I've said it here before and I'll say it again. Between the Wife and two Daughters we have 4 vehicles. Two Fords, one Dodge and a Honda. Only one was "Made in the USA" and I'll give you a hint it's not a product of the Big Three. Ford F-150 Oakville Ontario, Ford Fusion, Hermosillo Mexico (and for bonus points it's really a Mazda 6 series platform), Dodge Grand Caravan, Windsor Ontario (produced by a German firm known as Daimler-Chrysler)and a Honda Accord from Marysville Ohio. Someone could write a PhD thesis on the cause for the decline of the US auto industry. My personal opinion is there was market shift that the boys at Detroit didn't see coming and they got blind sided. In many cases our government helped, at least indirectly with the decline by passing laws or fiat decisions with in the government bureaucracy that maybe made our auto makers have to make or do things to cars and trucks the population didn't want.
Remember back in the 50's I'm told the average new car buyer was on a 2 year trade cycle, meaning if you bought a new car you usually traded it in about 24 months. in the 60's that had expanded to about 36 months- just think that alone could mean a demand reduction of about 1/3. Has the emission and safety regulations kicked in in the 70's (or excessive union labor demands depending on who you talk to) vehicle prices drove it to 48 months (reduced new car demand by 50%). At the same time if you bought a new car it was apt to be worse than you old one for economy and reliability. The rise in price of new vehicles can be blamed on increased regulation and labor costs, increased liability or on customer demand. I defend the last statement by asking you to check out a bare bones pick up today and compare it to a similar base truck from 10,20,30 and 40 years ago. Today you get automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, fuel injection, air bags and anti lock brakes ON THE BASE MODEL! They can't make a base truck with a straight 6, 3 speed on the column, regulations won't let them and they probably couldn't sell enough of them to make it worth all the NHTSA and EPA certifications needed.
Cars are better today than they were in my youth, heck our newest vehicle has 90,000 miles on it. When I was in High School 90,000 miles was getting in to the beater class car unless it was a Volvo or Mercedes. 100,000 miles now means what 50,000 miles did in the 70's. Most new cars today should go 200,000 miles with basic care. It makes sense if we double the life of a product unless there is an expansion of our economy we'll reduce the demand by about 50%.
We no longer have the romance with our new cars, they aren't the status symbol they once were. We don't get new models every year, heck Ford made the same basic truck like mine from 1997 until 2004, unless you're a Ford truck whiz you probably won't notice the difference between a 1997 F-150 and a 2004 F-150 Heritage edition.
Finally understand our economy isn't growing like it once was. It seems our fearless leaders in DC are more worried about snail darters and Kirkland warblers than jobs and security. If we have a solid and secure economy (partially based by being able to produce most of our needs domestically) people are more likely to treat themselves to things like cars, houses, ATVs,Boats, RVs, new appliances and furniture. If we take away that security people tend to make due with what they have. I do feel some folks have deliberately harmed our economy and continue to do so so we'll give them more power to further run our lives, and guys it's our fault 'cause we continue to elect them. Once the taker group is larger than the earner group it's only a matter of when we're going down and exactly where.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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