Why do people keep buying American cars?

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by AF Mascot

What an awesome thread! It's great to see auto enthusiasts of differing opinions discussing their points of view in such an informative and respectful manner. This is what we're here for.

Cheers Mr Mascot, good to see you out and about.


It's also a good time to remind people of our new Guidelines:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...uidelines.html

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by wishIhad12

Well that’s a rather open ended statement isn’t it? A lot of what we have in the US isn’t stuff that lacks sophistication.......

Excuse the heavily truncated quote, but I think we are getting distracted from the original question, and you are getting towards answering it.


Remember I'm not in America, and the American Car Industry has an absolutely shocking reputation outside of America.


But, from what your saying, the really dated designs have been, or are being dropped because no one is buying them.
Instead people are choosing more sophisticated designs?


I understand the US market is considered to be very different, both geographically and socially. But I don't consider that an excuse to buy, or sell out dated technology.

[wishIhad12]

Originally Posted by Moppie

Excuse the heavily truncated quote, but I think we are getting distracted from the original question, and you are getting towards answering it.


Remember I'm not in America, and the American Car Industry has an absolutely shocking reputation outside of America.


But, from what your saying, the really dated designs have been, or are being dropped because no one is buying them.
Instead people are choosing more sophisticated designs?


I understand the US market is considered to be very different, both geographically and socially. But I don't consider that an excuse to buy, or sell out dated technology.

You have to understand the history of the market and the big 3 over the past 40 years or so. In the 1960s the Big 3 dominated US sales in part BECAUSE their cars were arguably the best in the world. The Japanese didn't exist at the time. The Europeans were better in many ways but as for the sum of all the parts the domestics were very good. They were as reliable as any brand. They were built using the best manufacturing knowledge of the time and while things like pushrods might have seemed low tech compared to say the OHC motors used by some (not all) European models, the domestics, like say the Japanese today, were delivering the goods at a fair price.

There were a number of things that put the Big 3 down for a long count and did result in some truth to the accusations levied against them in this thread. In the 1970s the domestics got hit with a number of issues.

1. Complacent management. This was very true of GM but true of all of the brands. GM was coming off having a 50% US market share and in the 1960s it was the largest company in the world. To this day I suspect very few companies have ever been as impressive in size or scope as GM at it's peak. Of course that breads complacency. Not only was management complacent but so was labor.

2. Emissions. Really, it was best that the Japanese and Europeans were small players in the 1970s. Americans didn't realize that it wasn't just US brands that sucked when strangled with 1970s era emissions. Basically all cars in the US sucked when dealing with emissions of those days. The systems really were forced out before they were ready by EPA mandates. Net result was engines in the 70s sucked. Even worse, thanks to the need to get newer designs out the door and fast we got things like the Vega's I4. The I4 in the Vega was an aluminum block with iron head. At the time that was VERY cutting edge. Too bad it was too cutting edge. The sulfur content in the US fuel ate away the lining of the alloy cylinders. Net result was engines failed early. That's OK, the revolutionary (and now standard practice) anti-corrosion process pioneered by GM hadn't had all the bugs worked out and most Vegas rusted out as fast as the engines failed. Pity. Despite the poor reputation, the cars were actually quite good for their day... when they ran. While it seems most manufactures did learn from GM's dipping method mistakes, they didn't all learn from GM engine mistake. In the 1990s BMW had to replace thousands of aluminum block engines for precisely the same reason as GM.

3. Fuel prices. The spike in gas prices gave the Japanese a wedge into the market. People wanted good mileage TODAY and the Japanese, who built small cars for their own market could deliver. Ironically, the Big 3 built good small cars as well. However, a clause in the CAFE rules set up to protect the UAW stated that CAFE mileage was calculated based on cars made in the US. So even though Ford and GM had good small cars in Europe, they couldn't import them to meet CAFE standards because the Unions protested it.

4. Finally, labor. The cost of making a car should have dramatically fallen in the later 70s as automation really took off. The problem was the UAW didn't want to see the facts and refused to allow a reduction in force. The Japanese were expanding so they didn't have people to fire. The domestics, even if they lost no market share, simply had more people than were needed to build a modern car of the early 80s. Net result was the cost of building a car in the US was higher than it needed to be and certainly higher than Japan of the 1980s.

