Why GM Doesn't Make Good Cars Anymore, What Went Wrong
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, zack says
Scotty my old family are GM fans, do you
know when GM car started to make them
poorly, my guess would be when they went
bankrupt around 2009, well they started
to make them poorly long before that, even
in the early 2000s they started to make
a lot cheaper stuff, I don't know how
true it is, but I talked to an engineer
and an engineer told me one time that GM
and Ford were going neck to neck and
people thought, Oh GM's are made better
than the Fords and then they did a
little research and GM found out that
they were spending 20% more building
their vehicles and that's why they were
better vehicles back decades ago, well
according to the engineer that I was
talking to, GM looked at and said gee
were spending 20% money more than Ford
building our cars, let's make them
cheaper, so they did and then the quality
went down, I know if it's true or not but
an engineer told me that, but they
have been going but down since the
early 2000s, it's just the nature of the
beast with corporations these days, they
want to make a profit and they want to
make things as cheap as they can and pay
people that make them as little as
possible, so they make more profit for
the corporation that's the way that
things go and sometimes it takes the
wrong turn like GM did and make products
that you don't hold up like they used to,
I learned to drive on a Chevrolet
Biscayne the thing was like a tank it had
a
302 v8 in it and that thing just ran
forever but not the new ones their not made
that wa,y no Oberto says Scotty
I am seriously considering buying the
2019 Land Cruisers, do you consider it to
be
the best quality built SUV I'm aware of
the gas mileage, yes they are for that
kind of a vehicle if you're willing to
spend that kind of money and get that
kind of low gas mileage, they are well build
vehicles my customers with them are all
pretty well happy with them, other than
the horrible gas mileage and if you're
willing to spend that kind of money, they
can last a long time, I got customers
with those thing that have three hundred and
fifty thousand miles on them and they're
still running strong, yeah if you don't
mind spending that kind of money go
right ahead, me I'm too cheap I'd never
spend that kind of money, Rambo ask
Scotty what do you think about me buying
a 2004 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited
all wheel drive with 140,000 miles straight
6 for six grand
from my uncle as a first car,
well first of all some uncle he should
give you the car, now I'm not a Jeep fan
by any stretch of the imagination but
back in 2004 they were building much
better ones than they are today now that
Fiat owns them, that straight six-cylinder
engine can last forever I've seen those
things go 400,000 miles, good engines the
transmission that's an OK transmission
it's not great but it's not totally
horrible, it's a 15 year old Jeep try to
get it for a little bit less than $6,000
see if you can barter it, they can be fun
vehicles to drive around, realize they're
somewhat gas hogs because jeeps are
trucks their high up in the air, their not
aerodynamic or anything but it can be a
fun thing to drive, just try to get it a
little bit of lower, Scotty my SUV keeps
going out of alignment I had new shocks
replaced and no one seems to get the
alignment right, any ideas what as to what
it can be,
here's the thing, front end alignment
work we're talking about thousands of an
inches here thousands of an inches there
it's gotta be a pro who knows what he's
doing, so your best to find a
front-end shop that's all they do, here
in Houston I use cotton brothers front
end, they know what they're doing they
can fix any alignment problem, now the
second thing is, modern vehicles
especially the SUVs they're not like
vehicles when I was young, when I was
young they had all kinds of adjustments
there were like six different
adjustments you could do, today a lot of
times the only adjustment you can do is
the caster and the camber that's it
you can't do anything else, so it might
be that the alignment is off because the
struts bent or an a frame is bent, that's
why you have to start with a really good
front end guy, who knows what he's doing
and does good work you have to start
there, because otherwise all bets are off,
Devon says Scotty and I got a 93
3 liter 4runner, it does 16-17 mile per gallon
on the highway but does five to six in the
city any reason why, I live in Fresno
with hardly any traffic on the streets
Thanks, okay first of all, when you're
driving it in town does it get into top
gear, if you drive it really slow and the
transmission doesn't shift into top
gear, you're gonna get crappy gas mileage
like that, 16 to 17 is what those things
get on a highway, so it's working
normally at highway speed, so I'm
assuming it's not shifting into the top
gear when you're driving in town, go 35
miles an hour count the shifts as it shifts
and it should be into the top gear
if it isn't, you got a problem with your
transmission not shifting into gear
that's about the only thing that would
make sense cuz if you have any other
problem with the vehicle, it's gonna get
horrible gas mileage on the highway too,
the only difference is, it's shifting
into the higher gear on the highway maybe
it's not doing it in town, you should
still get at least 12 or something in
the city not 5 or 6, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair
videos, remember to ring that Bell!
