Allegiance, fear of change and the sizable investments these dealers have in
GM products factor into their pledge to support a company that continues to
sell vehicles to one of every four people who buy cars or trucks in this
country. Even as Toyota and Honda steadily gain market share, more customers
buy from GM than from any other single manufacturer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...6/AR2006041600
652.html

Shoe Shine Boy wrote:
As you note, GM's market share is rapidly declining and they will soon
be passed by Toyota on the world scene. Soon Toyota will be number 1
due to better planning and better engineering *and* better customer
relations-GM really sucks there. Many, many bitter *former* customers
of GM are, at long last, getting their revenge on GM.

Because of GM's weakened competitive state, "dealers can put as much or
as little attention as they want on GM's products and that scares the
daylights out of GM," which might explain why the automaker has begun
listening more intently to its dealers and granting them more access to
GM's top brass, Spinella said.

Wherever you look things are getting scary - the dealers - the unions -
the customers - the retirees - the finance

GM's CEO was on MSNBC Squawk Box this morning, bragging about
how their good planning was turning things around, as evidenced by
first quarter results.

'Turning things around', Waggoner, means making a car that the engine
holds together, that the air conditions system holds up, that the electrical
system doesn't go into meltdown, and that the tranny doesn't leave you
walking prematurely.

You bought SAAB, and turned it into a POS, too.

You should know by now that imports suck.


mike hunt


<HLS (AT) nospam (DOT) nix> wrote

..

"Mike Hunter" <mikehunt2 (AT) mailcity (DOT) com> wrote

I never owned an imported SAAB.

So you live in Sweden, so, what?


mike hunt




<HLS (AT) nospam (DOT) nix> wrote

"Mike Hunter" <mikehunt2 (AT) mailcity (DOT) com> wrote

Keeps them from being imports. Now, SAABs are built on some GM platforms,
etc. One of them is a recase Isuzu.

Some of the original SAABs, and Volvos too for that matter, were pretty darn
good cars. Some recent reports now drop them to below average reliability,
I assume because of their Americanization.

Customer service (corporate) is (or was) quite bad indeed...the worst
I'd experienced in comparison with other brands over 35 years of vehicle
ownership. The customer is made to feel like the enemy from darn near
the the first word spoken. I once had a very simple issue to resolve,
the response was "we will no longer accept communications from you on
this matter."(or something similar). How rude! No one in the family
has purchased a GM product since and I dumped the one I had since I
didn't wasn't going to be treated that way any longer. So, I have to
agree on this point 100%. Hopefully they are learning to listen to the
customer and be a bit more helpful!

That seems strange since both SAAB and Volvo sell far more vehicles, as part
of GM an Ford, than they ever did on their own. Somebody must think they
are good vehicles or they would not be buying so many of them.



mike hunt


<HLS (AT) nospam (DOT) nix> wrote