In the 1980s the US auto industry was a great example of less than the sum of the parts. They showed fits of brilliance and many features we think of as modern and common were pioneered by the Big 3 (especially GM). However, they were often either before their time or attached to cars that weren't very good or the value of the system wasn't there yet. Let's hit a few.

GM had always been a leader in electronics and ECUs. This in part allowed them to keep older engines emissions compliant. They were using distributor-less ignition systems in the 1980s. The GM Quad 4 motor was a DOHC I4 with a distributor less ignition system with coils on the head. Honda was still using distributors in main stream motors 10 years later. The Quad 4 also had very good HP/L (not a measure I value). In '88 the 2.3L version could deliver 180 factory HP. Sadly the engine initially had a bad reputation for blowing head gaskets (a problem GM should have found in testing and was later fixed). Flawed though it was, it did have a list of what others would include on modern engines.

Chrysler was the first company to use a variable geometry turbo (early 80s).

GM was the first to use touch screen entertainment and HVAC systems (Buick Riata). Olds was the first to have a factory NAV system. Ford had thin film heated from windshields that would quickly defrost in the winter. In addition to it's innovative leaf spring, the C4 Corvette was the first mass produced car to use alloy suspension arms (vs steel). The C4 had multi-link rear suspension at a time that most of the Europeans were using less sophisticated semi-trailing arm systems. (The C4 did have plenty of flaws and is, IMHO, an example of less than the sum of the parts). Ford was one of the companies that brought air suspension back to the modern market after most manufactures dumped the technology in the 1960s. Ford was also one of the first companies to use HID lights. The 1984 Corvette was the first car to use LCDs as part of the instrument cluster. There was fear the system wouldn't work and an analog gauge set was created just in case. The hydroforming technology first used by GM in the C5 Corvette was VERY good stuff. Toyota is now using it as well. This technology allowed GM to create a C6 chassis (similar to the C5) that, in targa form, is almost as stiff as the Ferrari 360 chassis (the current V8 Ferrari when the C6 was released). That's great considering the 360 is a coupe with a roof frame while only the Z06 and ZR1 have fixed roof structures (all steel chassis Corvettes are either targas or convertibles. The Z06 and ZR1 aluminum chassis aren't as stiff and thus needed fixed roof structures to exceed the stiffness of the steel cars).

In the 1980s the domestics often used features and advanced technology such as what I've mentioned to set their cars ahead of the pack. The problem was that often the cars were fundamentally not very good. Great icing, bad cake. By the 1990s several things had changed. The car market wasn't looking good for the domestics so they largely ignored it. The truck market was hot for a number of reasons and the domestics were initially about the only ones in the game. They knew they would have to return to making better cars but for the moment they put their efforts into securing the hot market rather than working on regaining in the old market (when you have limited resources this is probably the best idea). This meant that for a while many of the cars they made were old. They were updated just enough but not enough to stay cutting edge. Now, it's not fair to say they didn't try. Ford tired with the Mondeo (Contour). It was a good car but when equipped to European levels it cost just as much as the larger Taurus. It was hard to convince buyers to go for the Contour when the Taurus was proven and seemed to offer more value for the money. I'm not sure who did most of the lifting on the chassis that was under the Lincoln LS and Jag S-type. It was a completely modern chassis but Lincoln didn't have much luck with it. Part of the problem was Lincoln had no follow up products so many never learned just who good the LS was and those who did learn were left with no follow up product. Ironically in heavily modified form this is the chassis under the current Mustang. Yes, the Mustang and S-type are cousins.

Ford ran into this a few times as did GM. Some of us wanted the sophisticated small Euro cars but the public at large wasn't willing to pay the price for those cars (unless they came with a premium label. Incidentally the Japanese were discovering the same thing hence the 1998 US Accord was no longer a world car. Ours was cheaper feeling (though still very reliable), larger and cost less than the Euro model. We eventually got the Euro Accord back but only at a higher price and through Honda's premium brand.