GM Just Threw Away the Chevy Camaro
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, GM says that the six
generations Chevy Camaro z/28 program
has been cancelled all right now for the
car guys out there that are the muscle
cars
there have been rumors going around that
they're not going to be making the
Camaros in the future they don't have
any particular plans that they have
set in stone with it there's even some
rumors that they're gonna make an
all electric cars which may be what
they're going to do they're canceling a
sixth generation I'm assuming that they
are gonna stop making Camaros they
stopped making the things a few years
back and then they brought them back
again they had a bunch of quality
control with the ones they were making
in Quebec and so then they just stopped
making them entirely I mean those are
terrible machines in the end I had them
where the wiring harnesses would go out
to transmissions and blow up and they
brought them back again I who knows
maybe they'll just eventually have them
only as an electric car and shelving the
production of any sixth generation
Camaro kind of tells me they yeah
they're maybe they're thinking about
making the mental electric cars only
time will tell her that but you're
obviously thinking about getting rid of
Camaro is a muscle car by not producing
these, ash says hey my wife has
an old ML 320 it's forty eight thousand
mile keep it and driving myself for
selling wife wants a new car
forty-eight thousand miles isn't much if
you haven't had problems with it it
hasn't been wrecked flooded or stolen
you might as well keep it you said it's
an old one if it's an old one it has
virtually no value nobody wants to buy
an old Mercedes the resale value was
cramped but with 48,000 miles generally
don't fall apart until they are over
100,000 miles so what the heck you got
it why not use it for your car and then
get your wife another car obviously
you'll put that many miles on the cars
it still could last a while cuz you
getting nothing selling if it works okay
now what the heck I personally wouldn't
buy one but you already have it so you
might as well driving around you'll get
much for it if you try selling it, Bologna is
there any way to buy nitrogen to fill
your tires yeah oh that's kind of an
interesting subject matter realize that
Earth's atmosphere is already something
like eighty percent nitrogen dress is
about 20 percent oxygen some trace
elements but
about 80% nitrogen already so what
difference does it really make if you
have a 100% nitrogen you tires or 80%
for years people tried to sell me as a
mechanic at my shop systems that purify
the nitrogen in our atmosphere and turn it
into almost a hundred percent
nitrogen and filling the tires with
because theoretically it doesn't oxidize
inside and the temperatures don't affect
it that much when they change hot or
cold or they do use nitrogen I believe
in like the jet airplanes because
they're up at 50,000 feet and it gets
really cold there and the pressure the
tires would keep going up and down for
them and it makes sense but you're not
driving your car at 50,000 feet out
there so you know if you can find a
place that sells the stuff go right
ahead but far as I'm concerned you're
mainly wasting your money on that stuff
for a car that you're driving every day
nobody's approached me in the last year
trying to sell me one of these stupid
nitrogen systems and it cost thousands
of dollars so so if anybody has one
they're gonna charge your pretty penny
to fill up your tires cause hey they had
to pay a bunch of money for the stupid
machine
Daniel pina says hey Scotty is the 2007
f-150 a reliable vehicle these days
yeah the previous owner took care of it
2007 f-150 is pretty reliable vehicle
they're much better with the v8 sixes meh
any vehicle if you're talking about
buying a used one have a mechanic like
me check it out before you show your
money out cuz you don't know something's
wrecked flooded stolen there's all kinds
of things you can go around and with our
fancy machines we can tell I spend about
an hour checking out used cars I just
checked out a used car for a guy this
morning you know it's a fourth of July, I
forgot
he made an appointment so I got up
there anyways they can't be great good
cars but you want to make sure there
isn't a problem in it in the first place
cuz you're not gonna get a guarantee
demon says Scotty I got a
2005 Chrysler Sebring Convertible with
eighty two thousand miles my first car
any thoughts baby that thing that was a
big lemon Mobil that they made the v6
engines those things were terrible it's
still running it's 82 thousand miles
let's say it runs and it shifts good now
baby it you got it it's a convertible a
lot of times people think of verticals
are worth money but convertibles aren't
because everybody knows there were
terrible cars but you gotta take care of
a change the oil every 3,000 miles don't
overheat the engine don't race it don't
peel off
pretend you're a little old lady driving
that car and maybe the last one I got
some little old lady
drive them and they're still going okay
because they drive slow but all the men
that I knew that drove them hard they
all burn out either the engine or the
transmission or both, so if you never
want to miss another one of my new car
repair videos, remember to ring that Bell
10 Cars Being Killed Off After 2018 — Discontinued Cars
Insider Car News:
Automakers kill off vehicles every year, mostly
due to slow sales.
While some come as a shock, others go away
without anyone ever noticing.
Here's a look at 10 cars being killed off
after 2018.
The Dodge Viper: Apparently, we didn't deserve
to have such a raw, unbridled monster in our midst.
And now it's gone.
The Volkswagen Beetle: Thanks to the financial
burden of the Dieselgate fallout, coupled
with overall declining sales, the Beetle must
go away for now.
But don't be surprised if this iconic car
comes back in the future.
The Infiniti QX70: Slow sales were what killed
off the QX70, and we'll miss that aggressive
exhaust snarl.
For now, Infiniti is placing its hopes in
the QX50.
The Jeep Patriot: This vehicle didn't live
up to Jeep's image of outdoor freedom.
It was obviously rated for going over speed
bumps and that's about it.
It's no mystery why sales suffered.
The Ford Focus: It's the only victim of Ford
ending the sale of cars in the North American
market for 2018.
The Fiesta and Taurus will follow in 2019,
and the Fusion in 2020.
The Honda Accord Coupe: Honda decided to put
the Accord Coupe out to pasture.
While it was the right decision, this is another
affordable performance car that's dead, draining
more joy out of driving.
The Chevrolet SS: This performance sedan packed
a strong V-8 punch, but thanks to a bland
appearance and little marketing from Chevrolet,
this model suffered from dismal sales.
The Buick Verano: If you want a compact Buick
car, you'll have to go with a pre-owned model,
because the Verano is a goner.
Sales show people would rather have a compact
premium crossover.
The Mitsubishi Lancer: With Nissan now in
charge as Mitsubishi's new owner, the order
of the day is SUVs, SUVs, and more SUVs.
That means we say goodbye to the Lancer, probably
forever.
The Hyundai Azera: If you didn't know this
sedan existed, you're forgiven.
