I concur on a high end make people in general don’t want annoyances and noises etc and have them fixed/maintained properly. They likely did not “settle” for their vehicle. I believe many people settle on a car and view it as disposable eventually and drive for a while until they get the next hopefully “better” vehicle. Many Honda and Toyota owners have the perception they last forever so they maintain them well too. The truth is many domestics and other Asian brands would go far too if owners would maintain/repair properly.
Well said. The problem with North American manufacturers has been that they cannot design and build a good small car and make a profit on it. Hence, all samll cars, Cavalier, Focus, Neon, etc. have quality skimping (corner cutting) design and generally poorer quality components and average or below assembly quality. Consumer reperts and resale values confirm this.
Even though Ford owns a good deal of Mazda, the Mazda 3 is a much better car than the Focus. Ford has apparently learned next to nothign from owning Mazda. Likewise, GM has learned very little from the NUMMI joint ventue with Toyota.
Japanese and Korean firms, such as Hyundai, excell at small cars since this is their bread and butter in the rest of the world. Their small cars are familiy cars in over 100 countries; they have to be good!
Europeans insist on good road holding, space-packaging and driveability, but they accept much lower reliability than Americans, since they drive less and trade their cars frequently; the old ones get exported to Africa and other developing areas without a car industry. English Fords, for instance, are fun to drive but they are pathetic when it comes to quality and durability.
Similarly, most Jaguars in England and Europe are company cars, and the employer pays the repair bills, so the drivers don’t care.
But they have improved quality. If someone makes a better car and saves money, that’s a good thing, right? Also, do you think that Toyota’s stock holders would be happy with a manager that does not try to save money, too?
“Ford has apparently learned next to nothign from owning Mazda.”
Actually, they did learn a lot. Ford’s quality got better faster than GMs precisely because they learned a little something from Mazda about transmissions. During the 80s Escort Transmissions came from Mazda and the Ford US plant. There were lots of returns on the US transmissions, but not the Mazda transmissions. Ford discovered that Mazda used statistical process control to improve their transmission parts. Ford started doing the same. Since Ford, GM, and Chrysler had a long way to go to catch up with Honda and Toyota, the job is not complete. But both companies do make highly desirable trucks and some desirable cars. The money used to be in trucks, so they ignored the car market. That will change as people decide to buy more fuel efficient cars. It takes a lot of time; Toyota and Honda won’t stand still, either.
I’ll throw in my two cents.
Before I went to film school, i spent eight miserable years in the domestic auto industry working for a company that kind of rhymed with Mineral Rotors. In any case, at first I was a good company man and bought 2 of their cars. They were less than satisfactory experiences. Worse than that were the kind of engineers that I worked with who were lazy, careless and incompetent. When I was having transmission PCM errors I went to the guy who designed the software for my specific problem, he simply said “oh well” and went back to shopping on eBay. When I asked a senior level engineer for the serial number of his laptop, he couldn’t find it even though a label clearly said: Serial… These people are engineering brakes, shock absorbers, steering and we’re putting our lives into their hands when we buy this American shlock. I am the proud owner of a Honda and Toyota and both have been trouble free, even though the Toyota I bought was during the first model year. WHile I won’t make the generalization that all American engineers and cars are crap, but I was working at the nerve center for Mineral Rotors’ engineering and they were the most unimpressive unprofessional group of people I’ve ever encountered. I will never ever buy an American car again. It’s only Japanese or high end European for me.
Of course every manufacturer is looking to save money…BUT it’s a matter of degree. What I see with the Big-3 is there is no check and balance to offset a manager like the one I mentioned. Quality takes a back seat to profit. That’s GREAT for the short term…but for the long term it’s going to hurt them (IT HAS HURT THEM). They are ONLY looking at the next quater…NOT the next decade.
What you experience is not different than any other fortune 40 company. I contract(software dev) at a massive computer company and when IT asks me for a notebook serial # which is labeled I had difficulty finding amongst all the other #'s. I could care less, really. I am expert in my narrowed skills and excel at them.