Chrysler didn't have over seas arms to lean on (they were forced to sell those holding in the early 80s (probably at the request of the UAW before Chrysler was given tax payer backed loans). However, in the 1990s Chrysler was really on a roll. Their styling was second to none. They were making money hand over fist. When they merged with MB Chrysler's average profit per vehicle ($'s, not %) was the same as Mercedes. The catch was almost all Chryslers cost less than $35k while almost all MB cost more than $35k. Chrysler became the bastard step child but only because after the merger the company was mismanaged. Going into the deal Chrysler was hot the way Hyundai is hot today. They did have clever technology and ideas. They also had swagger. The Viper wasn't about sophistication. It was about brute force fun! It worked to. The suspension on the Ford Taurus was a completely modern multi-link setup but GM loved rear twist beam setups (so did Audi-VW).

Still, that leaves only Chrysler doing much of interest in the 1990s. Ford and GM were trying to recover from the 80s while dealing with their shrinking markets and their other issues. Mind you at the same time that 2 of the big 3 were producing rather plain cars, Honda, Nissan and Toyota were all doing the same in response to the pricing pressures of this market.

So coming into this decade Ford and GM were having come to Jesus moments. They were turning around reliability and perceived quality. They were making more sophisticated cars and motors. Ford found it easier to largely utilize the resources of their world empire to do this. They really had too much not to. I mean they had Jag, Volvo, Mazda (mostly owned by Ford at the time), Ford Europe and Ford US. They spread the work out and Ford US got projects like the trucks (and modifying the basic Volvo chassis to be various Ford brand cars. They also got several engine projects including the newest gem of a DOHC V8 in the Mustang and the current Ford V6 and now turbo I4 and V6s (the turbo I4s might be Mazda or Ford of Europe but the V6 is US based). Ford has kept the old Panther platform car around and some might be fooled into thinking it represents a modern Ford. That would be no more correct than thinking a Mercedes G-wagon is a modern MB SUV. The Panther cars (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Town Car) were basically long since dead in the consumer market but the livery, taxi and police market loved them. They were robust, and well known. It was easy for the NYPD to keep cars running for ever and simply swap parts. The mechanics knew the things like the backs of their hands. Ford sold them because fleet owners LOVED them. Yes, they were old and primitive (though they didn't use leaf springs. The last domestics CAR to use leaf springs was the Dodge Diplomat that went out of production in the early 1980s).

GM also started fixing things and like Ford they used all their engineering abilities from around the world. I think GM did their V6 and their newest I4 in the US but the I4 might be overseas. They decided small cars should be done outside the US while Holden got the large RWD cars (what else would they be the center of excellence for) and the US groups did the Corvette, some of the older platforms, and the largely US market vehicles (ie trucks and larger SUVs). GM, now has a whole host of internally developed and thoughly modern engines. They also have that very effective and loved pushrod V8. It "may look dumb but that's just a disguise." The heads flow very efficiently and it was designed using completely modern testing and design methods. Ford's modern DOHC 5L motor is still heavier and larger for about the same power (432 vs 440) despite being a newer design.

Chrysler was an interesting case. It's often been said that the current RWD cars are nothing more than old MB chassis. That isn't true. It was a new, Chrysler designed platform that was under development before MB entered the picture. MB insisted that the new car be redesigned to reused old MB parts rather than using newly developed parts. On one hand this does make sense and it's not like the MB parts are a bad batch to grab from. To bad it delayed the release of the car by two years and meant the company only had 2-3 years of cheap gas sales vs 4-5. I doubt the car was any better for using those MB parts and I'm sure the DC internal accounting didn't give the Chrysler arm any discount (great way to move money from Chrysler's piggy bank to MB at a time that MB needed money to fix themselves!).

Anyway, as of today, the companies are largely on the road to recovery. Sure you can cite out dated cars (Impala) or MB era cars (Caliber) but for the most part they are old cars or not representative. Chrysler is easy to pick on because MB's mismanagement all but killed the company. Ford is doing well and yes, most of their car platforms are not native to the US but we have already talked about division of labor. The Focus and Fiesta are basically the same cars as the over seas models. The Fusion is a modified platform co-developed with Mazda. The Explorer and Taurus are on a chassis that is derived from a Volvo chassis (not sure how much Volvo is left). The Mustang is loosely based on the old Jag/Lincoln chassis but not sure how much is left there. Again, this is a car that may look dumb but... check out the motortrend Hot Lap test at Laguna Seca. The pro drive was very happy with the car's handling, far more so than the BMW 1M. He compared the Mustang to the Cayman S.

