siddharth sai
Male
I am a huge car person and it is disappointing to see American car companies losing their charm. Please do share your comments.
The decline of the American auto industry and American car manufacturers.
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Randilicous
Couple
Well the big three, GM, Ford and Chrysler are having issues but that's their own fault imo. When it came time to compete the Japanese auto manufacturers called for their engineers, the American car companies called for their lobbyists! All my personal cars are "American" not sure that means anything with all the outsourcing etc going on. Meanwhile I own A shop that specializes in German cars. I could afford to drive A German car no problem. I have all the specialized tools and the knowledge required to repair them as well. I don't own one however as their reliability is abysmal.
I'm NOT making the claim that American engineering is superior. American cars are just simpler, less stuff to break. Last thing I wanna do after fixing Krautmobiles all day is have to deal with problems in my own vehicle!
In the electric car field companies like Tesla are definitely holding their own. It is my belief that electric cars will take up A huge chunk of the market in the next decade. In SOME markets electric cars make sense, in others not so much. Electric cars suffer in cold weather SO BAD, even the ones that use Lithium ion batteries. Reduced range, failure to start in some cases, nevertheless they are here to stay.
The hot setup for A sports car anymore is parallel hybrid technology IMO. Electric drive on the front wheels and gas power to the rear. That gives you the ability to use regenerative braking to help charge the batteries and the ability to "overdrive" the front wheels on turns, basically thrust vectoring. Also electrical machines, they are called that because they work as both A motor and generator, make their full torque throughout their RPM range. That way the electric motor can fill in the gaps in output left by the ICE engine in the back, sadly most hybrids don't go that route. The new Acura NSX and the BMW i8 do however. The new, mid engine Corvette is supposed to be setup like that in the future at some point as well.
I actually have A fair bit of experience with all makes and models however, as many of my customers have second cars that are American and Japanese. Let me tell you that the reliability of ALL car lines is going down! Just too much tech, there's always something to break once that car hits 100k or more, depressing. Honda/acura once the gold standard for reliability, are now having issues with burning oil and faulty transmissions. American cars are actually using quite A bit of tech sourced from Germany, to their detriment as far as reliability goes. It's come to the point where I have A hard time recommending A set of wheels to A customer who is looking to keep A vehicle long term. Their all turning into pieces of *******, from A reliability standpoint at least!
My order of reliability goes like this.
Japanese, though the gap has narrowed.
American, though we cant seem to get direct-fuel injected, stratified charge engines right. To be fair though Ford actually did on A couple of their engines.
European, I have the theory that in Europe owning A car is largely unnecessary due to the fact of them actually having decent public transport. A car is there is A decadence, not A necessity. The point I am making is that, from what I've seen, in the trenches every day, no one is doing it quite right!
I'm NOT making the claim that American engineering is superior. American cars are just simpler, less stuff to break. Last thing I wanna do after fixing Krautmobiles all day is have to deal with problems in my own vehicle!
In the electric car field companies like Tesla are definitely holding their own. It is my belief that electric cars will take up A huge chunk of the market in the next decade. In SOME markets electric cars make sense, in others not so much. Electric cars suffer in cold weather SO BAD, even the ones that use Lithium ion batteries. Reduced range, failure to start in some cases, nevertheless they are here to stay.
The hot setup for A sports car anymore is parallel hybrid technology IMO. Electric drive on the front wheels and gas power to the rear. That gives you the ability to use regenerative braking to help charge the batteries and the ability to "overdrive" the front wheels on turns, basically thrust vectoring. Also electrical machines, they are called that because they work as both A motor and generator, make their full torque throughout their RPM range. That way the electric motor can fill in the gaps in output left by the ICE engine in the back, sadly most hybrids don't go that route. The new Acura NSX and the BMW i8 do however. The new, mid engine Corvette is supposed to be setup like that in the future at some point as well.
I actually have A fair bit of experience with all makes and models however, as many of my customers have second cars that are American and Japanese. Let me tell you that the reliability of ALL car lines is going down! Just too much tech, there's always something to break once that car hits 100k or more, depressing. Honda/acura once the gold standard for reliability, are now having issues with burning oil and faulty transmissions. American cars are actually using quite A bit of tech sourced from Germany, to their detriment as far as reliability goes. It's come to the point where I have A hard time recommending A set of wheels to A customer who is looking to keep A vehicle long term. Their all turning into pieces of *******, from A reliability standpoint at least!