There wasn't much marketing around it, and
as a result, it got pummeled by the likes
of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
The Truth About the New Chevy Cruze, Buyer Beware
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, Kenneth case of
Scotty
I really like my 2017 chevy cruze
premiere RS I never had a problem
throughout my ownership should I keep it
thanks, well it's a 2017 it's only a year
and a half old, you better not have any
problems, you might as well keep it cuz
I'll tell you the truth if you try
selling that thing now, you'll see how
much money you will lose, what you owe on
it versus what it's worth it would be
foolish to sell it now maybe you got a
good one that's gonna last, I never advise
anybody to buy it and I got a customer with
one he's got a picture of Mickey Mouse
in his back window cuz she's sued them
under the lemon lawn for some weird
reason they gave him back three thousand
dollars and that was it, they wouldn't
take the car back so, you know but if it lasts
drive it around cuz you would lose your
shirt if you sold it now, CK says Scotty
I'm looking into buying a 2004 GMC
Canyon with two hundred sixteen thousand
miles from a mechanic should I buy it
okay
well it depends if it was the mechanic's
vehicle and he took care of it, not a
bad idea but if he's selling it for somebody
else
you kind of think now the canyon was
kind of a bizarre truck they weren't
that bad
I mean look that thing's got a lot of
miles it's still running, I just uh
wouldn't pay too much for it, it's a 15
year old GMC pickup truck with two
hundred sixteen thousand miles if you're
looking for a Knockaround truck to haul
a little bit of stuff around why not but
just don't pay too much, it's an old GMC
truck with a lot of miles on it,
Albee says what's your opinion on police
cars mainly 2013 police patrol vehicle
Taurus with the 3.7 Mustang engine with
100,000 miles on it, well that was a fun
vehicle in its time but the thing is if
it was a police vehicle, generally they
drive them like maniacs and they get
the heck burnt out of them, I mean you generally
expect you're gonna put an engine or a
transmission in them in a short period of
time, but if you are thinking about
buying one use, do not touch it until you
get a guy like me a professional
mechanic and gonna check it out with his
computer and road test it and tell you
what kind of shape it's in. you want to
start there if you do want to buy a
vehicle like that, they can be fun to drive
around but of course don't pay much for
it, a used police vehicle the resale
value is not that much, you don't want to
pay much because
you know you're playing with dynamite
you don't know what's left with that
vehicle, why do you think the police get
rid of them every so many years,
Alvaro Tejado says Scotty I got
a 95 volvo 940 when i start it up in the
morning it makes the metallic rattling
sound when I rev it, it goes away for 3-4
minutes, the engine was rebuilt seven
years ago you know what's really typical
with those things, is the catalytic
converters rattle as they age for some
reason they made them crappy inside your
catalytic converter are these honeycomb
pieces that have platinum in them and
that burns hydrocarbons and as they age
especially on those vehicles it cracks
and they will rattle, but then when they
heat up the metal expands and they
stop rattling check that first now, if it
runs okay it doesn't hurt anything and a
new cat for that vehicle cost an awful
lot of money, you might live with it if
it is the cat rattling and it runs okay
when it doesn't run good, the
temperature gauge run hotter and you'll
only be able to go like 55 miles an hour
not any faste,r then you know it's
clogged up and you'd have to replace it
then, US storm says Scotty I have an 07
Honda Civic LX coupe with rear drum
brakes should I upgrade them to disc
brakes, okay here's the thing the rear
brakes on that car are one thing mainly
most of the power is stopped in the
front disc, the rear drums are there
so the car doesn't fishtail when you
stop hard and when you corner and stop for
normal driving those work perfectly fine
and you're not gonna have any problems
with them, it's kind of a waste of money
putting it in a little car like that it
really doesn't need it it's a light car
and disc brakes for all four wheels are
more for racing because they don't fade
when you stop go fast stop go fast stop
go fast, drums will actually stop a car
just as fast one time but in a race they
aren't that's why they were first used
in race cars because they're slamming them on
and hit the gas, slamming them on and
hitting the gas and the drum brakes will
overheat where the discs wouldn't and
that's why they started using them but
on yours are you really wouldn't want to
spend money for that, my Honcho says Scotty
should I put fuel injection on a Dodge
Dart 318 v8 well it's a good question
but depends on what do you want to do
with the thing, if you're planning on
selling it in the future, no because if
it's stock that's a classic 73 Dodge dart
you're gonna lower the value by taking
the factory stuff off,
but if you want it to drive faster
and get better gas mileage, put it on but
save all your old parts, save the
manifold, save the carburetor because
then if you sell it at some point in the
future
you can say to the guy, look I did this
because I like fuel injection you want
to go back to stock here's all the parts
in the box keep them all, don't throw
any of them away, always do that with the
classic car never throw any old parts
away and if you want to modify it to your
heart's content you're gonna keep it for
years go right ahead
just keep the old parts, so if you never
want to miss another one of my new car
repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!
The Chevy Volt killed by cheap gas?
Fox Business:
What Happened to Pontiac? | WheelHouse
Donut Media:
- One of my favorite movies ever
is Smokey and The Bandit,
starring Burt Reynolds, his mustache,
and the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.
For decades, the film has been responsible
for putting the Trans Am somewhere
on everybody's dream car list.
It's fast, it's sleek,
and it's got a badass
fire chicken on the hood.
Badass fire chicken on the hood.
The pairing of box office success
and a great car cemented Pontiac's place
as an automotive icon in pop culture.
Pontiac's not around anymore,
and that really sucks.
Why'd we lose one of America's
most legendary auto brands?
What happened to Pontiac?
I'm Nolan Sykes, and this is Wheelhouse.
(hip hop music)
Pontiac was around for a long, long time,
opening their doors in 1926.
General Motors introduced Pontiac
to fill the gap between Chevy
and the more expensive Oakland brand.
Imagine GM as an apartment building.
Chevy's in the entryway, and
Cadillac's in the penthouse,
with Oakland, Oldsmobile, and Buick
filling in the floors in between.
