Conference terri::cars_uk

RE: .23

I agree with some of what you say about Japanese automakers and cars in general.
They do burn less fuel, and come with a high level of standard equipment.

I have a problem with this statement, however :
    
>    And they showed they their engines were reliable, easy to maintain,
>    had no oil leaks (which was something real rare in non-Japanese makes) 
>    and performed well.

Ever Japanese car that my family has owned, has required lots of costly
maintainance, has leaked oil, and has been grossly underpowered.  I have not
found a Japanese car that I feel comfortable sitting in either, including the
new Nissan 300 (I am 6 feet tall and 185 lbs [about 13St] Not an uncommon size
for an American).  Along with the seats being uncomfortable is the plasticy
feel of the interior components.  You can spend over $20,000 on a Acura/Honda
Legend, and STILL get the same plasticy steering wheel, shifter, dash, and
door pannels.  Squeeks and rattles are as prevelent in any Japanese are that
I've ridden in, as they are in any other cars in the world.

Do the Japanese build them better than the rest of the world?

I don't think so!

Al (who's dislike for Japanese cars comes from experience, and has NOTHING to do
with any trade imbalance between the Japanese and the United States) 

    re-1
    
    My mum used to have a Nissan 300ZX (1984 model) after about a year
    the auto trasmission started slipping (When in drive on a hill the
    car would roll backwards).  As far has confort goes it was ok (My mum, 
    dad and I a 900 mile round trip to glasgow and back on a bank holiday 
    weekend).
    
    One thing about japanese luxury cars is spare parts availiblity.
     A woman ran into the front of the 300ZX on christmas eve in 1984
    and we did not get the car back for 5 months.
    
    Grant

   This note seems to be disappearing into a "Japanese cars are not 
   reliable" rathole....

   The sad fact remains that the Japanese are now the dominant force.
   Worse still, Europe and the US try to beat the Japanese by copying
   them. Even worse still, we don't even make them play by free market
   rules. We let them protect their market and devour ours.

   Now that cars have passed the stage where innovation is needed and
   more emphasis is being placed on refinement and style or fashion, it
   seems likely that most European and US manufacturers will go the way
   of their counterparts who used to make TVs, Videos, Cameras, Stereos.

Well, I never knew the oil crisis occured because Japanese cars burned less fuel
than their competitiors!  Considering that they had less then 3% of the world 
market at the time (I think, but someone will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong)
it just goes to show what a bit of marketing can do!  Wake up DEC marketeers!!!

    On the subject of the decline of the british motor industry there
    is an interesting book called "What ever happened to the British
    Motorcycle industry" by Bert ?. Gave an inside account of the decline,
    there are many parallels to other industries in there, well worth
    a read.                
    
    Read in a management magazine about the rising number of retired
    people in Japan. This decade it will peek and there have been concerns
    raised in Japan that the infrastructure is not there to support
    this large number of people with the ever dwindling work force to
    pay for it all. I know this is no different to many other western
    countries but the figures did seem to point out that it would be
    a bigger problem for the Japanese. 
    
    In one other Notes file (CYCLES) there was a discussion about Harley
    Davidson (HD). It appears that the temporary tariffs introduced
    to protect HD from foreign (Japanese) competition was enough to
    wake the Japanese up and they started building factories in the
    states and becoming more aware of the problems there all out export
    drive was causing the importing countries economies. 
    
    Jan
    
    

You say that the Japanese were already building cars that did more miles/km per
unit consumption, but this isn't strictly true.  It is VERY true when compared
against the US gas-guzzlers as they were called but my own experience was that
I was running cars like the Ford Corsair averaging around 35-38 mpg in 1965, 
long before there was any significant Japanese presence, and figures better than
they were originally able to achieve anyway.  Our Cortina Mk1 would turn in
similar figures and I seem to remember the ubiquitous Mini being a real miser
with fuel since 1959 - a friend used to average 55 mpg travelling from London
to Manchester when less than half of it was motorway.  Few Japanese cars can
match those figures IN REALITY even today, with around 30 being the norm. (I
think the AA did a survey that showed average consumption was in the low 20's
for all cars?) although I'll admit that *some* will return 40+ mpg if driven
carefully.  These are not the so-called manufacturers' figures, but real numbers
from real drivers' experiences.  (Wait for the howls of "I get 52.73 mpg from my
Toyonsan" from this conference! 8-))

Why didn't the rest of the market exploit this phenomenon (the rest of the world
looked etc..)?  Simple, the Japanese were offering a low cost product with 
little or no product differentiation.  This carved a niche for them during a 
crisis (how fortuitous) and they exploited it before starting to add product 
differentiation and move up the "value" curve.  In the meantime, they've wiped
out a lot of the competition because of their low cost strategy so there's a
nice market out there hungry for cars.

BTW, when was the last time you saw any Japanese car from the early 70's still
on the road?  Boy, did they have quality problems in those days!  Or did they?
Nice strategy - very low cost but short product life and then you buy another.
Perfect for the American "throw-away" society!  Watch this space during the next
ten years .......

    
    I agree, the old Japenese cars had real rust problems, and spares etc
    were quite expensive I think. Also, once you'd bought a Japenses car,
    the only place to go to get a decent trade in was back to the maker. 
    - a good stratagy by the  sellers! I never bought Japenses (then or
    now) so I don't know how true it was, but that seemed to be the prevalent
    opinion around the early 70's

    
    Going back a bit to .22.....re the Honda/Rover (Legend/Sterling).
    It is interesting that the Legend was a great success and the Sterling
    a flop.
    In Europe it was the reverse. The Honda Legend flopped badly, less
    than 1/3 the volume Honda hoped for whereas the Rover 800 (you call
    it Sterling in the US) has been a great success for Rover. In the
    UK it has struggled to shake off the bad reputation of the old SD1
    and for the first time (1989) has outsold the Ford Granada (Scorpio).
    Even here in France the 800 is sells far better than the SD1.
    
