical) dealership.
This essentially gives you a hint at how much money these guys rake in and how terrified they were that it would all go away.....
There seems to be some effort with these posts to imply that the Big Three cars are perhaps just as well built with just as few problems as any other car but that there is a conspiracy via the consumers or the dealers or someone that makes it look like they are worse.
Keep in mind that when consumer reports tracks quality they are tracking how many times the car had to go in for repairs. The dealer can't make your car break down, unless the on-star system lets them make parts of the car fail when they need some business?
I think the gap may be closing, but for me the quality test is pretty simple and its not really about the little repairs here and there that come up with certain cars at 50,000 or 70,000 miles. The test for me is how far can you drive a car before its in the graveyard or nickel and diming and $1,000 dollaring you to death.
I have an 11 year-old Nissan Maxima with 175,000 on it have not had any serious problems with it. Yes the air conditioner has a hole in the evaporator that I didn't get fixed. But the key to me is how long do the major operational systems of the car last. It seems to me that many people get nervous about their American cars when they turn over that magical 100,000 mile mark. Perhaps that is a perception that has changed over the years I don't know. But it seems with Japanese cars, many people view 100,000 as just the break in. I fully expect the Japanese cars major systems: engine, transmission, powertrain to last to 200,000 miles and perhaps go to 300,000 on a regular basis. Obviously they all won't. But it seems that most do.
My experience from family and friends who drive a lot of Big Three cars is that theirs don't make it there very often and often start with the real troubles before the 100,000 mile mark. And the worst is when the dealer tells you yeah, thats a known problem with that model. Cheap plastic clip breaks and all the head gaskets go between 50-70,000. Oh and your 1999 pick-up, thats going to do it too, same engine. My dad got that story on his Chevy van and pickup and my brother had the same thing happen to him at 40,000 miles. And its a 1,000 dollar expense in the engine. My dad traded the pickup off before it happened and someone local in town who he knows bought it. He heard from the dealer that that guy had the pickup back in there 6 months later to fix the exact thing the dealer said would break. Stuff like that seems pretty unacceptible to me especially when the dealer tells you they are all going to do it and its because of a poor design choice that put inferior parts in the engine. My cousin had a 2 year old chevy pickup drop its transmission at 50,000 miles. $2,000 dollar expense. He thought they should warranty it but obviously the warranty was off. He told the dealer he would never buy another Chevy (he was mad, he just moved to Ford). The dealer said, they don't care. Obviously this is all just anecdotal evidence. But I have seen it for 10 years as so many around me buy the big three and have their cars in for repairs far too often I think. With everything I have seen first hand it would take quite a lot to convince me that the Big 3 had gotten their act together and were back up to par.
To me the best car buy on the market is a 6 or 7 year old Japanese car with 100,000 miles on it. You get it for 20% of new and its only half used up, maybe less.
Here are a few things I've learned by talking to people:
Not too long ago my wife's car broke down. I went to pick her up and traded cars; I called tow truck driver to take me to mechanic. On the way there I asked him if he was busy - said he had been picking up overheated cars all day (it was a very hot day). I asked him what the most common cars he towed - guess what he said, "Ford, GM and Dodge". I asked him what the least cars he towed. He said, "I rarely tow a honda or toyota but sometimes Nissan". I asked him if he were buying a new car what would he buy - he said Toyota.
Second story:
An old co-worker of many years past sat down and talked about the quality of cars. She told me her dad had worked for Ford (at some plant) for 30 years and she said Ford had a "planned obselecense" mentality. "Why put in a steering wheel that will last 20 years when one that will last 8 and save a couple of bucks will do?"
I have no doubt that is what goes on at Ford all these years later. Cheap components to shave off a few bucks to improve profits and shareholder value.... this works great until someone starts putting in 20 year steering wheels (Toyota) or starts selling even cheaper components (China) in their cars.....