My order of reliability goes like this.
Japanese, though the gap has narrowed.
American, though we cant seem to get direct-fuel injected, stratified charge engines right. To be fair though Ford actually did on A couple of their engines.
European, I have the theory that in Europe owning A car is largely unnecessary due to the fact of them actually having decent public transport. A car is there is A decadence, not A necessity. The point I am making is that, from what I've seen, in the trenches every day, no one is doing it quite right!
The problem with German cars is
over engineering pure and simple - nothing performs like them but they’re definitely fuss budgets to keep right and generally a bitch to work on. Porsche requires specialized tools for lots of simple repairs - royal pain in the arse - but great business to be in ;}
over engineering pure and simple - nothing performs like them but they’re definitely fuss budgets to keep right and generally a bitch to work on. Porsche requires specialized tools for lots of simple repairs - royal pain in the arse - but great business to be in ;}
Randilicous
Couple
I haven't enjoyed my line of work in A decade bro. It used to be I could pull the heads off say, A BMW M20 engine with 300k on the clock and still see the original crosshatching on the cylinder walls. German cars were Solid then! By the time the early 90s hit and BMW was up to the m60 series engines I was seeing engine failures at 12 miles. You read that correctly, I was short blocking engines with 12 miles on them. Dealer tech at the time.The aluminum alloy they used couldn't stand up to the sulfur content in American gasoline. As well as the money I do ok, but keep in mind how much unbillabe time I can get into. Say I have A long term customer who has an intermittant failure in their fiber optic communication system. God knows how long you'll spend chasing your tail trying to figure that out! Would have rather been A Japanese or American specialist but my market area is saturated with those shops!
Yeah intermittent electrical failure is the biggest royal pain in the ass of all !!!
I know the gas now-a-days SUX but had no idea how it was effecting German steel or rather aluminum on the newer cars - thanx for the heads up ! My oldest ******* is a mechanical engineer and he recently told me he was thinking of buying an Audi : |
In my opinion the US has got to start marketing its technologies. We spend billions on R&D, then give it to other countries, free of charge, who've made absolutely no investments in that technology. They then end up competing with us with our own technology. That needs to stop! Otherwise, as far as autos are concerned, we could develop a lot of superior vehicles a lot faster, at a lower cost. Not really hard to figure that out. We did the very same thing with our weaponry, particularly with our jet fighters.
Of course, our brilliant, alt-President Tariff Man isn't helping our situation any.
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Randilicous
Couple
A fellow technician called me about an electrical failure on an Audi A few years ago. I try not to work on Audis as they are outside of my wheelhouse. But I'm known as the
electrical guy in my area. This car was A no start/no crank. It had been to the local Audi dealer, they had told the customer that "The starter AND alternator were bad. 2500 bucks to replace both and we cannot guarantee A fix, there could be other issues as well" I smelled bullshit immediately!
Even though the battery was charged fully,
the lights on the dash didn't illuminate with the key on. I first checked power to the jump lug under the hood, I had 5 volts. I measured voltage drop on the positive side and had zero voltage loss, then I checked voltage drop on the ground side and found A 7 volt drop! I traced it back to A box, grounded to the inside of the trunk. This module was designed to cut off ground to the car in the event of an accident. I checked voltage drop across it and there was A 7 volt drop. I removed the box and cleaned up the ground. The car started immediately! 15 minutes not 2500 dollars, the starter and alternator were fine!
Fun fact. I was at A training camp specializing in German cars A few years before. The class was located on Minden Nevada. The Bosch engineer teaching the class told me the following story. VAG (lol) volkswagon Audi group, knew they had an issue with their grounds going bad. They found A fix during the manufacturing process that costs 3 euros to fix. Grounds are 90 percent of electrical issues on VAG (again lol) cars. The issue was bumped up to the board of directors. Every single one of them voted to implement the improved design except the one who's responsibility it was to look out for the interests of Audi dealerships. He told the board flat out. "You want to take away 90% of our work?! He had veto power so the fix was never implemented!
Geez just like politics - from a business standpoint - you can see his point - but the the quality control suffers. I suck at ferreting out intermittent electrical failures - but in my experience - most times a faulty ground has been the cause. I’ll give my kid a heads up on what ya said and thanks.
