PREMiERdrum Posted October 13, 2014 Author Share Posted October 13, 2014 That would be me, and if you were closer, I'd buy the first round for you. Sorry to hear about the wife's situation... It was nice to vent for a minute. She's now cleared to be up for an hour a day. So, that's progress... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Crossover? Doesn't the entire auto market have enough of these annoying "crossover" vehicles? I hate that term and the looks of most of these types of vehicles anyway. Stupid auto makers. They have some nerve giving people vehicles they want to buy and making money off of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Stupid auto makers. They have some nerve giving people vehicles they want to buy and making money off of it. THE hottest segment right now...compact CUV's.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmc523 Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Stupid auto makers. They have some nerve giving people vehicles they want to buy and making money off of it. Why can't they all be like GM!?!! Just building proper vehicles on expensive platforms and watch sales numbers plummet! Obviously the way to go....duh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 It's almost like these stupid auto makers are only in it to make a profit instead of building cool cars for cool people to buy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 (edited) Why can't they all be like GM!?!! Just building proper vehicles on expensive platforms and watch sales numbers plummet! Obviously the way to go....duh! Ah but GM (Cadillac) is playing to its perceived RWD deficiencies and not to its strengths, the abundance of Utilities it freely gives to other marques, Cadillac should have four utilities. Ford/Lincoln knows this and that's why it has MKC, MKZ, Aviator for MKT? and Navigator. Execution of product is key here, not what wheels are driven. Edited October 14, 2014 by jpd80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmc523 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Ah but GM (Cadillac) is playing to its perceived RWD deficiencies and not to its strengths, the abundance of Utilities it freely gives to other marques, Cadillac should have four utilities. Ford/Lincoln knows this and that's why it has MKC, MKZ, Aviator for MKT? and Navigator. Execution of product is key here, not what wheels are driven. Is your sarcasm detector broken? Haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papilgee4evaeva Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 It's almost like these stupid auto makers are only in it to make a profit instead of building cool cars for cool people to buy. Right. I mean, that "give the customers what they want" idea is SOOOOO over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 (edited) Is your sarcasm detector broken? Haha Nope, I just used your tongue in cheek rhetorical as a convenient spot to pile on... Edited October 14, 2014 by jpd80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 (edited) It clear that GM just wants to build cars that people should like, what's wrong with that....:rolleyes Edited October 14, 2014 by jpd80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBirdStangSkyliner Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 It's been funny to see "self ordained automotive journalists" regurgitate these two articles over the last week. When more mainline websites link to TTAC, they would seem to beyond being desperate for material. It's been just as funny to read the analysis of the rumor by the "self ordained expert blogging heads". If A near RWD crossover platform is coming, the many missing details will likely determine how wise or foolish of a decision Is being made by Ford/Lincoln. Great execution can save what many would consider a sketchy business case. Look at the Subaru Outback. It is basically a station wagon with a very expensive to manufacture engine and drivetrain. Could you offer a bigger target to those of the cost accounting mindset. It's darn successful, regardless, and pretty much anchors the brand in Europe and North America. Getting there first and making consistent upgrades certainly helped. The poor Pontiac Aztec's basic concept is not much different than that of today's Honda CRX, and several other successful vehicles. They created an infamous flop from a seemingly sound business case. It just might take a new generation, aluminum rich platform to bring Lincoln back from the almost dead. Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus have all been linked to new platforms with increased aluminum, high strength steel, or FRP. Maybe it doesn't make business sense to invest in bringing out platforms that would still lag behind those that competitors are soon to replace. If this mythical platform wouldn't house the Navigator, then the 2.7 Nano is the largest engine it needs to accommodate. This would help to alleviate some packaging issues with a clean-sheat design. There are too many ifs and maybes for me to make any conclusions about this "story". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 (edited) It is basically a station wagon with a very expensive to manufacture engine and drivetrain. Could you offer a bigger target to those of the cost accounting mindset. It's darn successful, regardless About that Outlook: Subaru was formerly propped up by GM and is now propped up by Toyota. They are majority owned by Fuji. They are not an independent car company. Additionally, any expensive-to-manufacture engine and drivetrain gets cheap when you put it in dang near every vehicle you build--and do we have *any* evidence that this engine is particularly expensive to build? Finally, success is a matter of opinion. The Outlook, Forrester and XV are, basically, Subaru--and none of them comes close to a competing Ford product in volume. Edited October 14, 2014 by RichardJensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBirdStangSkyliner Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 I think it's a pretty safe assumption that opposed fours are considerably more expensive to manufacture than inline fours. They have lots more parts and more complex intake and exhaust routing. The boxer sixes might have part counts similar to V6's, but the intake/exhaust routing is more complex. The Subaru AWD system definitely has more parts and design complexity than systems such as the I-AWD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 The only real takeaway is that an Aviator seems to be coming. It will either be on D3/D4, CD4.3 or a new RWD platform. Explorer, Taurus, MKS and MKT may or may not