GM formed Pontiac and three other brands,
Viking, Marquette, and LaSalle,
to build more floors.
GM believed that filling these gaps
would help brand loyalty,
and inspire customers to
buy their way up the stairs,
eventually making it to the penthouse.
But Pontiac was the only one
of the companion brands to survive,
and did so by outselling Oakland
by such a wide margin that Oakland
was merged into Pontiac.
Pontiac kept building their affordable
and reliable cars through the 1950s
when sales started to decline.
The brand was gaining a reputation
as a car for old people,
and like cable TV today,
young people just weren't into it, man.
I'm Nolan Sykes, and I'm 63 years old.
(people laugh)
So Pontiac boss Bunkie Knudsen decided
to get Pontiac involved
with several racing series
like NASCAR and the NHRA
with legends like Mickey Thompson
and Smokey Yunick driving his cars.
It was a good first step,
but Pontiac really got into
factory performance in 1963,
when Pontiac designers
led by John DeLorean,
yeah, that John DeLorean,
decided to soup up the Tempest Coupe.
This Grand Tempest Option, or GTO,
was a watershed moment for the brand.
It was a mid-sized car with a big engine
from a full-sized car,
and the result was fast.
This formula of combining a
small car and a big engine
would help set off one of
the most important
movements ever in Detroit,
the muscle car era.
(dramatic music)
But the GTO wasn't
Pontiac's only muscle car.
They released the Firebird in 1967,
and with the GTO and Firebird killing it
with looks and performance,
Pontiac was cool.
More importantly, it was making money.
Trouble started in the mid '70s.
People didn't want a muscle car anymore.
They couldn't afford the gas.
Pontiac started to develop a car
that was economical while still being fun.
Originally pitched as a fuel-efficient,
two-seat commuter, the Fiero
promised to do just that,
and it did.
People loved the Fiero,
and high sells helped
reignite Pontiac's reputation
for affordable performance.
Throughout the '80s and
'90s, things were good.
The "Wider is better" slogan
was revived from the '60s
to help promote the new Grand
Prix's wide track technology,
which didn't really mean anything,
but it sounded really cool.
The excitement around the
Firebird and the Fiero
had successfully trickled down
to Pontiac's more practical models,
but despite Pontiac's
successful turnaround
from the '70s to the 1990s,
the turn of the 21st century marked
the beginning of serious
problems for the brand.
Sales were slumping hard,
and Pontiac had to
reinvent itself once again,
this time with a cutting-edge SUV
featuring new-age styling and
some unconventional features.
The seats were water-resistant.
The tailgate had cupholders.
There's even a camping lifestyle option
that included a two-person air mattress.
It also had a cool name, Aztek.
It was a good car.
Critics praised the Aztek for
its comfortable ride and practicality.
But unfortunately for Pontiac,
the Aztek was plagued with airbag recalls
almost immediately after release.
Despite the Aztek's great safety ratings,
the recalls really tainted
the car's reputation.
Also, it was kinda ugly,
Pontiac needed to sell
30,000 Azteks to break even,
but they only sold 27,000.
Not a great start to the reinvention.
The great Pontiac refresh
of the early 2000s
continued when Pontiac
brought back the GTO in 2004,
this time as a rebadged
Holden Monaro from Australia.
It was a handsome car
with good performance,
but the GTO didn't quite
scratch the retro itch
like Ford's new old Mustang.
Everyone was like, "Yeah, it's a cool car,
"but Ford's new Mustang
looks like a Mustang.
"I'll just get one of those.
"This GTO doesn't."
As a result, the GTO was canceled
after only three years of production.
Pontiac then introduced
the Solstice in 2006,
the brand's first
two-seater since the Fiero.
Like the GTO, the Solstice was an attempt
to spice up Pontiac's
otherwise stale lineup,
and like the GTO, it was a good car.
Car and Driver called it a
surprisingly pure roadster
from an unlikely source,
a quote that summed up
what people thought of
Pontiac at the time,
like being voted least likely
to make an exciting car
in your senior yearbook.
The Solstice's only crime was
being released at the wrong time.
Unfortunately, the Solstice wasn't
the only Pontiac killed by the economy.
Pontiac had brought another
Holden to American shores,
the legendary Commodore.
Pontiac called it the G8.
It was a four-door sedan with a V8 engine,
and it looked awesome.
The G8 was so good that auto journalists
were calling it the American M3.
That's high praise.
It was definitely a
high point for Pontiac,
but 2008 came, and with it,
a global economic crisis.
- At one point, the market
fell as if down a well.
- Down over 16%.
- Dow, at the same time,
has fallen about 18%.
Everyone agrees the clock
is ticking for Detroit,
and the casualties are already mounting.
- Consumers didn't have any money
to spend on a new car,
let alone something sporty
like the G8 or Solstice.
Obviously, Pontiac wasn't the only brand
affected by the crisis.
General Motors as a whole had been
hemorrhaging money for
years
For the 2007 fiscal year, GM had reported
a loss of 38.7 billion dollars,
So in order to survive, Detroit asked
the government for a bailout.
GM received 30 billion from Uncle Sam,
but on one condition.
They had to slim down.
Saturn, Hummer, and Pontiac
all closed their doors,
and Saab was sold to
Dutch automaker Spyker.
This decision wasn't easy for GM,
but the reality was
that Pontiac's attempts
to rebuild the excitement
just weren't successful.
Despite consensus that
the GTO, Solstice, and G8
were all great cars, they
just didn't sell well enough
to be saved by GM.
In January of 2010, the last Pontiac
rolled off the assembly line.
There was no ceremony
to mark the occasion,
and no journalists were invited.
The final Pontiac was a white G6 sedan,
built to fill a fleet order.
