[455Grandville]

Last I checked International was the only American owned truck company, and they lead the medium sized truck market (MAN may own some now)

Volvo buys out Mack : layoffs because of parts outsourcing and their trucks are more troublesome now.

Look at what happened when Renault bought out a big chunk of AMC. AMC's were thought of as reliable cars unlike POS Renaults.

Fiat's when they were sold here had a horrible reliability/rust out problem: "Fix It Again Tony"

Originally Posted by moto-d

I think so, as we will still have more resources in our backyard than 90% of the world.

Until they run out or they are not needed as much then that could be a problem.

[moto-d]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

Last I checked International was the only American owned truck company, and they lead the medium sized truck market (MAN may own some now)

Volvo buys out Mack : layoffs because of parts outsourcing and their trucks are more troublesome now.

Look at what happened when Renault bought out a big chunk of AMC. AMC's were thought of as reliable cars unlike POS Renaults.



Until they run out or they are not needed as much then that could be a problem.

Could be, yes.

[zephyrracer]

My concern is the union got part of Chrysler to be owner of the retirement benefits as they just cashed out for 700mil what happens to the beneis and who now is accountable for them now 700mil won't go very far.?

Gregg

[moto-d]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

Last I checked International was the only American owned truck company, and they lead the medium sized truck market (MAN may own some now)

Volvo buys out Mack : layoffs because of parts outsourcing and their trucks are more troublesome now.

Look at what happened when Renault bought out a big chunk of AMC. AMC's were thought of as reliable cars unlike POS Renaults.

Fiat's when they were sold here had a horrible reliability/rust out problem: "Fix It Again Tony"

When I was in high school in '77, my Mom decided her silver/black '75 Trans Am was using too much gas. At that time, the Cadillac dealer in our city (Green Bay) was also selling Fiats, and she saw a little dark blue Spider convertible she HAD to have. So the T/A got traded, and the brand new Fiat came home. Hated that car. Went through tranny synchros like oil changes, and was pretty unreliable. In other words, it was a 70s car! Safe to assume much of that has been fixed, like the Japanese did.

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by johnta1

I guess I will never understand you whiners then?

Making money is bad if the wrong guy is in office.
Capitalism is bad when the wrong guy is in office.

Capitalism is good when your guy is in office.
Making money is good when your guy is in office.

I like to make money no matter who is in office.

No whining here.

And just who doesn't like to make money ?

The first whining/complaining I saw in this thread was you regarding Capitalism. Nobody else.

Highly unlikely you would have all those nice race cars in a Communist or Socialist

country. But, keep complaining on the countries basis that has a good enough

system in which you can have such things -

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by moto-d

When I was in high school in '77, my Mom decided her silver/black '75 Trans Am was using too much gas. At that time, the Cadillac dealer in our city (Green Bay) was also selling Fiats, and she saw a little dark blue Spider convertible she HAD to have. So the T/A got traded, and the brand new Fiat came home. Hated that car. Went through tranny synchros like oil changes, and was pretty unreliable. In other words, it was a 70s car! Safe to assume much of that has been fixed, like the Japanese did.

Don't agree with the 70s car thing if you meant American cars -

With the exception of my parents lemon Volare everyone in our family and our friends had good luck with our 70s American cars. Plenty of Olds, Buicks, Chevys and Pontiacs giving good service made them loyal customers. Rust of course, was a problem especially in the early 70s.

I drove second hand '76 Bonneville bought from a family member that made it close to 250K and never left me on the side of the road.

About two years ago I mentioned on a thread here that I was at a Chevrolet dealer and for some reason they had new Fiat 500s parked to the sunset at the service center. All I got from one of the guys is that they were giving engine trouble.

I know in Europe Fiat based Alfa Romeos don't have a sparkling reliability record, and in the UK Fiats still have rust issues.

[David Holmberg]

John I suspect that many feel that Fiat isn't buying Chrysler because they think they can improve it and make it a top performer. They are buying it more like a hostile takeover, raiding the goodies and discarding the rest after running it into the ground.

AMC - Harley Davidson comes to mind.

Its the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you find out that Mo, Larry and Curly just took over your retirement fund.

My wife has an 04 Toyota sienna with 185K on it, and its been used hard and put up wet (4 sons). Brakes, tires and a tune up is all its needed so far.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by zephyrracer

And Fiat bought Chrysler's remaining stock with Chrysler's money, Damn funny and corrupt, will never buy a new GM or Chrysler product again!!!

Gregg

At one time a few years ago I beleive, Fix It Again Tony was entering into some kind of deal with GM (and in another one of GM's screw ups as of late) , they backed out of it, right before the economy went belly up, and ended up having to pay out a large some of money to Fiat. By the way, those commercials they had with the little "500's" going into the water in Italy and arriving on the shores here should have had them going into the water in Mexico and coming here instead.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

Don't agree with the 70s car thing if you meant American cars -

With the exception of my parents lemon Volare everyone in our family and our friends had good luck with our 70s American cars. Plenty of Olds, Buicks, Chevys and Pontiacs giving good service made them loyal customers. Rust of course, was a problem especially in the early 70s.

I drove second hand '76 Bonneville bought from a family member that made it close to 250K and never left me on the side of the road.

About two years ago I mentioned on a thread here that I was at a Chevrolet dealer and for some reason they had new Fiat 500s parked to the sunset at the service center. All I got from one of the guys is that they were giving engine trouble.

I know in Europe Fiat based Alfa Romeos don't have a sparkling reliability record, and in the UK Fiats still have rust issues.

