you were in the marching band,right?

 

Go buy the book THE COMING CHINA WARS by Peter Navarro. I have listened to a few conferences given by this man and read his book. It is a scary situation that most of us are ignoring. I cannot read two pages in this book without putting it down in anger and frustration. China, Japan, and Korea together have stashed away over 5 Trillion in US currency. If they were to release that money, our country would be crippled by inflation. They don't release the money because we know about it and therefore keep a open door policy on our imports and don't tax them while China, Japan, and Korea tax our exports through the nose therefore creating a huge Trade defecit. In my opinion, I don't hate Toyota, just the country they represent. I am well aware that Toyota and Honda make some of the best vehicles out there, but I live in America and more importantly in Michigan. The big three are my livelihood and are also for 10% of our population. I'd prefer to keep this a subdued debate about actual issues and such, or we might end up cracking jokes about our moms.

Just my 2 cents, take it or leave it

 

Excellent points, but the UAW is willing to bankrupt the big 3 instead of making any concessions. Hope they wake up soon and help their employer. The taxpayers cannot be expected to bail out every company that has made poor business decisions.
Should we have bailed out Wall Street ? Have my doubts , but now the precedent has been set.

Yes, GM does make good trucks but as in ALL the automotive companies their line-up is redundant. A GMCis a Chevy in disguise and the other lines arerepetitive. Toyota,Nissan and every companyproduce far too many models , they all need to trim their lines.

As for a discussion on the technical merits of Toyota, I have been completely satisfied with my Tundra and the quality and performance has been more than expected.

 

The same model-different make thing has been driving me insane for so long and I am about sick of it. Here is my idea of restructuring GM:

GMC: Makes all heavy, medium, and light duty pickups, Suv's. Ie: Topkick, Sierra, Sierra HD, Yukon, Yukon XL. NO MORE DENALI OPTION
CHEVY: crossovers and cars. End of story. axe the 100yr old silverado.
SATURN: GONE!!
Pontiac: performance devision makes all GM performance cars except for the corvette because it actually makes money as is
Buick: keep it, just cut out the lucerne or lesabre cuz they are too similar
Cadillac: Keep it. The main reason I would cut out the denali option on GMC because for a few grand more you could just have an escalade

Trust me Brazos, I know that Toyota makes a great truck and they are a viable competitor, but I will always buy GM(assuming they are still around). I am also just floored that GM has the same vehicle with four different names on it and they wonder where they can cut spending.
GMC acadia
Chevy Traverse
Buick Enclave
Saturn Outlook
~all exactly the same.

I am also working with the congressman in the midwest to enact a law that the big 3 MUST spend their money in the US and am pleased to see that my exact questions in my letters have been read to the CEO's of these companies and hopefully I am making some progress.

 

Chevyalltheway: Thank you for a common-sense discussion. It is hard to tell how all of the automotive woes will shake out. Smaller (fewer lines) and more fuel efficient automotive companies are what is needed. American workers (including those who work for foreign name companies inside the US) make the best product. American ingenuity from Ford rescued Jaguar when they were making a totally unreliable car. The s and the auto companies need to agree to meet and come up with a solution that will continue to employ as many workers as possible and produce fuel efficient and reliable cars for the future

 

In my eyes, the first thing that needs to happen is the s need to lay off. It is ridiculous and just plain stupid. Because of the ridiculously high wages American workers "must" be paid, the Big three are outsourcing their work to India, Japan, and China and getting an inferior product in return. I don't know how Toyota copes with the UAW, but I have to tell ya, My fathers tool and die shop which employs 200 workers is a completely non- shop and it is one of the few Tool and die shops in the country that is still turning a profit. We treat our employees fairly and they give us 110% of their effort in return. We have the shortest lead time in the country and have been nationally recognized for our strategy. Now we are developing an online teaching program for CNC machinists in training to use instead of jobshadowing for up to 5 years and losing that much in pay and productivity. When this program succeeds, the lives of all the parts suppliers in America will be made so much simpler because they won't be paying trainees to watch someone else do the work and will be able to get on the shop floor sooner

 

I don't know, maybe the big 3 are upset cause they can hardly stay in business while recieving billions of dollars from the goverment. Maybe they are upset at a company that can build cars & trucks in this country that are more american than the cars and trucks that they build that are mostly mexican. Maybe they are so upside down on their vehicles cause they lose their value so quickly and break down so often they can't get away from them without taking a a$$ whipping. So they vent their anger at a company that could solve their problems. Lets see build a piece of junk no one wants, overprice it, then spread it among a bunch of divisions that aren't making any money. That ain't american that's stupidity. Oh yea lets get a bunch of working folks to bail out the idiots that came up with this scheme. My tundra made in texas is doing just fine. I know you crybaby bashers arn't trying to tell me that if I do have a problem that i would have had better luck if I'd have had a big3 vehicle. If so we need to change this from a truck forum to a comedy forum, which might not be a bad idea after some of the bs I have read on this forum.

 

I probably should post the link to the thread on tundrasolutions, but a guy pulled 12,000lbs for 1200 miles with his tundra and got a average of 10 mpg's! Now how can you hate on that, and i'll guarantee you it moved it nearly as easy as a 1200 trailer behind a 5.3L GM truck with nearly the same mpg's lol!

 

Has anyone seen the news on how GM burned thru billions of our dollars and are still deep in the red? Just remember it is OUR MONEY .They simply make too many cars that people don't want.

But then all automakers and dealers are in trouble. The dealer I go to is down to 1 or 2 sales people and 1 or 2 service reps. Don't know how many people they let go out in the shop.

On a technical note, has anyone read anything on motor changes or accessory changes for the 2010 Tundra?

 

At least their not taking my fvcking money and investing it in production facilities in Brazil like GM is.