One last point on this.
It isn’t that the FCC FORCED the carriers to drop analog…What the ruling was is the FCC no longer required the carriers to support analog. And the carriers choose to drop the Analog themselves. That’s a BIG difference in saying the FCC forced carriers to drop their analog signal and devices.
We have OnStar in our 2003 Silhouette, and GM contacted us well in advance of the changeover. They offered to change the transeiver for $15 whether we subscribed or not. We were one of many that received the notice.
@MikeInNH
GM probably could have, but if you refer to my thread on car guys vs bean counters, you’ll see why they didn’t. Doing so would have cut into the quarterly profits
You never mentioned any of that before Mike. My security clearance doesn’t get me into the GM corporate boardroom or the offices at the Pentagon so I have no idea who knew what and when they knew it.
For the sake of discussion let’s say I go along with your assertion that GM knew, should have done something, and they’re sleazebags of the highest order.
So I pose 4 real scenarios below.
Honda Motor Company purposefully altered countless cars so a CEL would not illuminate or set a code when a misfire happened. They were fined 13 million dollars and had to authorize hundreds of millions in extended emission warranties.
Subaru purposefully altered steering rack pinion spring and did this in a manner to avoid leaving a paper trail. (I personally witnesssed this numerous times over a 3 day span.)
Toyota top executives were arrested for conspiracy to cover up a known safety recall problem.
The CEO of Mitsubishi was arrested for the same thing as the Toyota guys.
So my question, and the answer is simple and painfully obvious.
Do you consider the Honda, Subaru, Toyota, and Mitsu people to be sleazebags also?
(I’m willing to leave the degree of sleazebagginess out of the discussion.)
“You never mentioned any of that before Mike.”
Oh yes I did…
I’ve been working as an engineer or engineer manager in the Telecom industry since 99…Everyone in the telecom industry knew about the dropping of Analog requirement by the FCC…GM was informed just like everyone else.
Why they weren’t prepared for the switch in 2008 I have no idea…but everyone was informed in 2002 that the FCC was getting rid of that restriction…and then in 2005 or 2006 actually setting the date of 2008 of removing that restriction…GM wasn’t informed??? BULL!!! Even if they weren’t informed directly by the FCC…it was in every single trade journal and/or newspaper.
And I agree with you on those 4 scenarios…So what…That doesn’t mean that GM executive still aren’t sleaze…I’m NOT giving Toyota/Mitsubishi or Subaru a free pass. I do remember the one with Toyota…and IMHO those guys should spend the rest of their lives in jail…Hey…we agree on something.
I’ve said it many many times…Big corporations are corrupt…Doesn’t matter what company it is…Many years ago in college I took a humanities class called “Business Ethics”. We studied case after case…and the conclusion…If you’re in business…push comes to shove…Ethics is thrown out the window. Company after company chose profits over ethics…
bscar
"GM probably could have, but if you refer to my thread on car guys vs bean counters, you’ll see why they didn’t. Doing so would have cut into the quarterly profits "
I’m sure you are 100% correct.
I would agree (totally) that big business is pretty much corrupt from top to bottom and odds are the comment about quarterly profits being dinged is dead on correct.
However, this is going to apply to every car maker; not just GM
From my experience, probably the most disgusting thing I’ve personally seen (other than the steering rack pinion spring coverup) was back in the mid/late 80s when Subaru started obsoleting parts by smashing them with a hammer.
When a mechanic works on a car they want the part PDQ; not tomorrow, next week, or whenever. Imagine my chagrin as I walked up to the parts department one day to be greeted by the sound of hammering. Wondering WTH was going on I leaned over the counter, looked down a parts aisle, and saw the Subaru parts rep (who had been there 2 days laying parts out on the floor) going down the rows smashing them with a large ball peen.
Crushing The Parts Sounds Crazy.
I don’t think I understand what you mean by " . . . when Subaru started obsoleting parts . . . " How old were the parts ? Were they superseded by newer designs ?
It’s been years since I managed a Volkswagen / Mazda Parts Department, but I know stocking obsolete or aged parts (parts with x numbers of sales in x numbers of months) in inventory carries a penalty. We lost “buy back” credit (a manger’s way of maintaining a “clean” inventory) as the percentage of these old parts in relation to total parts was too high. Also, the space they take up in floor space (lighting, heating and cooling costs considered) and paying taxes on them is not beneficial.
I think you’re talking about something different than what I experienced.
CSA
“I would agree (totally) that big business is pretty much corrupt from top to bottom and odds are the comment about quarterly profits being dinged is dead on correct.
However, this is going to apply to every car maker; not just GM”
Yes…Toyota and Nissan and Honda pay attention to quarter results…but they DON’T give out bonuses based on how well they did that quarter. Most businesses do NOT give out bonuses on how well they did that quarter. The bonuses part is what leads to the GM’s problem…Get rid of those bonuses and I think GM will be making the BEST car sold in the US again.
Big business is not the only problem. The cost to build a car has gone up while manufactures are trying to keep the price down. Why? We will get to that.
Between 02 and 06 the typical Honda transmission came from the Accord platform. To make it work in the CR-V and Element, a lock-up torque converter was added. This did not give it the ability to handle the increased load placed on it by the curb weight of the vehicle over the long run, it was a short-term fix. The result? Years of transmission problems. The newer version of the transmission has a larger torque converter and a stronger spline. Those of you with 02 - 06 vehicles were the beta testers of this brilliant cost-cutting measure, myself included. You have no idea how poor the 02 - 06 transmission is until you replace it with a new one with the updated hardware.
Also note that Toyota and Honda have been cutting back on service intervals on items like transmission fluid. With no improvement in formula or filtering, I could conclude this is being done to lower the useable life Total Cost of Ownership of the vehicle. The next guy will own the problems at 110K miles.
There are no easy answers here. We need only follow the money trail and see where it leads. One reason would be that the cost of the technology in the car has risen along with the metals used to manufacture sensors and boards. The other is your 401K and other investors who add no value to the manufacturing process. The demand for year-over-year returns on investments have begun to take their toll. After we have cut the human costs, the only thing left to cut is the quality of the hardware and components. Quality bonuses help a little, but at the end of the day, it’s the investor that has one of the largest impact on quality from your car to your refrigerator. Why, is a conversation that is best had elsewhere.
TX2124 - the CR-V and Element used the Civic platform, not the Accord.
And the Civic transmission already had issues before being used in larger vehicles, just like the Accord transmission had problems before being used in the Odyssey and several Acura models.
Honda’s transmissions just simply were not good in the late 90s to mid 2000s.