On the PCM issue even if you were having errors the realistic thing is its a massive effort to put in a defect report, triage, assess, evaluate, change, test(especially in the field), and figure out distribution plan. Sorry I have worked with the Fortune 40 and that is just how it goes.
Its not particularly efficient but something must go right as most profit.
So you think a Japanese company would tolerate lazy and careless engineers who spend their days web surfing? I have often found that brilliant and talented people can be inept at simple tasks. That alone isn’t an issue. The issue is when they don’t take pride in their work and don’t take an interest in improving their products over time. This might be just my impression, but the “good enough is good enough” policy is a lot harder to find in Japanese professional culture than it is in American professional culture. Do you think Japanese executives e-mail each other Dilbert comic strips for laughs? They probably would not understand what was so funny about them. I wish I could read a Dilbert strip and not relate to the issue being lampooned.
But they have improved quality. If someone makes a better car and saves money, that’s a good thing, right?
Yes they have…but they haven’t caught up yet. What I hate about it is…THEY CAN CATCH UP IF THEY WANTED TO. The ONLY thing that’s stopping them is greedy managers, VP’s and CEO’s. GM wrote the book on quality. Then in the 70’s they threw it out.
And the myth continues on “Japanese” company.
Back in my days as a hardcore software developer if I spent all day fixing people’s issues that were not handed to me by proper channels I would be fired and never accomplish anything. And yes I do surf the internet at work on occasion as my company encourages it as long as it balances out.
…but when it comes to pride in your work, aren’t perception and reality the same thing? Shouldn’t you debunk something before you call it a “myth?”
Have you worked in a Japanese company, Ron? Do you have first hand knowledge in ALL their companies business practices, or are you just speaking from your perception and what’s shown in the media?
Also, we have absolutely no proof that this “Mineral Rotors” transmission engineer is “lazy and careless” and “spends his days web surfing”. Andrew_j makes a lot of good points, including that in large professional companies, there are proper channels that must be used (yes EVEN Japanese companies).
This is a horrible way to judge a company, much less an entire industry, based on it being American and not Japanese or European. Gimme a break!
True, you have no proof that the Mineral Rotors engineer is lazy and careless, other than my word (did you want a photo?)
No disrespect to Andrew_j, but I think that his points are a sad reflection of what has happened at the Fortune 40’s companies and is one reason why the American Auto Industry (and economy) are failing. “I care about only my piece and who cares about anything else?” The problem is that many of the MR engineers weren’t experts in their areas in engineering OR IT. As a matter of fact, I remember talking to an IT Manager and asked him why none of his staff had IT backgrounds (they were all Mechanical engineers and MBA’s) and replied: “You don’t really need IT people in our Information Systems Organization”. The idea of just knowing YOUR area is a copout. I’m now a scholar in film and media, but I also know philosphy, sociology, art history, etc. Being well rounded is essential nowadays.
Also, in the auto industry, it’s customary to speak to engineers personally if you work there, know them, and have a problem with a car that was in their area of “expertise”. That’s commonly done.
I think that Ron bring up some excellent points. I got tons of “jokes, chains, and pics of nearly naked girls” at MR (the last of which I didn’t mind so much but that’s hardly the point). I really wondered what people did with all of their time! Several of my friends from school got jobs at Yazaki and Nissan and that kind of behavior not only didn’t happen, it wasn’t tolerated. the Japanese know how to efficiently run an organization and make an employee feel loyal. Are they all perfect? Of course not, but from my experience, they were doing a much better job than the Yanks. By the way, a coworker of mine at GM bought a Mexican made Aztek at the same time I bought my Ohio-made Honda. He razzed me about it for two weeks, when he had to take it into the dealer for a problem. He ended up taking it in 9 times in a year for different problems. I just took my Honda in for oil changes, and smiled!
I think the attitudes of Andrew_j are indeed common and they are precisely the reason I left that industry for academia, and while the latter has its own set of politics, I’m much happier and imagine, the people are actually competent!
