Consumers wary about automaker bankruptcy

  In 1977 I bought a Plymouth Volare. In less than a year the fenders rusted out, I had the car at the dealer 14 times {parts they said they changed were never changed - I had marked them} and finally gave up. Ironically, this is when the big three said they were trying to win back customers.

  The next vehicle we bought was a Toyota and was satisfied with this vehicle and service. Since then I have never bought an American car and probably never will.  Since then, I have bought Mazda and Nissan and have never been disappointed.

  I empathize with the US workers who may be out of work but why should I purchase an inferior vehicle and be subjected to inferior service - even if they have improved, I have only memories of an inferior product and service. I was infuriated that Chrysler was bailed out  in the '80s and feel that they should have been allowed to fail - is not  this the "free market"?

brian

I have followed the big 3 auto makers and their passionate pleas for some of the $25Billion in what would be 'free money' to them. Just this year GM has blown through $18.8 Billion of their own money and now they want to share the $25Billion three ways. BS it won't work and when (not if) they get the money and then go into Chapter 7 there goes any hope of a payback. The company's management and the unions are responsible for their own situation and the addition of $25Billion split 3 ways is not going to change the unions nor the management mind sets (reference each CEO arriving in DC in their own private jets!!) Let those self serving auto execs return to Detroit and file Chaper 7 and get it over with, I'm sure the upper level execs will find the money to pay themselves a big bonus anyway.

I don't believe that a lack of parts is an important problem.  There are lots of suppliers both in the US and abroad that will quickly see an opportunity and enter that market.

Warranties are a different issue.  If you really need a warranty, perhaps you need to reduce the price you pay for the car and buy your own on the open market. 

There certainly are difficulities, buy it is hard to see how taxpayers should pay $25 B to avoid these issues. 

Well, lets look at it in a positive light. At least the automakers are not threatening us with shutting their business all together if there is no bailout? Think management bonuses are already taken care of so no problem with that.

Folks, this is not capitalism at its worst, but perhaps its finest 100 years moment. If we fall for it.

Ooooppsss, we already did that with the banker's demands.  What was it they said "No more credit" One can hear it now, "No more cars" And Toyota, Kia, et al, grinned so hard.  

 but the headlines about the Detroit Three's dire situation may already be keeping buyers away.

The quality of the cars and trucks they produce is what keeps many buyers away.

Ford Motor Co., also suffering under the worst sales environment in 25 years,

So, this has been coming for years, and yet with bailouts that can be had, they're begging now?

The main reason why the Big Three are suffering, is simply because of mismanagement, lack of quality, and the union. All three of these reasons are all tied together to created one huge mess. Take care of those three, and I can bet things would start looking up.

If they bail out the car companies, they should do two things. First, make GM give up the patents to Nickle metal hydride batteries to public domain. Actually, Chevron owns the patents--- they bought the battery company when GM was making the EV-1 in the '90s, and have refused to make or license anyone else to make the batteries in larger than 1.5 volt cells. These batteries are what allowed the EV-1 to go 100+ miles between charges. The cost about 10% the cost of lithium ion batteries to make.

Second, If we bail out the auto industry, require the companies to split. Make Saturn, Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Pontiac, Hummer, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Dodge, Chrysler-- all of them have to operate as separate, individual, independant companies. That way, in the future, we're not looking at 2 million workers being jobless if one of them fails, and they can actually compete with each other instead of offering different flavors of the same product.

Chevron is a major shareholder of GM. When the EV-1 looked like it was going to be a success, they found it more profitable to buy the battery company, Ovonics, and stop making the batteries and lobby to overturn the clean air restrictions than it was to just change to electric cars. Let's see, an oil company that wants to own patents for batteries that compete with gas engines--- can you say monopoly? Can you say illegal? Can you say violation of national security?

I'm not buying gas again untill it goes back up to 4 dollars. OO yeah, and I'm never paying taxes again. Really.

Ever now congress doesn't want to help the auto companies, but they sure passed the 700. billion for the banks. just goes to show that we the people don't have anything to say on what congress does, 80% of the American people were against the bailout.Why don't they asked the banks for a plan, before any money goes to the banks. Look how AIG used the money, the only reason AIG wasn't allowed to fail is because it has to much foreign interest.

Bank CEOs never fly in planes. They use transporters. Startrek kind.

If we are going to bailout the automakers, why not put a stipulation in the bailout that with the money they can only use it to develop hydrogen cars- I am sick and tired of everyone telling me that the hydrogen car is still twenty years away from mainstream markets...Tell the big three that the money must go to developing and marketing hydrogen cars and put a feasible timetable in place for the first cars to start hitting the market in 2011-2012.  Sure, the first models probably won't be the best, but neither was the first internal combustion engine car either.  Over time the technology will get refined and the future models will get better, but if we don't hold their feet to the fire then they will never develop that hydrogen car.  Even with gas prices falling should make no difference; we cannot sit on our rear ends again just because the energy crisis is taking a nap- Gas prices will start to climb sooner or later and when it does I don't want to hear that it will be another twenty years before the hydrogen car makes its mainstream debut.  And don't tell me the two hundred or so hydrogen cars in California mean that they are already mainstream- If I cannot drive coast to coast on hydrogen, then it isn't mainstream...

I have a 6 year old GM car right now. At about 70,000 miles the transmission died, or course out of warranty. Since GM stopped making them it was very difficult to find another. One was found but after $3000 invested in that one, it is dying as well.

As far as I am concerned GM, the management and union employees can stick their publicly funded "bailout" up their you-know-whats.

They should not get a dime.

If their products weren't crap to begin with, they wouldn't need taxpayer money to be able to continue to produce it. I have only bought one new american-made car in my life & it was a piece of junk!  Regardless of whether they go bankrupt or not, I'll never give them another chance to unload their substandard, ridiculously overpriced trash on me.

Why would I buy a car that will have ZERO resale value when (not if) the Big-3 go belly-up? The death spiral will only get worse. I see no hope for a turnaround because there can be no confidence in these companies from here on out. Sad to say, but this is a one-way street headed into oblivion.

If any of them go Chapter 11 all of them will.  They would not be able to remain competitive if they didn't.  Chapter 11 is not a good option in my opinion.  There would be a huge ripple effect.  They could walk away from a large part of their current debt to the thousands of suppliers that they do business with.  This would cause countless other bankruptcies throughout the economy. 

They should get the loans they need before they run out of cash.  If we can bail out AIG twice and their execs still carry on pissing away our money, we can afford to loan the big 3 25B to avoid catastrophy.

I'm not saying they shouldn't provide a plan, or that it should be a handout.  It should be a loan with strings attached to get them through the financial crisis.

All of the companies, whether they be the banks, or the Big 3, should have a plan. Anyone who ever needed money for startup costs of a business, or for expansion of a business, or the survival of a business,  had to have a plan to present to the bank officers in order to be approved. The government made a HUGE mistake when they handed the money to AIG but started getting fussy and strict with the auto companies. That should have been a requirement from the get-go no matter who they are.  

My feeling on this is that NO company, no matter who it is or what they sell and or manufacture, you shouldn't be so on the edge that sales being down 20 to 25% will have you on the brink of colapse.

Never be so confident in the market that you can't suck it up and make it through the lean times, be prepared for any and all eventualities, thats the single most important virtue of strong management.

This is a prime example of gross mis-management