I'm praying that this does not happen. I'd rather Ford buy Chrysler. At least more vehicles would stick around.

 

Sure they can, it's called Economics. GM needs to die because it has been mismanaged for decades and is bloated more than a 4 day old corpse in a river. If a company cannot compete then it needs to exit the market.

Who can't get loans? That's a crock of lies. The local car dealers in my area are pissed because Obama is saying in the debates that people can't get loans, when it's the exact opposite. Geez, step away from the Kool-Aid and the media lies and look around your local area. The sky is not falling.

 

I actually disagree. I think if GM buys Chrysler, GM would kill off Hummer and Buick for sure.....and that would allow for Jeep and Chrysler to stick around.... however, the Dodge nameplate would be the only possible loss.....with the ability for some of those models to be renamed under Chrysler...

However if Ford bought them, you'd definitely lose the Ram for sure....and the Challenger would be lost as well.....

At least GM has a sense of pride and history..... Ford has been living off the Mustang and the F-150 for decades...

 

I'm going to marginally disagree here. People can get loans, but the problem is the interest and payments. They want to rape you out the wazoo because the auto manufacturers are losing money with new units sitting on the lot.

So in essence, people cant get qualified for the loans they need, because the vehicles arent worth what the loans are being asked for. Granted, this isnt happening everywhere, but it is happening.

And let's keep this from being a political thread, because more people then Obama are talking about people not getting loans...

 

Then people need to save money to buy a car. Buying stuff on credit is a crock of crap and people have rolled up too much negative equity into turds over the years. *THAT* is why people "can't get a loan". The whole story isn't being told.

Anyway, it boils down to economics, which no one wants to understand. Packard, Studebaker, Pierce-Arrow, Crosley, and many other companies are all distant memories in the history of the automobile.

I'm tired of the Dodge owners where talking about how the Japanese/Europeans only making cars with barely any power. I know some people with hopped up vintage VW's that will smoke a VW, but for daily driving, 1.6 litres of raw fury is plenty. Toyota Tundras can haul quite a but and I'm thinking of getting a used one in about another year or two to replace my Ram.

The main problem as to why vehicles are so expensive is that they're loaded up with too many creature comforts. Trucks aren't trucks anymore.

 

We live in an era of wants, not needs......and you'd be correct about people needing to learn to save a penny and buy it, not lease it...

 

Right, and I apologies about getting political. For all of you who believe GM has a lot to offer, I bet you dollars to donuts that merging with GM will help kill Chrysler and only prolong the long needed death of GM. As I stated earlier, GM has been badly mismanaged for decades and used to believe it's own BS that "whatever is good for GM is good for America". The labor unions strong-armed GM into providing health care for it's workers into retirement as well as fully funded pension plans. When the 1990's came around, GM was heavily bleeding red-ink and had mass layoffs. Everyone was in a panic that if GM died the US (somehow) would grind to a halt. These days, GM doesn't employ anywhere near what it did back in the 1960's, and it's still dying. The company has too many bureaucrats, too much duplication, and zero innovation. Had the company had a clue, the Camaro would have been put into production shortly after the prototype was debuted and the movie Transformers was released. They would have sold those things in record numbers; however, Bob (K)Lutz pushed for the company to concentrate on the Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice. Look where that got them. Several economists have stated years ago that GM would have to kill off at least three divisions, reorganize, get rid of the top-heavy management, and become innovative if it wanted to survive. Well, Oldsmobile was killed off, but perhaps Pontiac and Buick should be killed off as well.

Chrysler has always been an innovative company with good products, but lousy at marketing those products. In the 1990's, with the grand production facility that could churn out prototypes in record time, it looked like Chrysler would finally be able to nab the #2 spot. Sadly, it didn't. Right now, Chrysler has the cash and should concentrate on smaller cars that have good handling and fuel economy as well as reliability (something Chrysler has suffered from since the early-1980s). I've always said that Chrysler and electrical systems just don't mesh, which I learned from my old Dodge Shadow convertible (damn, that was a blast to drive).

Ford is hocked up to it's a$$ and would not be a viable merger.

Nope. If one of these companies dies then too bad. It will take a while for the sea of dead bodies to recover, but that's the price of the free market. Running to the government solves nothing, because the same old stupid mistakes will continue to be made. If these execs were put against the line of either profit or fail, they would make darn sure that the company would profit.

 

Oh I agree completely.... GM needs to be cut in about half....but the company doesnt need to die..... just needs to do what Chrysler has done and get a swift kick in the *** and kill off alot of trash...

I'd kill off Buick, Hummer, and merge Pontiac in with Chevy....killing off duplicate models....

 

I think Chevy needs to axe Pontiac, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. Still I really hate Chevy and don't want to see the merger go through. I'd rather Chrysler come to a proud end than see it fall into 'enemy' hands. Well okay, so it's not a proud end really but it's more respectable than seeing it turn over to Chevy or worse yet the Japanese companies. I'd rather they end up in Ford's hands or even a European company.
Chrysler needs to axe the Chrysler line (I know it's the head of their line but lets face it, there's nothing to promising from the Chrysler line, especially in terms of things that can't be shifted to Dodge). The other thing they need to do is bring back the Dodge Neon. Not unlike Chevy ending their Camaro, this is a move that left me dumbfounded. I wonder if that proposal sounded like this "Hey so we have this cheap Dodge Neon that a lot of the kids drive. So how about if we end the line so that we can lose that revenue and try to keep these kids from growing up with Dodge; you know so we can give them an opportunity to drive a Saturn or a Honda instead of becoming Mopar fans."
Ford, well stop coming out with cars like the "Fusion" would be my advise there. You know ugly cars. Still it'll be a cold day in Hell when I drive a Chevy, even if it is a Chevy Ram. If I buy my next truck and the merger has happened, F-150 is going to be my next choice. Not Toytojo, not Nissan, not Honda, not ever.
Just my opinion.

 

Ford did such a wonderful job with Jaguar and Volvo that I question why you'd want Ford to take over Dodge Volvo had great reliability until 2001/2002 models, after which it all went downhill until almost 2005. The Neon was a pile, which replaced the Dodge Shadow (P-Body). I had a Shadow Convertible, which had a peppy 2.5L that I LOVED pushing through I-44 all the way through Missouri at 90mph.

As far as pickups, I would consider a Toyota long before a Ford. Back when I was looking for a pickup (used), I was shocked that the used Toyota trucks commanded almost 80% of the new price even with 100,000 miles on the clock.