    The reasons for the Sterling failure in the States are these:
    
    	- Only two models were on offer and they were the most complicated,
    	  with everything electric, the Legend (sensibly) aimed a bit
    	  further downmarket, Sterling was being pitched as a small	
    	  Jaguar.
    
    	- The Sterling dealerships were unwisely chosen and most of
    	  the PERCIEVED quality problems were due to the dealers 
    	  inability to fix the thing.
    
    	- Rover made the mistake of launching in US before the 'bugs'
          had been worked out of the car, Japanese,Germans never do
    	  that, they let their home market see all the problems before
    	  launching a car in a foreign market.
    
    The 800 has a good reputation now for reliability in Europe and
    its basically the same car as is sold in the States.
    When Rover set up the Range Rover dealerships, they chose them more
    carefully and launched a well sorted product....in reality it is
    no more reliable than a Sterling but those two products are perceived
    very differently in terms of their reliability.
    
    Dave

    re. 34 
    
    Another example with Austin/Rover is the one with Triumph Acclaim
    and later Rover 213 and the Maestro/Montego. With similar marketing
    the Maestro and Montego are complete failures in terms of sales.
    Meanwhile the Acclaim was very successful and the Rover too. How
    do you explain this ? My opinion is that the Rover 213 has a very good
    quality/finnish  and I assume that this quality is problaby to be found in
    Maestro/Montego. The problem is related to the mechanics. Once you
    look under the hood you'll find an engine that looks like those
    from Austin/Morris 1300, Allegro, Marina. I'm not sure the engine
    is the same (maybe some of you know if this is true or not) but
    they look like the old ones.  
                                 
    RUI

    re: Sterling vs. Legend
    
    Interesting.  Anyway, since my last reply Sterling (AKA Rover) has
    launched a $5,000. giveaway with any Sterling purchase.  That *still*
    leaves the car at $24,000., but one could probably knock them down
    another thou or two and then you've got a serious bargain.  The
    same car under the Acura marque fetches $29,000. all day long. 
    
    Americans are afraid to buy Sterlings even with the incentive cuz
    of the many past experiences here with overseas introductions not meeting 
    sales projections being cancelled - spare parts inventories included.
    
    re: car sales slump
    
    100,000 American auto workers already laid off, maybe another 50,000
    to go... gurus predict that the Big Three will lose another 15-20
    points of domestic market share to the Japanese...  the Big Three
    LOST money on their domestic operations for the first time ever, maybe
    same for this year...  U.S. Government making noises about cracking
    down on fuel consumption, also pollution, with California leading the
    way, which experts predict will hit Big Three hardest...  naive
    American media continue to characterize "transplants" as "American-
    built," persistently ignoring (probably on purpose) the fact that
    such cars are comprised of about 80% Japanese content... Honda Accord
    emerges from '89 as America's best-selling car, the first time in
    American history that a foreign product is #1...
    
    MrT

It seems to me that in the past few years anti-corrosion (sp?) technology has
come along leaps and bounds.  I can't think of a car that you can buy in the US
that doen't come with some sort of factory undercoating and anti-rust through
guarantee.  The length of these guarantees has been getting longer and longer, 
too.  I've noticed that lately, when I see a 5 year old car, the outside of it
looks to be in pretty good shape (paint and lack of rust).  Engines and other
components still wear out, but these things can be replaced more easily than
*repairing* a uni-body car by cutting it up and welding on new pieces.

I think that the longer life of today's vehicles has at least a little to do
with the decrease in new cars sales.


With all of these cars not rusting as quick - somebody has to drive them!

    Good point.  The longer cars last the less the market, in simplistic
    terms.  By way of analogy, does anybody really believe that the
    price/performance curves in the computer business will ultimately
    leave revenues and profits unaffected, or that IBM's woes aren't in 
    large part due to price predation?
          
    Anticorrosion technology has advanced.  A buddy of mine who used
    to work for GM tells me that in about '83 new cars incorporated
    a variety of measures - such as new waxes, paint sealant, and body
    strucures designed to limit penetration, metal anodization, etc. 
    - that has since made cars much less prone to rust.
    
    It goes beyond rust, though.  With new design and manufacturing
    processes (CAD, CAM, testing, materials, robotics, automatic welding,
    vision systems, and on and on) the car biz has been at the center
    of the technical revolution underway around us.  It seems that first
    the Germans and Swedes, then the Japanese, worked hard to apply
    these tools toward product longevity.  In fact, Toyota has a whole
    program underway with the sole mission of what they call "anti-aging"
    measures for ALL aspects of the car, from suspension members to
    upholstery to piston heads.  The group's first vehicle is the new
    Lexus LS400.  The idea is supposedly inspired by similar efforts
    at Daimler-Benz.
    
    You're right.  This has GOT to affect sales volumes.
    
    MrT

    Saw this in the weekly motoring paper this week. Isuzu are pulling
    out of the German market and are selling any remaining stock at
    upto 34% discount. Seems that the sales slump is starting to hit
    at least some manufacturers.

    Jan
    

	An item on the news today said that there's a three month
	waiting list for Reliant Robins.

	-John

    ISSUZU did that with thier piazza's(or whatever they are called) a few
    years ago, in the UK, before they were taken over by a new co. who let
    Lotus loose on the car.