follow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 I think it's a pretty safe assumption that opposed fours are considerably more expensive to manufacture than inline fours. They have lots more parts and more complex intake and exhaust routing. The boxer sixes might have part counts similar to V6's, but the intake/exhaust routing is more complex. The Subaru AWD system definitely has more parts and design complexity than systems such as the I-AWD. It can't be any more complicated and expensive than an ecoboost I4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papilgee4evaeva Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 It doesn't appear that the boxer engine is any more complex than a V6, at least from pictures I've seen. Pretty much looks like a V engine with a 180-degree angle... which it is. More complex than a straight engine, sure, I'll grant that. But at the same time, no need for any balancing mechanisms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBirdStangSkyliner Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 "Supposedly" most of the complex intake features of the Ecoboost are arriving on, or are heading towards the Subaru boxers. I Haven't studied the intricacies of various twin turbo DI designs, but quite a few manufacturers appear to be heading that way. Mechanical complexity will likely always be expensive. Electronic complexity seems to come down in cost after a couple of years. I do realize that ecoboost takes some precise mechanical bits to make work. You state how GM's expensive development of RWD platforms help to drive it to bankruptcy. I don't argue with that. I also propose that too many years of behind the times FWD platforms was more responsible. Ford and Chrysler did the same in bringing outdated FWD cars to market for awhile. If GM and Ford would have developed competitive FWD platforms over the last 25 years for their mass market divisions, while they did the same for at least one RWD platform, both companies and their luxury divisions would be in better shape. They yielded lots of market share, profits, and brand equity by failing to concurrently do both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 It doesn't matter so much whether it's FWD or RWD. What matters is building great vehicles that can be sold at a reasonable profit and spreading platform costs among multiple vehicles to get sufficient volume. Bad platforms and vehicles will kill you. Great platforms and vehicles will save you if they're targeted correctly. You can't sell a $100K sedan with a transverse V6 with part time AWD limited to 350 hp. You can't sell a FWD full-sized pickup to Ford, Dodge and GM customers. You can't justify an expensive RWD platform for a midsized family sedan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 more complex intake and exhaust routing The Subaru AWD system definitely has more parts and design complexity than systems such as the I-AWD. There are two ways of looking at this: To the extent that Subaru's boxer configuration is more expensive to manufacture without yielding any benefit for the vast and overwhelming majority of buyers, it goes a long way to explain why Subaru is not an independent manufacturer. And there is no particular connection between engineering complexity and casting/machining/assembly complexity. I can't imagine that boxers require a significantly greater amount of labor to assemble than other configurations. Last: Subaru's AWD does not seem to be any more complex than any other viscous unit with a center diff. Ford, of course, does not use a center diff because they don't provide full time AWD, and again, for the vast and overwhelming majority of buyers, full time AWD is pointless, which gets us right back to Subaru being, basically, a JV between Fuji and (these days) Toyota, with no hope of standing on its own two feet because its managers don't make good business decisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBirdStangSkyliner Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 We could get into the complexity of Japanese corporate ownership as none of their companies have ever stood on their own without holding companies, sister corporations, and government subsidies and protective regulations......but my point of interest in this conversation is that the automotive industry is far more complicated than continuing down the current path of the most volume for the least investment. This has never been static. These snapshots in time also become the target of dumping, discounts and other such profit killers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Nobody is saying every decision has to be least investment most profit or that low volume low profit projects shouldn't be built. We're saying that you go after the low hanging fruit first which is the highest volume, highest profit with the least investment and get that squared away BEFORE you go after NICHE products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoonerLS Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 We're saying that you go after the low hanging fruit first which is the highest volume, highest profit with the least investment and get that squared away BEFORE you go after NICHE products. I recall a quote from J Mays back in '06 or so that said almost exactly the same thing--that Lincoln had to get the sedans right before they could move on to coupes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 (edited) We could get into the complexity of Japanese corporate ownership as none of their companies have ever stood on their own without holding companies, sister corporations, and government subsidies and protective regulations......but my point of interest in this conversation is that the automotive industry is far more complicated than continuing down the current path of the most volume for the least investment. So you think that, basically, Toyota & Subaru are peers, and that both companies are equally incapable of surviving independently? Even though Toyota is essentially its own keiretsu at this point, and Subaru is just a tiny part of the enormous Fuji keiretsu? And your underlying point is that Ford should be more like Subaru, which you've just admitted cannot function as an independent car company? Edited October 14, 2014 by RichardJensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 I would go so far is Subaru survives on just being that little bit different, much like Mazda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 I think Seattle could support Subaru all by itself. They're EVERYWHERE! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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