It was a meek representation of a brand
with a long history of
pushing the boundaries.
They helped invent the muscle car.
They were one of the
only American companies
to mass-produce something mid-engined.
The Aztec, yeah, it was ugly,
but it was ahead of its time.
It was one of the first crossover SUVs,
which are huge nowadays.
But in the end, Pontiac
was a mismanaged shadow
of its former self that only returned
to its performance roots
when it was too late.
(melancholy piano music)
Thanks for watching Wheelhouse.
Remember to like, comment,
share, and subscribe.
What else makes you go, "Hmm,
I never thought about that"?
Like, where did racing stripes come from?
Where did cupholders get invented?
Why do we drive on the
right hand side of the road?
We're gonna be covering all this
coming up on Wheelhouse.
We got a lot of new shows now.
We've got Wheelhouse with me on Monday.
Tuesdays is Matt Field's Corvette build,
love watching that.
Thursdays, come on, it's Up To Speed.
Fridays is The Bestest with Tony.
He's ranking the top 10 everything
in the automotive world.
It's a different list every week.
We got shirts back in stock now, guys,
shop.donut.media, you can
get yourself your own,
and I'll see you in
the street wearing one,
and think you're one of my coworkers,
pat you on the back, and guess what,
I don't know you, and it's weird.
Thanks for watching.
The Truth About GM’s Huge Layoffs and Why You Should Be Mad About It
Scotty Kilmer:
Rev up your engines,
today I'm going to tell you the truth about
GM's plan to layoff a bunch of workers and
to shut down a bunch of US factories,
well if you remember a few years back they
got the big bailout because the said they
were going bankrupt so the government gave
them a bunch of money, and oh to save American
jobs and now their just leaving anyways, so
what's the truth behind what's really happening,
now I've read and watched a bunch of these
reporters these experts saying, oh market
forces you have to follow the market forces
blah blah blah,
but here's the truth and to understand it
you need to a little about history,
now I learned to drive on a Chevy biscayne
it's kind of like an Impala, it's a big American
car, back in the 1960's when they made solid
cars that everyone in the world knew, hey
they were good cars and they lasted a long
time,
back then everyone said, oh the Japanese cars
are piles of junk what are they making,
well guess what, they kept making better and
better cars as time went on from Japan,
while the quality of the American cars starting
going down and down,
to give you an example, the Impala used to
be a great car, in the 60's everybody wanted
an Impala they were very popular cars their
pretty well built, they could last a really
long time, but not so recently the Impala
was one of the models that their going to
stop making,
basically the didn't build them all that well,
I had customers with them and every single
person that owned one when they finally got
rid of it said, I'll never buy another one
of those pieces of junk I had more problems
with the transmissions and the engines and
the old ones didn't used to have very many
problems,
so these experts that talk about market forces
is forcing them to shut down these factories
and layoff people, that's basically a lot
of bs,
they were just making the cars poorly and
they were making models that people didn't
want like the Chevy Cruze, which not only
was it a model that people didn't really want,
it was really poorly made, I had a customer
with one, he's been through 3 automatic transmissions
that went out completely in the first 75,000
miles of driving that car, that's just crazy,
and look at another one of their failures
that their not gonna making anymore,
the Chevy Volt, hey they tried to compete
with the Toyota Prius and they failed massively,
the cars were garbage compared to what Toyota
was putting out, so they can talk about market
forces all they want, a lot of the problem
is they were making vehicles that were either
poorly made or people didn't want to buy them
because they didn't like the way they looked
or the way the handled,
and unlike the Japanese like say a Toyota
Corolla, they started out with a basic car
and they keep improving it over decades, GM
was like, oh that model didn't work we'll
get rid of that one and try something else,
it's much better to build something and perfect
it over time than to just say, oh that didn't
work lets try something else and see if that
works,
some of their ideas are, oh we'll go to just
a bigger vehicle, SUVs and trucks that make
a lot of money, well talk about short sighted
again, now just because gas is cheap they
think, oh we'll sell these giant vehicles
for a bunch of money, well guess what people,
gasoline is a limited things, the price is
only going to go up and it will probably happen
relatively soon, and then all those big cars
people are going to not be driving those anymore
and then they'll be in a even bigger mess
than they already are,
and as far as I'm concerned, GM's idea of
shutting down these factories down in the
US and laying off all these Americans, hey
that has to do more with them making a profit
in China not the US,
realize that from the last data I could find,
the Chinese produced 24.5 million cars and
at that same time period the US produced 4.1
million cars, a big difference,
and as for GM itself, GM sells 70% more cars
in China than they do in the US, and these
cars are all made in China,
so if things continue like this, I wouldn't
be surprised that if someone in the US wants
to buy a GM car in the near future, it's going
to be made in China not in the US,
even though we taxpayers bailout GM the last
time, their big thank you is, bye we'll see
you in China,
they didn't seem to say, oh the market is
forcing them to do that when they took all
that taxpayer money, you know their giving
these promises about US jobs and stuff but
as soon as they see a way to make their cars
in China, sell them in China and probably
import those Chinese ones over to the US,
hey those guys are basically laughing at the
average American,
and it's bad enough they were making cars
that had faulty ignition switches and then
they cheated and changed the parts numbers
so they think, oh people aren't going to figure
out that we made these bad ignition switches
that some people were killed in wrecks because
the cars stopped running,
you know their not interested in telling the
truth about the problems that they have, but
taking taxpayers dollars and then shutting
the factories down years later anyways and
moving all the stuff to China, hey all I got
to say is, you can vote with your dollars,
don't buy their products, nobody is going
to force you to buy one of their products,
at least not yet, hey take Toyota for example,
they make a bunch of them in the US and they
have for decades, you might end up driving
a Japanese car around that's made in the US,
where if you buy a GM it's going to be a Chinese
made car, the world is upside down on that
one,
so it's really a double edged sword when you
think about why GM is laying off all these
workers and closing all these factories down,
they've often made poorly designed and built
cars that didn't last so their base that used
to be, oh when I was a kid people would say,
oh I buy a new GM car every 3-4 years, well
that base is gone and then they want to make
them cheaper so their going to move all their
production to China where they can make them
cheaper,
now the Chinese factories are all modernized
so they have less labor that they have to
deal with, but from what I read about them,
they have really good quality, for example,
buicks are like the real popular car for the
upper level management guys to ride around
in a Buick in China,
kind of like it used to be in the 1950's in
the US, a little time warp there,
so basically, the real problem is greed, they
want to make their cars cheaper so they can
make more profit and eventually they want
to make the most profit by building their
cars somewhere else where they can make them
cheaper and in the modern factories more efficiently
than in the old factories in the US, my hometown
Niagara Falls had the same fate itself, when
I was young, there were factories everywhere
building all kinds of stuff but they were
old factories, first they moved the factories
over the Mexico, then they even moved them
further to the East because it was even cheaper
there than it was in Mexico,
so if you think about it as a career, hey
you probably wouldn't want to get involved
in either building cars in the US or working
for the company that builds them because you'll
find that your job will probably vanish in
the near future, so if you never want to miss
another one of my new car repair videos, remember
to ring that bell!
