Saving the Big Three
11/05/08
[donation]
By Joel Thurtell
You might say I live in the belly of the Big Three. When I first moved to Plymouth in 1985, the town seemed solidly Ford country. I assumed it was because there was a Ford plant in town and others nearby, with Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn an easy jaunt by freeway.
Most of my neighbors either worked directly for Ford, or took advantage of big discounts buying Fords through connections with relatives who work at the automaker.
These days, there still are lots of Fords, but I also see plenty of Hondas, Toyotas, Subarus, Kias, VWs and Beemers. Why, we have a pair of Hondas parked in our driveway.
Other towns with General Motors or Chrysler plants still have lots of GM and Chrysler cars in their garages, though since ’85 the number of foreign-mark cars has increased there, too.
A relative who works for Ford chides me now and then for buying Hondas. It’s true that once we used that family link to buy a Ford Windstar on the company’s A plan. The Windstar was a fine car, after Ford worked out the kinks. Soon after we bought it, Ford took it back for a month as their engineers tried to figure out why the car would suddenly race ahead without pressure on the accelerator. Very scary.
But Ford eventually figured out the problem and fixed it. We had the Windstar for several years and liked the car.
We also owned a series of Plymouth and Dodge minivans. Wonderful, spacious cars. Their only downfall was the tendency of the transmissions to fail. Once, it happened at 12,000 miles on my birthday. Unforgettable.
My relative who works for Ford told me, “Ford needs help. We need people to buy our cars.”
There was something a bit wrong about that statement. Finally, I figured it out: I actually BUY cars, whereas employees of automakers, be they white or blue collar workers, get incredibly sweet deals. Ownership is heavily subsidized. and autoworkers switch cars so often, they don’t have to worry about their plants’ products falling apart.
Whereas I do.
If the auto worker who criticizes me for my Hondas were paying full price for a car, same as me, I might listen harder. But this buying field is not level. Why should I feel guilty for buying a non-Big Three car when I don’t enjoy the privilege of the sharp discounts autoworkers get?
My second impression is that I’m being mistaken for some charitable organization whose sole purpose is to help automobile manufacturers who got themselves in trouble by reaping big profits on gas guzzling Explorers, Suburbans and Humvees only to stumble when fuel prices jumped into the stratosphere.
In fact, I’m a former journalist now retired who’s trying to make financial ends meet. Buying a new car at the beginning of retirement is a big decision. You want to make sure the car you buy will last for a long, long time. It’s even more important when you’re paying full price.
When you remember sudden, frightening accelerations and bum transmissions (that nasty birthday present aside, the other time a Chrysler-made transmission failed was far from home on the New York Thruway. It cost us $1,600 for repairs plus a night in a motel), your mind tends to wander towards the latest car issue of Consumer Reports.
What manufacturer has the highest quality rating from Consumer Reports?
Honda.
Case closed.
Well, not exactly. Because charity has moved from home to politics.
Now the entity being mistaken for a charitable organization is not just me, but all of us who pay taxes. The new mark is the federal government.
We’re told that the Big Three, singly and together, are too big to fail.
I’ve heard it all before.
Twenty years ago, that was the rationale for bailing out Chrysler. It wasn’t supposed to happen again.
Lots of small businesses were failing back then for the same reasons Chrysler was in trouble — economic hard times mixed with plenty of bad business decisions by the company. Poor quality and an inventory slanted toward gas guzzlers were choices made in Detroit by all three brands.
But Chrysler was propped up, and here they are again, playing the beggar.
I suppose taxpayers will have to bail them out again. How not, when the government has bailed out banks and brokerage firms across the land?
I agree with those who say there should be strict oversight to make sure the money is plowed into improving quality and product lines. Definitely cut bloated wages and benefits for line workers and managers. Why not outright government ownership and management? This has gone beyond socialism or capitalism. We need responsibility.
But I have a simpler non-ideological idea, one that I think might really have a chance at improving quality at all three automakers.
Let’s insist there be no more special discounts for employees of auto companies.
Let’s make sure that when Ford or GM or Chrysler workers appear in a car showroom, the price they pay is no different than what you or I would pay.
No more charity for autoworkers. If they had to buy their vehicles with their hard-earned money, they too might find themselves sneaking a look at Consumer Reports.
If autoworkers no longer received cars as rewards for blind loyalty, but instead had to budget the cost over a period of years just like the rest of us, we might actually see some of those Ford, GM and Chrysler workers buying Toyotas or Hondas, having concluded that’s the choice that gives them the best bang for their buck.
Wouldn’t that be a story?
All of a sudden, quality would REALLY be Job One.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
