The end of the US auto industry ?

> Me too, I'd love the 3L diesel in a Dakota. It's
> only in the top end Jeep. And was developed by
> Daimler, like the Sprinter diesel.
>
> But keep in mind that Chrysler HAS been working to
> improve their diesels to meet the 2010 US
> standards (particulate and NOx are the challenges,
> I believe; Josh Wimpey I bet knows. ) They have
> been the US leaders in trying to get more diesels
> into the market.

I'd and MANY other people I would know would be all over a diesel HD dakota.. that had.. what were those called again... hmm OH STAKE POCKETS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHERE YOU COULD LASH THINGS DOWN TO

I fucking hate the last 3 dodge dakotas, drink as much gas as a full size, have a small box that's styled to look cool.. and have driven, owned way too many.

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

RE: Frumby & Morten2 comments about smaller diesels

Last October I had this gig working with AUDI. The job required driving all over the US. AUDI had support mechanics and gear for quick service in a VW Transporter Diesel with manual transmission. The Transporter with 5 guys and full tools and some parts driving hi-way at 80-85 MPH was getting upper 40's-low 50's MPG, roughly double what a Sprinter gets! Pay load values I don't remember, trailer capability is 5000 LBS. One of the techs has one in Germany that he loads with everything, very heavy according to him and the other techs, drives the Autobahn well over 100 MPH and still gets mid 40's MPG. They claimed trailer towing was not a significant decrease in mileage.

Several of us inquired about why they don't offer them here.
-Price would be high 40-50K plus so sales were projected to be low.
-Didn't think people would buy manual transmission in a van (folks sure use too, may not be true today).
-Lack of fueling stations, and many that do exist are "unpleasant".

There are vehicles out there however not for us. I like the Sprinter but would go for a Transporter like this if there was a choice. It would be very friendly for daily use and more then capable for towing, rally, etc. needs. We did some cruising around in it and we all fought to drive!!!

---

As always IMHO

SEAN TENNIS KF7JJR
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SAAB 99, SAAB 850
SAAB V4, SAAB 99T

SEANT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RE: Frumby & Morten2 comments about smaller
> diesels
>
> Last October I had this gig working with AUDI. The
> job required driving all over the US. AUDI had
> support mechanics and gear for quick service in a
> VW Transporter Diesel with manual transmission.
> The Transporter with 5 guys and full tools and
> some parts driving hi-way at 80-85 MPH was getting
> upper 40's-low 50's MPG, roughly double what a
> Sprinter gets! Pay load values I don't remember,
> trailer capability is 5000 LBS. One of the techs
> has one in Germany that he loads with everything,
> very heavy according to him and the other techs,
> drives the Autobahn well over 100 MPH and still
> gets mid 40's MPG. They claimed trailer towing was
> not a significant decrease in mileage.
>
> Several of us inquired about why they don't offer
> them here.
> -Price would be high 40-50K plus so sales were
> projected to be low.
> -Didn't think people would buy manual transmission
> in a van (folks sure use too, may not be true
> today).
> -Lack of fueling stations, and many that do exist
> are "unpleasant".
>
> There are vehicles out there however not for us. I
> like the Sprinter but would go for a Transporter
> like this if there was a choice. It would be very
> friendly for daily use and more then capable for
> towing, rally, etc. needs. We did some cruising
> around in it and we all fought to drive!!!
>
> As always IMHO
>
> SEAN TENNIS
> SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
> SAAB 99, SAAB 850

Sounds amazing, but there points might be valid.

Diesel has always had a very big stigma for anything other than commercial use in NA... so not such a huge problem.

Also, the stick shift would hurt it.. mostly due to decreased driver skill set and increased multitasking while driving.

Most damingly, the construction industry as a whole stopped buying Diesel Pickup Trucks because they realized that the "life time" cost was actually higher. In other words, the increased fuel economy wasn't offset by the higher initial purchase price. -- this is a bit of a red herring as most of the large construction companies cycle there trucks out very frequently.

The thing about diesel stations is rubbish.. at least around here.

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

Morten2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 65' Goat -> NICE !
>
> Does it have a 4 barrel or is it tri-powered ?

We converted it from a 2 bbl to the factory Carter 4 BBl. That's all a VERY sad story. Bought it 1 month before the 1973 gas crisis, and was my first 1/2 car; bought it halvsies with another sailor. I sold my half to my buddie to get a nice used '70 Ranchero, and he traded the GTO to an Army guy for a Plymouth Satellite 440 GTX (10 mpg!). The guy who got the GTO blew the rear end out and I suspect it was gone.

My son reminds my of MY GTO regularly just to epxress his disgust for my ignorance and to watch me cry!

Oh, and get this: IT WAS A CONVERTIBLE!

