Lol even today, while questionable quality checks are all but gone, you would be horrified to know what goes on in facilities sometimes. Your brand new car may have been painted 3 times, disassembled twice, and have had extensive body work done. If it can be shipped, it will. And the line WILL run.

Nothing special about that nor does it horrify me. The reality is it will always be an imperfect world. The difference between production line vehicles and hand-built supercars is the amount of time given to the people making the imperfect parts fit less imperfectly.

It worked though. Oh and since they pulled out of here I don't mind say who the parts were built for. These were not Fords or Chevs cut BMW and Mercedes.

It's interesting you mention this, because empowering/requiring employees to stop the line to correct quality issues was a big part of Toyota's quality system.

This comes back to management and engineering systems differences/philosophy vs geographic location. The stereotype Japanese response to an employee stoppage is to identify the problem and fix the root cause through process changes. The stereotype North American response to a stoppage is for management to threaten to discipline Chad for stopping the line and fucking up management goal-seeked targets.

That is quite the standoff.



Looks like some people really, really want to work long honest hours. Others not so much.


In 2008, I was listening to the radio and during the commercial break, a dealership slogan was that if you lose your job you can return your brand new vehicle back. That was when Tom Brady hurt himself real bad iicrc.

It depends on how you define what the best car is. For the person who buys a car every 2-3 years and is always in warranty, longevity and build quality are less important. Many people (to me, a shocking number of people) buy based on features and the way the car looks, but they don't do any research on car reliability. Some people value reliability over everything else. Then there's the status people who buy a car so they can tell the world that they are superior (why else would anyone pay double for a new Merc when the average Japanese car has all the same tech and better build quality?) Sports cars, niche cars and cars that are specialty cars of some sort are different, I'm talking cars where there are models comparable over every manufacturer. Sedans, compacts, big luxury, SUVS.

If you are into form over function, you probably own something from FCA or an American car. You see it, you like the way it looks, you check out the features, do a test drive and take it home unaware that the next 2-3 years are going to be peppered with repair trips.

Merc/BMW/Jag/Land Rover etc are not the companies they used to be. They don't have awesome new tech or amazing cars or superior build quality but they are all expensive and less reliable than the average Japanese car. People buy them "because it's expensive" and these companies rely on what the cars used to be.

If you are into function over form, you're going to be one of the kazillions of Camry (or other boring sedan) owners who never has a problem for the next 20 years and you don't even know how to open the hood.

Of course there's lots more types of people out there, but at work these are the major groups I see. Some people buy because they perceive a certain car to be "American" too- even though they don't have any idea how much American parts are in their car or where it was manufactured. Some people cling to "It's German, it has to be better" which of course is just marketing BS. I know plenty of people who cling to "It's Japanese, it'll last forever" as they drive off in their Nissan truck...

Sometimes you may be forced to buy a certain car because nothing else can do what that can despite the problems you know you'll have (like a Wrangler or a muscle car) sometimes you're forced to buy a car because you're broke AF (econoboxes). But that's different, you're out of options then.

So what's "better"?

and literally every OEM has had Toyota in to show them exactly how they do what they do, including GM since they had a joint plant for decades.

It is more bean counters, and lately even they have realized they need to put more money into the product, the latest GM and Ford cars, even the cheap ones, are rather good.

A book has been published about this.
The Toyota Way , by Jeffrey K. Liker , www.books.mcgraw-hill.com

It's an interesting issue. Remember that this isn't Toyota's way, it's the old American guy. They just implemented his concepts, whereas the Americans just gave lip service to the same concepts. Since the Japanese implementation worked so well it's come back to North America with Japanese names/concepts, like Kaizen and 5S.

But my personal experience with a 'Kaizen blitz' at our shop is that a lot of these 'expert' efficiency consultants are fucking lazy retards, and management is complicit with the half-assed (1/64th-assed) implementation to get their kaizen or 5S stamp/certificate. I was one of the members of the 5S committee and read up on the concepts independently of what our consultant was teaching. Great. High value to implement into out machine shop. Would markedly improve production efficiency​. But none of the fucking core concepts were properly implemented. And no-one listened to my recommendations despite us floor grunts being invited to share ideas as part of the program. Ridiculous.

And for reference our site is the most efficient out of over a dozen brands in a manufacturing branch of a billion dollar holding company. And we are the number one or two position in our field in the bloody Western hemisphere. It baffles me to think that we are considered an 'industry leader' with the way the shit-show is run and makes me wonder about other 'professional' companies...

Oh, and an interesting label on the packaging of some Bosch servos for a machine I'm putting together. Translates to: "We have to honestly disclose the country of origin, but it's not a piece of shit, really!"

OP, you do realize how many Ph.D's Ford and GM have in their employment, right? This isn't a matter of not being able to design a quality product, and many parts are even shared between manufacturer's. Somebody, an engineer, bean counter, manager, etc. has either decided that they want the product to last a certain amount of time (usually right after the warranty ends), or that additional quality simply isn't worth the investment financially. They could build you a gas vehicle that will last half a million miles if they wanted to. The fact is they are very good at what they do, and what they are doing is trying to make money.

Don't kid yourself like Toyota isn't doing it too. I have experince with two year 2000 Toyotas, one of which the trans dropped out of at 3x,xxx miles and had in general rusted to shit even though it just rolled over 100k miles and was always underbody sprayed if driven in the winter. The other one ran but had a leaky trunk and was just generally junk.

It's the same reason my parent's maytag washer and dryer that are as old as I am could probably outlast a brand new one bought right now. Designers aren't getting less intelligent, they're getting more. It just so happens that what they're doing is good for them and bad for the consumer. The good news is pretty much no modern car will leave you stranded. They seem to be focusing their engineered obselence on electronics, gadgets, and other non-essential functions. Nearly every new car sold today has a drivetrain as reliable as a 90's honda/toyota.

Well said!
People whine about the cost of cars now so can you imagine?
"What do you mean this 2020 86 cost $140,000? That is outrageous"
"But Sir it will last you twenty years with zero maintenance"
"I don't care I want it to last that long but only cost $12,000. And I don't care if the dealer, service dept, assembler, parts companies, transport companies, and all the people that support them go broke."


I will never understand why people think that everything to do with buying a car is some sort of rip off. They are a consumer product and as such they are meant to be used and thrown away, not last a lifetime. This is not a new thing and has been the case since the early 50s. Nobody ever notice that the old cars used to go through dramatic changes every 3 years? It wasn't coincidental that that was also the average time between people changing cars back then.

if they figured out how to fuel it with a tiny nuclear reactor so you would never need to refuel it either I would buy it right now.