The Truth About Saturn: A Different Kind of Car Company | WheelHouse
Donut Media:
Today on Wheelhouse we’re talking Saturn;
not the planet!
The Company!
Why the company was started, their ambitious
plan to change the game, and how it all came
crashing down.
It’s a sad story of forward thinking, wasted
potential, and self-sabotage.
This is the truth about Saturn.
In the 60s, gas was cheap, so American car
companies paid no attention to fuel economy.
But that thinking had to change in the 70s,
when the oil crisis made gas prices skyrocket,
and sent consumers looking for more efficient
options.
American consumers started taking Japanese
companies like Honda and Datsun more seriously,
and by proxy, so did Detroit; which for years
had been completely underestimating their
eastern competition.
Domestic manufacturers were simply not great
at making small, economical cars at this point.
While cars like GM’s 70’s-era Vega and
Chevette sold well, it was almost a universal
consensus that the Japanese did small cars
better, and soon, cars like Honda’s Civic
and Toyota’s Corolla were dominating the
compact car market.
In the boardrooms of GM, a plan was being...planned.
They didn’t want to make more small cars
under their existing brands, because they
thought customers might think of them as cheap
runts of the lineup.
So they had to build an entirely new car company
from scratch.
In 1982, GM VPs Alex Mair and Robert Eaton
began work on the project.
It would eventually be named Saturn, after
the rocket which carried America to the moon,
winning that other great race that set the
world’s pace and earned us the top place
in the galactic starchase, the Space Race.
General Motors hoped that the totally new
company would overcome any negative brand-associations
buyers had with small cars and American companies.
And when I say “totally new company”,
I mean it was totally new: new car design,
new engine, new production plant, new workforce,
new dealers, and even new ways of producing
the car in the first place.
What made Saturn completely different from
its competitors was the ownership structure
between management, engineers, and the factory
workers.
In other GM brands like Chevrolet and Pontiac,
the Management would tell the engineers what
to build, the engineers would draw up the
design, and the factory would build the bureaucracy-approved
product without giving input on what they
were making.
But at Saturn, the dynamic would be a little
different, and had potential to change the
auto industry forever.
Major decisions at car companies are usually
made from the top down, but at Saturn, the
United Auto Workers union now had a huge input
on their car’s design, meaning that people
working on the factory floor could tell the
engineers and management what would and wouldn’t
work.
This shared ownership of Saturn between everyone
involved had an interesting effect on the
workplace culture:
It turns out if you listen to your employees
and make them feel like their voices matter,
they give you their loyalty and productivity
increases.
GM set up the Saturn factory in Spring Hill,
Tennessee, far outside the influence of Detroit.
People were excited!
Spring Hill is a small town outside of Nashville,
and General Motors is going to build a factory
here?
Making completely new cars?
Awesome!
I remember when we finally got a movie theater
my senior year, this Factory must have been
at least twice as exciting as that.
The car that Spring Hill would produce was
dubbed the “Saturn S-series”, with sedan
models named SL, and the SC coupe.
The largest departure from traditional car
design used on the S-series was the use of
a space-frame design.
This design, which takes structural and crash
load off of the side panels, meant that Saturn
could use their signature dent-resistant plastic
body panels instead of metal
even though the SL and SC were made to
compete with Japanese cars, they didn’t
have the tech of their eastern competitors,
so GM based all of their marketing around
the fact Saturns were built in small-town
USA.
GM was banking that would see how Saturn was
doing things differently, and that they would
want to get in on that excitement.
In fact, Saturn’s slogan was “A New Kind
of Car Company.”
This fresh approach went all the way to the
showroom as well: Saturn dealerships were
haggle free, meaning the price you saw was
the price you paid.
And when you bought your new Saturn, dealership
employees would give you applause as you got
in and drove away.
It honestly looks like a cult
People loved their Saturns.
The company even hosted a ‘homecoming’
at Spring Hill where thousands of Saturn owners
from all over would meet up and party at the
factory.
GM had successfully marketed an American small
car, a feat unheard of just ten years earlier.
By the end of 1995, Saturn had built over
a million cars in it’s short 6 year history.
But the good times wouldn’t last forever.
