Why do American auto workers think we will buy cars just due to rhetoric?
I hear it all the time: buy American. American this, American that. We have xxx.
But after quite possibly thirty years of that strategy FAILING, why do American automakers and their ilk still try and sell cars based on rhetoric, not the car itself?
Where I am coming from with this is that yesterday I was looking at some used car lot, checking prices, and after talking with a sales person for not a minute he said "well you should buy American." No no, nothing about the car, nothing about me, the person forking over $20,000 for a drive way decoration that moves every now and then.
Looking around, I again see more of it online. Overpaid UAW people that go around dissing Japanese and German cars as "Jap Junk" and such. But even when I go to Japanese websites, I almost never see workers from there, even in companies with problems, doing the same diss-work. No, they are more interested in the cars than the rhetoric.
Why are American automakers and co not more like that?
They advertise rhetoric because that's all they have. The domestics have sunk so much money into this rhetoric and "employee pricing" that they still have to use 10 year old technology in their cars. That's why the "Jap Junk" has made its way up the food chain and Ford is a big turd that's ready to be flushed. Toyota just built a couple of new factories in the US, meanwhile Ford is liquidizing its assets and planning to lose billions over the next two years, not to mention the 36,000 or so employees that were bought out.
Toyota is in the position it is because of a focus of continuous improvement and building on the reputation of dependability and reliability. I wish Ford, GM and Chrysler would catch on - healthy competition is the best thing for the auto industry and for the general public because it will help fuel the drive to make better autos.