GM has quite a bit of good stuff (most Caddies, the new SUVs, the Cruze, the Opel based Buicks) and some good older stuff (the Corvette which is getting in need of an update) and some OK older stuff (the Malibu is decent but not stand out and faces some really strong, newer competitors) and finally the old stuff (Colorado pickup, Impala, Caddy DTS). They often aren't bad but certainly aren't modern or "up to date".

So in addition to seeing how the US market isn't the same and has different demands on US brands I hope you can also see that innovation and forward thinking was always part of the domestic cars even with cars from the dark days like the 1970s Vega (really one of the more innovative and forward thinking, if also very flawed, cars of modern times). You can also see why much of that innovation might be hidden from view and how it's coming back.

[Moppie]

Now that is an awesome post, it's more than few years since I saw anything it on AF

Some of the other oldies would be proud, and I know I'm a whole lot less ignorant



It's my understanding that the Jag S type Chassis is a largely Jaguar design. I believe after Ford purchased the brand they realized the potential for them to design a global RWD platform (which upset Ford Australia).
However, it did use some design ideas from Ford Australia, the rear suspension is based on the set up that had recently been designed for the Falcon.
Parts for it used to be manufactured here in Auckland, including the chromed strip across the back of the boot lid, which is the same piece on the Jag and the Ford Fairmont.

[wishIhad12]

Oh, I forgot to mention that GM's dual mode hybrid system is actually a more advanced design than Toyota's (but it hasn't been properly exploited) and the Volt is in a class of it's own. Also rumor has it that the current MB super car was based on the chassis that was to have underpinned the next gen Viper before the companies split. The same rumors suggest that Chrysler might have done a good bit of the heavy lifting as well.
Sorry that some of that above post was rather random in it's order.

[wishIhad12]

If anyone is curious here is a long thread about the GM pushrod V8 and it's future on the GMI forums (I haven't posted on that thread, just thought people might want to read it)
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...gineer-105633/

[Chris V]

Originally Posted by Moppie

My comments about Drum brakes were just to get a wind up
In reality they offer more braking force than a similar sized disc set up, and they are making a come back on lots of small cars.
The down side is more rotational mass and un-sprung weight, but on Grand Ma's shopping cart that isn't really a problem.

Actually, the small rear drum brakes being used on so many FWD cars are cheaper to make (important) and actually lighter than their disc equivalents.

My comments about leaf springs however are very true.
A leaf sprung set up will never give the same levels of ride and handling that a coil set up will. Not even a complex progressive multi-leaf set up
(the exception being a transverse leaf, although its coil equivalent, in board springs/dampers, is superior again).

Gotta adress the transverse composite monoleaf spring setup as used in the Corvette. The ONLY thinik that is superior about the coilover setup is cost and ease of exchanging springs (and the latter is why Corvettes go to coilovers when racing, so thay can quickly swap springs and tune the corners for different tracks) As far as the way the suspension works, it's superior. One, it's lighter, and there's less unsprung weight than coilovers. Two, there is less binding, as a coil spring setup induces some distortion and friction in the system. Third, it's got a lower CG, as the leaf is mounted lower than the coil AND it's lighter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvette_leaf_spring

If it’s so good why don’t other people use it?

I'll let another site answer that:

It’s legitimate to ask, does GM know something that Ferrari, Porsche etc don’t know or are the people at GM just being pig headed and sticking with “outdated” technology.



Street cars:

-You must design them into the car in the first place. This seams obvious but consider these springs span across the bottom of the car. In the front they have to clear the engine oil pan and in the back they have to stay out of the way of the differential. Basically, you can retro fit coils on the Vette because the mounts can be shared with the shock mounts. For the most part you can’t retrofit Corvette style leaves onto other cars because you would have to add mounts that don’t exist on the regular car.

-GM and their supplier spent a lot of time and money developing the Vette’s composite spring. Currently they are the only manufacture with the knowledge and understanding to make the springs work. On the other hand, coil springs are common and well understood. Lots of vendors can make them in a wide variety of configurations. It’s easier for the other manufactures to stick with what they know. Other manufacturers would have to study the design and manufacture of composite leaf springs before they could pop them on the next Supra-NSX-Type-GT. GM did that work years ago. Toyota could certainly afford to develop their own composite springs if they wanted. The same may not be true for smaller companies like Ferrari and Porsche.