While the S line was updated
three
times during its life, there was no escaping
that Saturn only really had one car to sell.
This stagnation, combined with the fact that
the “new company” shine had worn away,
meant that Saturn sales were slowing down
While new cars were needed, GM was a bit strapped
for cash, and couldn’t afford to design
a totally new, unique vehicle for Saturn,
like the S-Series.
In fact, GM would never be able to design
a unique Saturn again, making the S-Series
a bit of a unicorn.
Instead, GM would dip into it’s parts bin
from around the world to make future Saturn’s,
and the first car to emerge from this corporate
rummage was the L-series, introduced as a
2000 model year.
The L was basically a rebadged Opel Vectra,
which sucked.
Sensing a shift in the market, GM execs decided
Saturn also needed a crossover SUV.
The Saturn Vue debuted in 2002, and was a
rebadged Chevy Equinox, which was another
rebadged Opel.
GM had created Saturn to operate in a way
that wasn’t like GM.
But now, General Motors was forcing Saturn
to act like General Motors.
Saturn had always been the oddball in GM’s
lineup.
And while it’s employees were happy and
customers loyal, neither of those things meant
new sales, and that meant no money coming
in.
GM had yet to get a return on their investment
in Saturn.
They had spent nearly five billion on development
and the Spring Hill facility.
Since GM was a little light in the wallet,
that meant Saturn was in the crosshairs of
the cost cutters.
If Saturn didn’t start making money soon,
it would mean bad news.
Following the release of the VUE and the L-series,
Saturn would finally kill of their watershed
S-series in 2002.
The Saturn ION would be introduced in 2003
to replace it, and shared its Delta platform
with many GM cars, including the Cobalt.
Despite introducing three new vehicles for
the new millennium, Saturn remained fairly
small-fry in the industry.
Their promise of a haggle-free experience
still proved to be attractive, however the
market was no longer theirs alone, as Toyota
had introduced Scion and their no-haggle price
models in 2003.
This competition, combined with a steadily
worsening economic situation would combine
to hit Saturn hard.
Very hard.
By 2005 Saturn was in chaos, unable to make
any money on it’s own.
Competition within and without GM was stifling
the now-stale brand.
The company was out of options and completely
resigned itself to selling a lineup made of
all rebadged vehicles.
Two years later, Saturn introduced all new
vehicles, with everything except the Vue getting
replaced.
The new line included the Sky, which was Saturn’s
first interesting car since their debut.
But it was also just a rebadged Opel, and
didn’t sell on top of that.
Nothing could save Saturn, as the economic
recession that struck the US in 2008 created
a dire situation at GM.
To save General Motors, the government provided
assistance in the form of their now-famous
“bail-out” package, on the condition that
the plethora of companies GM owned and sold
cars under be paired down
So how did it get so bad?
A 2010 lawsuit found that Saturn’s Vice
president and General Manager Jill Lajdziak
didn’t know whether or not Saturn was making
money.
She said that in a deposition Under Oath.
To a lawyer.
And she wasn’t the only one, their CFO Edward
Toporzycki said he didn’t know Saturn’s
financial condition while he was involved
with the company.
He’s the CFO!
FInancial is in his title!
So in 2010 three GM companies, Pontiac, Hummer,
and Saturn, all closed their doors, producing
their last car, probably for good.
While General Motors ended up surviving the
recession, their grand experiment in “a
new kind of car company”, which they called
Saturn, did not.
I think Saturn could have been great if GM
had let them stay true to their mission.
They created Saturn to be a new kind of company,
and at the start, they were.
What doomed this company that GM created to
run differently, was that GM ran it like GM.
We explore lesser known stories in the car
world every week, so make sure you hit that
yellow subscribe button right there. or right there, or right there, I don't know where it is.
Do you own an SL or SC?
Do you like it?
Let me know in the comments.
Follow me on IG @ nolanjsykes, follow Donut
@donut.media.
Wear your seatbelt, see you next time.
Top 5 Reasons Why Pontiac Failed
Top 5 Auto Repairs:
Top 5 reasons why Pontiac failed
Number 1 badge engineering badge engineering is the practice of creating two or more brand names for the same vehicle?
The problem with Pontiac badge engineering is that Pontiac was selling rebadged Chevrolet vehicles at a lower price
this practice continued for many more years
Here is what happens when the vehicle goes through badger engineering
Some badge engineering includes changes to the front grille front bumpers headlamps side mirrors
exterior design and so on
here is one comparison of badger engineering these two vehicles are practically identical and both are made by General Motors the
top vehicle is Pontiac Torrent and the bottom vehicle in the illustration is Chevrolet Equinox as
You can see in the illustration the green and red circles are practically identical and the blue arrow is where the changes are made
just enough to label the inch vehicle a different brand and model as you see in the second picture is a
2007 Chevy Cobalt in
2007 Pontiac g5 coupe
It's practically the same car except a different front grille and bench in the eyes of the customer
Why would they want to pay more for one brand when they can buy the other brand for even lesser?
number two body cladding
General motors accounting department and marketing department had many conflict regarding
Cost-saving the solution was body cladding
Body cladding is the practice of adding an outer layer of material to cover another in this case?