Of the top 10 longest lasting cars...only 3 are american.
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Randilicous
Couple
Of the top 10 longest lasting cars...only 3 are american.
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I would agree. I drive American because I have all the tools to care for them, also the parts are usually cheaper. For the average Joe that's not an option. If ya want A car that don't break, buy Japanese or Korean. If you can work on your own buy American, not that "American" means much anymore. SRS from what I've seen stay away from Euro cars. Unless the road feel and handling are your primary criteria! There NOBODY does it like the euro's! I have A customer that owns both A Lexus and A BMW. The bummer is in constantly for stuff breaking, the Lexus for maintenance. I asked him why he kept buying BMW, he told me the satisfaction of driving it! I'm an A to B kind of guy. I don't need A good handling car, I always get to drive my customers.
My lead technician is A hardcore Toyota guy, he just bought an Avalanche, I asked him why, he said Toyotas have gotten too expensive, and I can work on my own cars.
Again we agree - I have worked on cars since my early teens - in fact my first business was buying and selling motorcycles when I was 14 - that morphed into cars and trucks as well. Worked in the car business for around 20 years - my daily driver now is a Malibu - I keep a Porsche in the garage for fun - owned it for a long time - never been anywhere for service - done it all myself - ROYAL pain in the arse - but - on the road - there REALLY is no substitute ;}
I'll stick to good old fashioned American cars. The 95z28 or my project turbo LT1 powered 4 door nova. Sleeper.
back in the 80's the big 3 tried standing on their laurels...and producing pure *******.....people started turning to foreign cars....at that time far better....the big 3 learned their lesson and have been building quality cars for a while now...cars that can compete with the foreign cars....right now the problem is trumps tariffs on steel
Obama went out of his way to save the auto industry and keep those jobs here....that is not a concern of trumps...he is interested in the wall....doing away with Obamacare and etc....more jobs than ever going overseas right now
Obama went out of his way to save the auto industry and keep those jobs here....that is not a concern of trumps...he is interested in the wall....doing away with Obamacare and etc....more jobs than ever going overseas right now
It's not going to matter much in about 15 years anyways. With the driver-less autos coming, ownership will become less common. You will pay a monthly fee and call a car whenever you need one on your smart phone. It will become just another thing that the people will rely on the government to provide, basically the next form of public transportation. Not to mention insurance will soon become unaffordable for many, only to spur the driver-less car industry.
Cadillac has a monthly payment plan now, where you can exchange your vehicle whenever, kind of like getting a new phone.
In the past everyone had a horse. Now horses are only owned for leisure and it's not so cheep to have one. Cars will become the next horse.
Cadillac has a monthly payment plan now, where you can exchange your vehicle whenever, kind of like getting a new phone.
In the past everyone had a horse. Now horses are only owned for leisure and it's not so cheep to have one. Cars will become the next horse.
she makes a factual statement that needs to happen....and because it is so far fetched....the right is having a field day with it...….we need to get to a lot of what she has mentioned....just not quite her approach
besides my 57 chev is in trouble already and am really pissed...I made some engine changes to please me...and the car I thought was to low...some people like that I don't....the thing has all new suspension...and the springs are shot!
all new a-arms disc brakes and etc......and used the old springs?...although looks like someone took a torch to them to lower it.....and didn't pay a lot of attention to what they were doing
AOC - blithers too much - doesn’t have a clue
I like the stock stance to any of the tri-fives -
not a fan of the lowered look - cutting the springs SUX - but a set of new springs and an afternoon and you should be back to where you want to be.
Once AOC decrees solar panels and wind sails though you can pull your nice 350 and it should come up quite a bit in the front too - however your 1/4 mile time gonna suffer big time ;}
wanting the stock stance back and working on that now....new coils got here today
as for AOC....not going to happen under the current proposal...but we do need to get back to where things were headed under Obama...when trump went to coal and etc...a lot of jobs in energy lost...but I'm sure he could care less about that...he restored less than 1,000 to the coal industry
Changing out cut down coils be a piece a cake for a guy with your mechanical abilities -
Trump has made us the number 1 energy resource in the world and now an exporter of oil. When he speaks he talks of all energy jobs he has created. Hard to know wherein lies the truth.
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