BWAAAAAAAA.......

hudson Wrote:

> Most damingly, the construction industry as a
> whole stopped buying Diesel Pickup Trucks because
> they realized that the "life time" cost was
> actually higher. In other words, the increased
> fuel economy wasn't offset by the higher initial
> purchase price. -- this is a bit of a red herring
> as most of the large construction companies cycle
> there trucks out very frequently.

Most leased vehicles would never off set the added buy in expense of a diesel pick-up, if cared for maybe make up in resale but it's hard to guess the market and reliability. We've crunched numbers several times on Hybrids, and they just don't pay for themselves when looking at the high buy in cost and return compared to equal but much lower priced vehicles that get near the same fuel mileage -- one can drive many miles for ten thousand plus dollars!

I talked with a diesel mechanic today, go figure, that said he would never buy a diesel pick up -- then went on to explain all the reasons why. Some valid some based on Diesel PU's of several years ago. I would buy gas if I were to buy a PU today, but that's me at this time.
>
> The thing about diesel stations is rubbish.. at
> least around here.

It was a true statement when and where we were driving, but one had no problem finding the same situation for gas only stations, so it's a wash. There is more trouble finding Diesel easily and that needs corrected. One would think upgrading service stations to all include Diesel would be a big pay off for a national oil company, what with all the Diesel PU's on the road.
>
> Andrew McNally
> Hamilton, ON
> 29

---

As always IMHO

SEAN TENNIS KF7JJR
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SAAB 99, SAAB 850
SAAB V4, SAAB 99T

starion887 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At the end of the day, cars generally get no
> > better gas mileage than they did years and
> years
> > before, they don't look any better, they
> don't
> > cost any less, and they're no more exciting
> to
> > drive.
> >
> Hunh? My 1965 Pontiac GTO 389 CI: 12 mpg city OR
> highway.
>
> 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T 5.7L: 25 mpg for real
> highway mileage, in the mountains, driven in the
> low to mid 70 mph range, all day long. Has
> variable cam timing, plus MDS in addition for the
> auto version. These MPG's are for real.

Ok so, you caught me with a specific example that my overly simplistic statement can be false. I give you that. What I was meaning to get across was that there hasn't been any major gains.

For starters, I don't think that anyone should be bragging about 25 mpg in this day and age, especially when there were plenty fun cars 40 years ago that got that or better.

Besides that.. how much gas mileage do you think I could get out of 1965 389 Goat if I put fuel injection on it, put in a decent transmission, appropriate rear end, lowered it a bit and put an air damn on the front?

Think it could get 25 mpg?

Should anyone get an award?

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

I bet that hurts to think about !

I had a friend with a 68 GTO convertible and another friend with a 66 Impala w. 396 / 375HP and that was in the mid 80's. Not bad for high school cars !

Not sure what happend to the GTO but the Impala sold for about $6K and it was a numbers car. I bet he cries when he thinks about it.

My friends dad (the guy with the Impala) collected street rods and he always said "buy a Sunbeam Tiger, it's quick, the chicks dig em, and hang on to it until you're my age"... we'll back then a clean one was less than $10K. Did we listen ? Nooooooooooo

In college my buddy had a Dematosa Pantera, he sold it to go traveling in Europe. He definately cries !

hudson Wrote:
>
> Most damingly, the construction industry as a
> whole stopped buying Diesel Pickup Trucks because
> they realized that the "life time" cost was
> actually higher. In other words, the increased
> fuel economy wasn't offset by the higher initial
> purchase price. -- this is a bit of a red herring
> as most of the large construction companies cycle
> there trucks out very frequently.

If the vehicles are not kept long, then this makes perfect biz sense. (Amortizing in the US for tax deductions is loaded more into the first years of ownerhsip, encouraging quicker turnover, so the gas mileage benefits never 'take'.) And one biz friend does not buy diesels anymore since a couple of his 'not-the-brightest' employees put gasoline in 2 of the diesels and immediately blew up the engines!
>
> The thing about diesel stations is rubbish.. at
> least around here.
>
>
It always seems easier to find diesel outside of the cities. Been that way since owning my first diesel in '85: don't run out of diesel in Chi-town but don't worry about finding diesel in the wilds of the UP.

Mark B.

A quick search in Germany:
http://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/searchrefine.html?fuel=DIESEL&__lp=287&scopeId=C&sortOption.sortBy=price.consumerGrossEuro&sortOption.sortOrder=ASCENDING&makeModelVariant1.makeId=5700&makeModelVariant1.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant2.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant3.searchInFreetext=false&vehicleCategory=Car&segment=Car&minFirstRegistrationDate=2001-01-01&siteId=GERMANY&negativeFeatures=EXPORT&damageUnrepaired=NO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&export=NO_EXPORT&customerIdsAsString=&lang=en

- 3158 DIESELs.. and counting
- Why, really, they don't bring these over here?
- I don't specially like them but for long distance and towing nothing's better. The new BMW Diesel is sporty and smokes the most gas cars but way too expensive for me.