Were you at his desk 8 hours a day, every day? One incident of him not instantly fixing your problem and surfing the net does not equal lazy and careless.
What would a Japanese engineer have done if you came to him with the problem? Sit down with you and rewrite the PCM code?
I do agree that the “I care about only my piece and who cares about anything else?” attitude is a problem these days, but we do need highly specialized people that can’t be/don’t need to be jack-of-all-trades.
How does comparing a trouble free Honda made in Ohio to a totally different, problematic Mexican made Aztek prove Japanese superiority?? That’s a worthless, unscientific anecdote. You’re a professor?
By the way, I hope you aren’t trying to say EVERY person in academia is competent. That’s gotta be one of the biggest farces out there.
Put away the claws Jad, we keep things polite around here and you’re towing the line of turning this into a flame war.
This engineer, along with several others, had a reputation for slacking off. I tried to work with him on several projects and he contributed little to nothing. If a Japanese engineer had done it, it would have worked in the first place. Highly specialized people are fine, however it’s far better to have people who are great at a few things, than people who are each superb at one thing. Being able to multitask is an extremely important skill. Do you work in the real world??
When I was at MR, I knew engineers who came in in the morning, brought up a few spreadsheets, tinkered with them for 30 minutes and spent the rest of the day using MR assets and resources to work on their home-based business.
The anecdote was just an unrelated piece of humor. It doesn’t (and I wasn’t) trying to prove Japanese superiority. Some of your comments make me think that perhaps you didn’t do so well in academia.
Who’s got the claws out now? I was a straight A student actually, through college…a lot of my professors resented the fact that I skipped class a bit and sometimes knew more than they did on the subject they were teaching. Maybe I’ve just had bad experiences in that area.
I’m not trying flame anyone, I just think this is a much too complex issue for anyone (even someone like you who worked for one of the big companies) to make judgement on either the American, Japanese, or European (or other) industries. There’s good and bad in all of them, lazy and hard working people in all of them, and great and horrible managers/management in all of them.
I do work in the real world (and in my job, multitasking is paramount), although I’m not sure what you mean by that. What is the non-real world? No offense meant here, but isn’t academia usually considered the non-real world? 
That’s a joke.
I still don’t think you (plural) can make a statement such as “If a Japanese engineer had done it, it would have worked in the first place”. That’s an unproveable, unsubstantiated statement. Are Japanese engineers superhuman, never make mistakes, and always account for every possible situation that a design might be subjected to?
I’m sorry you had a bad experience at “MR” but I don’t think that gives you the right to make sweeping generalities.
I have to only say that academia is another failure in the US. Why has tuition increased at a rate far exceeding inflation over the last 30 years? Is it incompetence or indifference?
Are the colleges/universities any better from 30 years ago?
I guess they learned a few things from Mazda. Ford’s small trucks are certainly better than GM’s and Chrysler’s. The best thing about the Focus is the engine, mostly Mazda.
That’s hard to say. I went over 30 years ago and it was fine, but how can I compare my experience to today’s university? I don’t go anymore. I must say, though, that engineering students and fresh-out engineers have an extraordinary amount of tunnel vision. I used to think that schools were failing students, but I’ve changed my mind. Those narrow-minded kids were exposed by their schools just so they could learn problem solving skills that require divergent thinking. It’s been too long, but I’ll be that I was just as bad when I first entered the job market.
From an educator’s point of view, the kids go where the money and the jobs are. With the expense of college education, can you blame them ? Over the years, math majors have migrated to computer field, to service jobs in health car, then to the busines world where they see the fastest return on their education dollar. Country’s that provide free college education are flooding engineering and grad. programs in US universities with forgien students…over 60% at our local state uni.
There seems to be more money abroad for education than here at home for our kids. Our Universities are more than willing to accept them at higher tuition rates to keep the education business afloat. A sell out that’s happening accross America. We are slowly becoming a third world educational community college…there is plenty of time and wealth here to turn things around. We just have to invest in our kids, our future as much as other counties sre willing to do.