I say , ask yourself why are our new cars/trucks SO darn expensive????? O K (so the cars are stupid UGLY..)
a few possible answers actually enter my weak brain.
high profit/ greed/ mismanagement of the auto co>????
excessive pay/ retirement pension packages of workers?????
poor quality/ bad engineering? CALLBACKS and buy backs!!????
I admit, if the prices!!!!!! / design/quality were there, even at my age, I would consider going into hock for a new vehicle, and just be buried in it!??? BUT it ain't!!!
As a union worker for Ford Motor company and worked for Chrysler in the 70's I have to say that the union worker pay isnt the reason the vehicles cost so much. I haven't had a raise in 13 years, the price of the cars are up over 25%, the management staff has received raises, the CEO is hitting the lottery every year. 60 million a year. The corporate lawyers make more than the people that put the cars together. Yes we have good benefits, and our pay is good, not as good as it was, but in the end labor cost last time I seen it was 10% of the vehicle cost.
As far as design, I see stuff every day and think, who decided to do that. Stupid crap, some could be changed to save money and improve the appearance of the vehicle.
Quality, want to blame the assemblers? Yes some are bad, but for the most part the people I work with wants to do a good job. What gets me is the management telling the inspectors that something isn't their job and not to write it up so the vehicle can go out the door when it should be repaired. They try and say safety and quality is number 1, nope, it is the number of vehicles that past a point that they get bonuses on.
A lot of times they know there is a problem and tell us to go ahead and build them and they will fix them later. A lot of times there are design problems that make the job harder or impossible to get right in the 40 seconds that you have to get multiple jobs done.
So don't blame your Union worker for the problems or cost of the vehicles.
Also without the unions that were needed in the 1930-60's the whole workforce would look different. They not only made strides to improve the pay and benefits of the Union worker, they brought the non Union work force up also.
As far as not buying a new car. That is your choice, but the used car you buy will be one that was replaced buy the previous owner with a new car in a lot of cases. I sold my wife's Freestar van yesterday and hope her new Flex is here soon. Not what I wanted to do, but to find a good used that I wanted vs a new car, we ordered a new one.
Anyone buying anything is helping the economy as long as the money is spent in the states. Someone is getting paid to work there, taxes are paid, utilities are needed. The mom and pop places put the most money back into the local economy.
As far as quality, the new cars are snap together cars to be built in the shortest amount of time, but how many of you have cars with 100,000 miles that you drive daily? Our beloved 60's MOPARS were not th cars of today, they had style and looks that cannot be denied, but they also were ready for the junk yard at 100,000 miles. Most didn't make it there. The van I sold yesterday had 146,400 miles and looked great, drove like new, used 1/2 qt oil in 4,000 miles, my truck has 152,000 miles and my Mustang has 143,000. Would drive that anywhere. So the material in a lot of cases are not as good but the quality of the components are better than ever.
One thing you cannot do is fix stupid!
