Ron Soave wrote:
> Customer (BMC/Leyland/Whatever):
> "Build us a turn signal switch for $30, a wiper switch
> for $30, a high beam flash switch for $30, and a horn
> switch for $30. No, wait, make us a switch that does
> all 4 functions for $49." ...
> Sadly, sometimes it doesn't pay for a company to make
> a good product. So guys like us put in GM
> alternators, which, IMHO, makes us SPOs.
Your points ring true, but I don't quite understand
the conclusion becoming "throw in a GM alternator".
It's not like GM doesn't have the same mass of tradeoffs
between perfection and economics that LUCAS does. Or
should I say "whoever made that alternator for GM and
won the contract based on competitive price-based
bidding".
I could understand if the conclusion was "throw in
a Rolls Royce engine" or similar, because there are
some products that are pretty much designed for
perfection and priced later. A GM alternator is really
unlikely to be one though.
Onto a more hostile topic...
Maybe this is a little "blunt" but to a lot of people
the idea of throwing in US parts to increase reliability
is a little amusing. Maybe in the US the British Cars
have a reputation for unreliability, but that dubious
honour in a lot of the rest of the world belongs to
American cars themselves.
...that is, the parts of the world where American cars
actually command enough interest to make them marketable
and importable.
Obviously I speak mostly for Canada, that's where I
live, but it's a fairly valid test country because it's
pretty much a country without a serious domestic car
company.
So... all cars are imports here. There is no illusion of
"buy local" or "scrap that foreign junk", people just
buy what they want and what is priced right. A level playing
field, if you will.
Other than specialty models like the Corvette and
the Viper and so on, the market niche for American
cars is "low price". The general opinion on reliability is
that they are fairly poor compared to eastern competition,
but when a four year old Toyota is the same price
as a comparable new Ford, there are plenty of buyers
to be found.
Cars like the Mustang sell well, but mostly because
they offer similar performance to import cars that cost
considerable more, albeit without the same refinement
or "class". However, again, they make a compelling
argument when a pretty quick mustang costs about the
same as a base model rice-rocket, likely without any
of the go-fast bits like upgraded engines or turbos. The
net sales are very small compared to Hondas and Toyotas,
but the product pitch is valid and buyers are found.
What's my point in all this? Do I just feel the need
to get a dozen emails about how somebody's Pinto went
400,000 miles, or their brothers Mustang who went 500,000
miles without an oil change? Nah.
It's just background really, to perhaps why ripping
out a perfectly good engine/transmission/alternator whatever
to replace with a GM part in the name of reliability
is sometimes a little hard to understand.
It's good to see US pride in US made stuff, but it's
not so good when the the basis for the preference seems more
xenophobic than factual.
Most salient example, the practice of "lumping" Jags with
Ford or Chevy engines. The small blocks and such are really
good engines of course, but the original XK engines in E-types
and so on are truly magnificent and so much a part of the
car. It just seems so closed-minded to say "bah, Euro junk"
and rip it all apart, yet it happens so often.
Fear breeds prejudice, and the unknown becomes the
undesirable. When the lumped car next comes up for
sale, the seller lauds over the conversion like it's
the greatest thing that could possibly have happened to
the car.
A thousand times over, an alternator is such a smaller
deal than an engine, so this is more a random speech than
attempt to be relevent to the current car situation. However,
it still smacks of "Foreign is junk, get some good
'mericun stuff in there", which is a bit hard to take. ;>
--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
"Homer, the ceiling is not a safe place for a baby!" - Marge
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