---

- RWD rocks -

SEANT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most leased vehicles would never off set the added
> buy in expense of a diesel pick-up, if cared for
> maybe make up in resale but it's hard to guess the
> market and reliability. We've crunched numbers
> several times on Hybrids, and they just don't pay
> for themselves when looking at the high buy in
> cost and return compared to equal but much lower
> priced vehicles that get near the same fuel
> mileage -- one can drive many miles for ten
> thousand plus dollars!

I don't think construction companies lease most of there trucks.. at least the ones I know don't.. they're usually too banged up for that. I may be wrong, but I think they buy them then liquidate them on some magic mileage/year formula.

I've often wondered how much of the diesel premium is simply premium.

> I talked with a diesel mechanic today, go figure,
> that said he would never buy a diesel pick up --
> then went on to explain all the reasons why. Some
> valid some based on Diesel PU's of several years
> ago. I would buy gas if I were to buy a PU today,
> but that's me at this time.

Like you mentioned, the diesel only begins to shine if you own it long enough and load it enough.

I've gotten in arguments for the last 15 years that V6 trucks that are going to be loaded fairly often, get the same/worse gas economy of the V8.

> It was a true statement when and where we were
> driving, but one had no problem finding the same
> situation for gas only stations, so it's a wash.
> There is more trouble finding Diesel easily and
> that needs corrected. One would think upgrading
> service stations to all include Diesel would be a
> big pay off for a national oil company, what with
> all the Diesel PU's on the road.

Part of the diesel problem is that you can't take a barrel of crude oil and only make diesel.. no matter what you do, you're always going to get some gas. And North America is the biggest consumer of gas.. European contries actually ship us gas waste (seriously). So if everyone here started driving diesels, there would be a gas surplus problem.

---

Andrew M
Onterrible
30ish

hudson Wrote:
> For starters, I don't think that anyone should be
> bragging about 25 mpg in this day and age,
> especially when there were plenty fun cars 40
> years ago that got that or better.
>
> Besides that.. how much gas mileage do you think I
> could get out of 1965 389 Goat if I put fuel
> injection on it, put in a decent transmission,
> appropriate rear end, lowered it a bit and put an
> air damn on the front?
>
> Think it could get 25 mpg?
>
> Should anyone get an award?
>
> Andrew McNally
> Hamilton, ON
> 29
No awards, just appropriate and fair credit for getting that level of mpg from a comfy performance car.......

BTW, my Opel Manta Rallies got about 23-24 mpg and my '71 Saab 99 got 27-28 mpg. My dad's (and later my)'76 Dodge Dart Lite with the 225 slant-6 got a solid 29 mpg, while meeting tighter emissions standards and with 50% more room than the Saab.

This mpg argument really boils down to the type of cars that people like. If you like or need a small car (if you live deep in a city and have no real parking space, you NEED a small car for sure), then getting 40 mpg is trival. If you like or need a large car or truck, 25 mpg is good (actually it would be super for a full size P/U truck).

Edit: And to be fair I do need to start adding 'IMO'.

Mark B.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2009 11:13PM by starion887.

After a long day of building financial models and thinking in terms of return on capital, debt coverage ratios, and other such ideas it is good to get on a rally board to hear what my buddies think is the right answer or who is to blame, or even what political system will save us!

I can say what the problem is but I can not say exactly how the problem got created or how to get out of it in the short term. If any of you wish to lay out a case why a political system or party is to blame I am more then happy to shoot holes in your case, then I will switch teams and do so for the other side... IMHO WE (as in all of us) got our selves into this mess and WE will work our way out of it.

Since I said I can out line the problem with the big three:

Overcapacity - The companies are set up to sell many more cars then they can right now, and the car industry has high fixed cost so the companies can not trim their cost or capacity to match the demand. Some of this cost is UAW but other parts are plants, tooling, overhead etc.

Collapse in Demand - People are not buying big three cars because 1) The fuel price scare changed the type of cars people wanted to buy very quickly 2) The elimination of credit.

End of Credit - for a long time some very smart people figured out how to lower the cost of borrowing money dramatically for average people and at the same time pushed limit of the total amount of debt an average person was thought to be able to sustain up from about 40% of the persons gross wage to more then 50% of gross wage. Unfortunately forward looking models of what could happen are full of educated guesses or assumptions. These assumptions were used to price debt or in other words the spread between the cost places such as GMAC could borrow money and the return they could make lending or leasing you money to buy a GM car. Effectively over night everyone figured out that credit was under priced relative to the risk. This error in pricing risk became apparent very quickly but figuring out what the spread would need to be requires going back and fixing all the flawed guesses and assumptions, something that takes time and since the same people that fucked up in the first place are the ones fixing the model no one really has confidence they got it right this time. So the credit markets froze up and are effectively still frozen - thus few people that could afford to lease or buy a car two years ago can still do so.