Plastic body cladding was added to existing auto parts such as the doors
It helps reduce cost and at the same time giving each vehicle a distinctive look
number three Pontiac Aztek this one is highly debatable
However everyone knows the Aztek is one ugly looking vehicle in
Fact sales did not go well for the Aztek in
The end result as tech was a huge blow to Pontiac and it only increases financial stress to the our D struggling brand
number four poor management
Poor management is one of the main reasons why Pontiac failed miserably
Pontiac cars was once renowned for its muscle and performance vehicles now Days cost-cutting in poor management has now turned
Pontiac into rebadged Chevrolet vehicles filling in niches
It was never meant to do by mid 2000 Antioch was nearly the end of its brand only to be left with endless poor design
sipar engineering and short-sighted financial goals
ultimately this will led us to number 5
number 5 bankruptcy in 2010 Pontiac finally discontinued and was no longer a general motor brand in
Fact it was the US government decision to kill off several General Motors brand in order to get a loan during the recession
General Motors needed to cut down the number of distinct brand and ultimately killed off Pontiac and sold some of its popular brand Hummer
Oldsmobile sobbing so on it was no easy decision for General Motors to make but they had to downsize in order to financially survive
in conclusion
Pontiac was once renowned for its muscle cars such as the Firebird and GT o-- in the 1960's and 1970's
However over the year mismanagement and poor decision-making has led the once iconic brand Pontiac to failure
Pontiac was once a General Motors proud brand do you think General Motors should bring back Pontiac, or is it too late?
Leave a comment below
Thank you for watching. Please like share and subscribe for more videos
The End of Chevy in America
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines,
steve says Scotty do you think GM
will ever pull out of the United States,
not completely but of course they have
already begun it, like the other year all
the ones they sold in China were made in
China, so it wouldn't surprise me if in
the near future they start making them
in China and selling them in the United
States
the handwriting's kind of on wall on that
one
and people can talk politics all they
want about they don't like this they
don't like that, but the corporation's
pretty much rule with that, if they want to
make someplace else and
selling them they'll get the politicians
in their back pocket to let them slide
it in, there's too much graft and
corruption in Washington for anybody to
say their actually gonna stop
something for real, other than just
empty promises that they are all thrown out
from both sides
onesays how reliable is a
2014 v8 Raptor versus a generation 2
Raptor with the twin-turbo v6, their
relatively new but realize of course the
v8 ones are gonna be more reliable just
because you got a big v8 engine that can
take the power and it doesn't have twin
turbos on it, you get a v6 you put
twin turbos, you're putting more pressure
inside the engine and those twin turbos
and the GDI injectors which push
thousand-something psi into the engine
versus 40 psi in a regular fuel
injected, all the extra pressure and all
that extra technology of course it
breaks down over time, it's only logical
you know you get a v8 engine and take care
of it's gonna outlast v6 that's got twin
turbos and GDI that's only common sense,
plus the newer technology often there
are things that fail, because they didn't
know how long these things are gonna
last 200-300,000 miles, where I see
many v8 Ford engines out there with 200-
300,000 miles on them, Joel says Scotty
what do you choose Mustang or Corvette
well I chose a Mustang I like the
Mustangs, the Corvettes have become more
of a european-style car, they're not an
American muscle car anymore like a
Mustang and I like the Mustangs think
it's kind of fun to drive around in, the corvetttes
the good ones that really
zoom, they cost too much the new ones
over $100,000, you can still get a really
nice Mustang $50k, so half the price I
wouldn't buy the corvette
I'd get a Mustang, but I'm cheap I won't
buy anything, I get to drive them for free
when I'm done working on them and that's fun
enough for me,
Dominic Vargas says Scotty what do you
think of the Mazda Miata 2011 and the GT
Ford Mustang of the same year, basically
you're comparing apples and oranges, you
can't really compare them, the GT Mustang
is a muscle car for screaming around and
they're both rear-wheel drive cars I'll
give you that, but you got a Mustang
that's a screaming car and gets horrible gas
mileage and has a ton of power, versus a Mazda
Miata that's a cute little car, still
their rear-wheel drive, it's fun to drive
around it gets really good gas mileage
you really can't compare the two cars,
you'd have to decide what do you want
you want a cute little car that can last
a really long time and drive around in
or do you want a muscle car, in the
business I'm in repairing cars, the Mazda
Miata are known as a girly car,
the mechanics all call it a girly car
and the Mustang is known as the guys car,
what image do you want to
portray, but they're apples and oranges
you can't really compare them grab
Lee says should the oil in a manual
transmissions be changed or is it not
needed,
okay it's a good idea to change it but
you don't need to do it that often, maybe
every
sixty to eighty thousand miles, manual
transmissions use what's called splash
lubrication, you dive down the road the gears
just splash oil all over the place and
it just drips on the gears and it
lubricates it, automatic transmissions have
oil pumps that pump it through the
system so it's completely different
system, but I still would change it every
60
80 thousand miles cuz it's easy to do,
most of them just have a drain plug on
the bottom it drains out, then they have
a side plug you take that out and you
pump new fluid in until it comes out of
the hole on the side and then it's full, it's
a
real easy thing to do, Angela Dolores says
should I get a motorcycle or car, depends
a lot where you live, let's say you live
in Seattle, I wouldn't be seen dead in
Seattle on a motorcycle it's always
raining that's when you get killed and
slid or people slide into you, you got to
think about the weather
motorcycle versus car, you really do
have too, like if you live in Hawaii hey
feel free get a motorcycle or maybe
New Mexico where it's dry most of the time
hardly ever does any rain,
it'd be fun to have one, if you don't
mind being out in the elements and
getting dirty go ahead and get a
motorcycle, just realize that it's the most
unsafe form of transportation, I mean
they don't have seat belts on them because
if they did, then when it crashed you'd be
crushed with the motorcycle
it's dangerous stuff, I've driven them
since I was a teenager, I've lucked out
I've never had any big wipeouts and got
injured, but realize that are extremely
dangerous mode of transportation and if
you live in a place where it's really
cold cold cold like Alaska, you could
never drive in the winter, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new car
repair videos, remember to ring that
Bell
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