-Engineers like to stick with what they know. Lots of suspension engineers are familiar with using coil springs. They could experiment with leaves if they wanted or they could stick with coils and get the job done. See the point about undertaking a research project.

-Coils are cheaper. This automatically keeps them off lower cost cars (Miata, Civic) and cars that share platforms with lower cost siblings (Audi TT). Porsche isn’t worried about saving every last dollar but there suspension and chassis design may not allow packaging a Corvette type leaf. The same is probably true of Ferrari. Even if packaging isn’t a problem they still have to pay for tooling to make the springs. Unlike the GM who spreads that cost over 30,000 Vettes a year, Ferrari would spread that over maybe 2000 cars a year. Porsche would be somewhere in between. Conversely I can get coils made with relatively low setup cost and a cheaper per part cost. So not only would they have to spend more per car, they have to spend a lot more up front.

What about race cars? To start off, not all race cars use coil springs. Some F1 cars (Ferrari and others) use torsion springs instead. Years ago Indy and F1 cars DID use leaf springs but those days are long past.

The current design of open wheel racecars places great restrictions on suspension packaging. The Corvette’s transverse leaf spring must span from one side of the car to the other. Also, to be most effective the links between the spring and suspension arms should be under tension. This makes a bottom mount spring most effective. This packaging doesn’t work well on an open wheel car because the spring would have to pass though the gear box around the dif (or the gear box would have to be raised and hurt the car’s CG). At the front the driver’s legs would get in the way. Additionally the spring is wide and would have to extend past the body work where it would hurt the car’s aero package.

Another good reason is only a few companies understand the technology necessary to make the springs. Hypercoil is currently the top race spring manufacture. They can make very precise, matched spring pairs. The level of precise spring rate control and matching may not exist in the composite bow springs.

Coil race springs are not car specific. You select rates, diameters, length etc but you don’t have a specific spring for a specific car. If you want to order a custom spring Hypercoil will wind it to your specifications on the same machine they use for the next custom spring. A custom Porsche, Formula Ford and LMP car spring can all be made on the same machine. By the time the C6 evolves into a C6-R (they don’t start off with a production Corvette) the suspension geometry is so different that they couldn’t just mount a C6 leaf spring. It’s far too expensive to have a few custom leaf springs tooled up (you would have to buy the tooling as well as the springs) so they use readily available coil springs.

This type of universal tooling isn’t availible for the composite leaf spring. Only the Vette currently uses the spring so you are making a Vette only part. This seriously reduces the market for aftermarket composite leaf springs (still there are after market leaf springs available for the Vette). The business case for custom equipment to make Vette springs is harder to justify since it’s a smaller market.

Why don’t other cars retrofit leaf springs? Well they also don’t retrofit torsion springs despite the fact that F1 cars use them. Put simply it would be VERY difficult. The Vette was designed to have them. It has mount points under the car where the springs fit to the suspension sub frames. It’s not easy to just add that to a car that was designed to use a coil spring. All of the cars you mentioned would have to be re-engineered to add leaf springs. Replacing the factory spring with a racing is easy by comparison.

[Moppie]

Interesting!

I'm actually a huge Fan of the transverse Leaf, having owned one car with one, and had a company car with one.

I used to have a Herald Based kit car, which had a progressive steel leaf on the back. It bolted to the top of the diff head and also worked as an upper control arm.

The other was a Nissan Serena, which used a composite transverse spring, slung under the diff head.

The problem in both cases, as you mention above, is packaging.
In the case of the kit car accessing it meant removing the body, and I believe the Herald it was based on had a similar problem. Being a multi-leaf, it was not light weight either.

In the Serena it worked quite well, but was exposed to road debris under the car. The leading edge was starting to break down, with some fibers exposed and some nasty chips in the front of it.

[wishIhad12]

Originally Posted by Moppie

Interesting!

I'm actually a huge Fan of the transverse Leaf, having owned one car with one, and had a company car with one.

I used to have a Herald Based kit car, which had a progressive steel leaf on the back. It bolted to the top of the diff head and also worked as an upper control arm.