Derek

---

In the long run reality always wins.

derek Wrote:
thus
> few people that could afford to lease or buy a car
> two years ago can still do so.
>
> Derek

Interesting; a WV car dealer told me 2 months ago that 70% of their credit applicants for car purchases could no longer qualify for adequate credit. This is in a rural area where the types of cars produced by the big 3 are popular and, in some cases, more sensible for many users. So, maybe in these areas, where average incomes are lower, the credit crunch is having a bigger effect on these regions and thereby on big 3 cars. More food for thought.

Mark B.






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2009 11:24PM by starion887.

Speaking of old versus new ...

The big advantage of modern engine management is that it allows better control of the power curve. This has allowed, along with other changes, engines to develop more power, both torque and horse power and spread that power out. This has given the advantage of being able to ad more gears to the transmission, and this is what has led to better mileage.

Since the engine is producing more torque down low the vehicle runs down the hi-way at much lower RPM, using less fuel due to the lower RPM but powering the taller gearing due to the torque increase.

Most engines have not gained or rather decreased fuel consumption by that much from the engine management system, rather used the fuel to improve power output and gearing has been able to take advantage of the power gains.

This can be validated if one starts spinning the engine higher RPM and or shifting down and running same speeds, fuel consumption of course increases ...

---

As always IMHO

SEAN TENNIS KF7JJR
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SAAB 99, SAAB 850
SAAB V4, SAAB 99T

My parents have a large FWD Lincoln Continental. 32 valve fuel injected V8 sitting sideways in the engine bay. They do a lot of long distance driving, going to music festivals from Nashville to Chicago, etc. They drove it out to Pikes Peak when we ran the hillclimb and they took off from there for the Canadian Rockies.

The car gets 32mpg. No exaggeration. They keep meticulous records. Dad doesn't like to let me drive it when I come home, however, because he knows the average will come down. In his words..."this thing is cheaper to own than a Prius. And who the hell wants an ugly Prius??"

The stinkin' Linkin' (ugly as it is, in my eyes) seats 4 adults comfortably for long trips (Missy and I took Pop to the Can-Am reunion at Road America last summer, and I sat in the back seat (I'm 6'4" surfacing a truck cab for International for half the trip.)

The new Taurus coming out has a performance option with a twin-turbo V6.

The assumption that the technology at US car companies has not changed is flat wrong.

It's awful hard for folks to live down the sins of decades past. But I encourage people to go to the nearest large new car auto show when in town and walk right from vehicle to vehicle. Try to free your mind of all preconceptions...forget brands. Crawl underneath them. Look under the hood. Get inside. Lay your hands on the controls and flick the switches. Grab ahold of the trim and try to make it squeak. Read the spec sheets to learn what the differences are in drive train, etc. You will come away with some interesting perspectives.

For certain there will be standouts. But compare market segment to market segment, even car/truck segments you aren't interested in (you'll be less biased by brand when looking more objectively).

I'll let you know a secret. I've been working in design studios for auto companies for a while. They ALL want to be "best in class" in every segment they tackle. The studios bring in ALL the competitive cars in a market class, when designing a new model, for benchmarking. They determine which cars stand out for all kinds of different criteria...then try to beat them.

Benchmarking doesn't just happen on the studio floor, either. There are "ride and drives" where a cross section of the company's employees drives the entire competition fleet of cars along with the development model to compare and contrast all facets of the driving experience.

And then there are hoist reviews. I love hoist reviews. It's like a performance.

The companies buy a competitor's car or truck, take it in to a large shop with a hoist, and let everyone pick and prod it from all angles. But they are just getting started! They then tear it apart piece by piece, cataloging parts, processes, suppliers, etc. And they INVITE anyone in the design/engineering groups to come and watch/take part. I signed up for the email invitations for these, because you can learn so much about the design and processes used at different car companies from hoist reviews. When the car/truck is completely dismantled, it's typically chopped up if folks from say chassis eng. want to see how certain parts were formed etc. Ultimately, it get's scrapped in the name of benchmarking.

And this doesn't happen at just one company! It happens at Ford, GM, Hyundai, BMW, Audi, Honda, Toyota, etc.!

So please. If you like to sit in your own world and think that Detroit is still cranking out Olds Delta 88s, please...just go to a show with a clear mind and see for yourself. I guarantee you, you will find a few turds...from places all over the world. But you'll find some very good cars and trucks from all over the world, too.

---

Lurch
Eric Burmeister
The west coast...of Michigan