The other was a Nissan Serena, which used a composite transverse spring, slung under the diff head.

The problem in both cases, as you mention above, is packaging.
In the case of the kit car accessing it meant removing the body, and I believe the Herald it was based on had a similar problem. Being a multi-leaf, it was not light weight either.

In the Serena it worked quite well, but was exposed to road debris under the car. The leading edge was starting to break down, with some fibers exposed and some nasty chips in the front of it.

The diff attached method also has another issue in that the diff housing is now asked to do two conflicting things. It wants to be mounted with soft bushings to isolate the housing from the chassis. It also wants to be mounted rigidly so that the two halves of the leaf spring truly behave as isolated springs. Things get even worse when, like the C2-C4 Corvette and the Jag sport cars, you use the half shafts as suspension links.

The C5 Corvette dealt with all these problems by dumping both the halfshafts as suspension links (a design that was quite out of date in 1996) and moving the spring mounts to the frame. Personally I think the double pivot spring mount used on the current Corvette (and previously used by Fiat on the 128) is a very trick setup. I know many people don't understand the system. I've seen numerous complaints on the Corvette forum about the cross talk due to this design (yet they don't mind the cross talking anti-roll bar ). In fact it does a better job of matching the spring rate and roll rate as we normally want in a road going sports car. The fact that the energy density and allowable strain of the fiberglass spring is much higher than steal is also very cool. Basically a mono-leaf steal spring couldn't do the job.

The transverse leaf spring is one of those trick bits of technology that I really like about the Corvette. It's true outside the box thinking. Even with the C4 which is one of the cars that I have said is less than the sum of it's parts, the idea of the transverse spring (and some of the car's other design details) is/are very cool.

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by wishIhad12

The diff attached method also has another issue in that the diff housing is now asked to do two conflicting things. It wants to be mounted with soft bushings to isolate the housing from the chassis. It also wants to be mounted rigidly so that the two halves of the leaf spring truly behave as isolated springs. Things get even worse when, like the C2-C4 Corvette and the Jag sport cars, you use the half shafts as suspension links.

In the herald it was hard mounted to the chassis (and used the drive shaft as the lower control arm).
Axle tramp was a bit of a problem, but once you got it hooked up, it was very controllable, and extremely well behaved.
In the Serena the whole lot was hard mounted into a frame that was then rubber mounted to the body.
But that thing had such soft springs and shocks it didn't handle at all.

The transverse leaf spring is one of those trick bits of technology that I really like about the Corvette. It's true outside the box thinking. Even with the C4 which is one of the cars that I have said is less than the sum of it's parts, the idea of the transverse spring (and some of the car's other design details) is/are very cool.

I've always been impressed by the Corvette, it gets such bad treatment in so much of the press, yet in reality, as is so often demonstrated, is such a great car.

I guess the thing that started the whole idea for this thread, is how can a company that makes a car like the Corvette, also make a Car like the Savana?

[Chris V]

Originally Posted by Moppie

I guess the thing that started the whole idea for this thread, is how can a company that makes a car like the Corvette, also make a Car like the Savana?

The Savana is a work vehicle with a job to do at a particular price point.

[Polygon]

Because people are suckers for nostalgia. Besides, when people buy those old cars and restore them they don't put the miles on them to exploit reliability issues. They generally don't drive them in a way that would show the inadequacies of the suspension and brakes. I know they're crap by today's standards but there are quite a few old American cars that I would love to have in my collection.

[brockJam75]

I'm not a fan of the huge trucks that people roll around with. American cars are okay here and there. People I guess see it as "It's American made it's going to be more trustworthy!" But in the end it's all about the peoples opinion.

[rvirani]

Originally Posted by Chris V

The ONLY pushrod engines left are in trucks and a couple performance GM cars. And none of them are poorly built.

I love my Mustang and it doesn't have a pushrod engine, and it's quite well built. And fast. And cheap.

But why do we love classic American cars? For the same reson we like classic ANYTHING. It's about a simpler age, an era gone by, and about cool old cars:





Certainly not poorly built.

wwwoowww.... awesome car buddy.... i really like it... nice design and good interiors.... super like....

[jcsites]

Thanks for taking the effort to prepare this. I appreciate it as a newcomer.