I still drive my '74 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme every day, rides like a Cadillac and has 497,000 miles on the original Olds 350 in it. Pulled it last summer to put new seals in it, put a Timing chain (only the third one)(didnt really even need that yet) and oil pump in it while I was at it, just as preventive maintenence. Still clean inside, regular oil changes since new. TH 350 rebuilt once. Leaks a little but still shifts great. Everything always worked on the car, never left me anywhere.AC/ Power windows. My stepdad has a '76 Pontiac Ventura with 300,000 miles on it (Olds 260) going with an older model 350 soon just to spice it up. Nothing wrong with '70s (or '60s) cars from America from where I sit. The '70s and '80s Fiats/ Alfa- Romeos are another story altogether , however.

[johnta1]

And just who doesn't like to make money ?

The first whining/complaining I saw in this thread was you regarding Capitalism. Nobody else.

Highly unlikely you would have all those nice race cars in a Communist or Socialist

country. But, keep complaining on the countries basis that has a good enough

system in which you can have such things -

Your main Topic heading?

Not a good thing : Fiat closes on $4.35 billion deal for full ownership of Chrysler

If that's not capitalistic, I don't know what is.
Then your cartoon doesn't make sense, probably from Fox News?

John I suspect that many feel that Fiat isn't buying Chrysler because they think they can improve it and make it a top performer. They are buying it more like a hostile takeover, raiding the goodies and discarding the rest after running it into the ground.

Why hell yes, they are going to rape the company.
They don't buy it to be good people.

They want to get every last bit of cents out of it and now.

Label it how you wish, but it's a shame we cannot recapture what we did in the past. But, with Wal Mart and crap like that being so big, it's doubtful. Typical American thinking : short term quick gains, forget about long term effects.

How do you think we got in this position?
Big corporations trying to make the most money, screw the workers or American people.
If it is cheaper to make their product some where else they do.

Highly unlikely you would have all those nice race cars in a Communist or Socialist

country. But, keep complaining on the countries basis that has a good enough

system in which you can have such things -

And you're the first to rail against unions and other things that benefit the american workers.



When they allow the big corporations to run the country, it's not us small folks that benefit.

As for Walmart, what products do they sell?
Whatever Americans will buy.

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by goatwgn

I still drive my '74 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme every day, rides like a Cadillac and has 497,000 miles on the original Olds 350 in it. Pulled it last summer to put new seals in it, put a Timing chain (only the third one)(didnt really even need that yet) and oil pump in it while I was at it, just as preventive maintenence. Still clean inside, regular oil changes since new. TH 350 rebuilt once. Leaks a little but still shifts great. Everything always worked on the car, never left me anywhere.AC/ Power windows. My stepdad has a '76 Pontiac Ventura with 300,000 miles on it (Olds 260) going with an older model 350 soon just to spice it up. Nothing wrong with '70s (or '60s) cars from America from where I sit. The '70s and '80s Fiats/ Alfa- Romeos are another story altogether , however.

The Bonneville I had made numerous trips from Mo to Tx and Ca carrying my wife and our then young daughter with issue in the late 90s. We did a few of those without cell phones

The Achilles heel for old cars was rust , and that's what caught the Bonnie.

[455Grandville]

Originally Posted by johnta1

Your main Topic heading?



If that's not capitalistic, I don't know what is.
Then your cartoon doesn't make sense, probably from Fox News?






Why hell yes, they are going to rape the company.
They don't buy it to be good people.

They want to get every last bit of cents out of it and now.



How do you think we got in this position?
Big corporations trying to make the most money, screw the workers or American people.
If it is cheaper to make their product some where else they do.





And you're the first to rail against unions and other things that benefit the american workers.



When they allow the big corporations to run the country, it's not us small folks that benefit.

As for Walmart, what products do they sell?
Whatever Americans will buy.

Are you a screw up employee John ? Are you incompetent and need a union to
protect you because you cannot perform your job that you are being paid to do ?

Explain to me why a confident, quality good employee would need to rely on a union ?

You think a UAW employee having two accidents while drunk parking a new vehicle and having the union protect him from being fired is a good thing ? Describe please.

OSHA has pretty much taken over their important roles of Safety, so unless you're incompetent why would you need one John ?

Was in a union; made me sick that incompetent people got promoted over higher skilled
people because they had "seniority" over abilty and skill -

So much for the better man getting the job and progress

You think organized crime is good John ? Plenty of that in unions: I remember all the car bombings here in St Louis over union control. What an honest bunch !

Our plant has benefited because we removed a union which protected members from sleeping on the job, high absenses, repeating mistakes costing tens of thousands of dollars, strikes, and the union would not allow it's shop floor guy to even change a light bulb or even lube a CNC machine unless they were labeled as maintenance or electrician.
That slowed production and reduces customer satisfaction. Since then our quality is higher, lower CPU, less waste and we pay our guys more than union wage. We even hired some good union guys back, and they were disgusted at how the union protected the screwups.

And now you're bringing up FOX, and like Capitalism nobody brought it up, but you. You're all over the place.

Union people do not get ahead by merits, and I don't like that.

[goatwgn]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

The Bonneville I had made numerous trips from Mo to Tx and Ca carrying my wife and our then young daughter with issue in the late 90s. We did a few of those without cell phones

The Achilles heel for old cars was rust , and that's what caught the Bonnie.

Sorry to hear that about the Bonneville, (a lot of truly great cars were beaten by regular use and the tinworm). '60s and '70s cars do rust more so than newer cars, but if you live in some of the drier states, and keep the car cleaned and washed, with a repaint about every 15 years for me (due to sun baking the paint) they seem to hold up pretty well. New ones in Northern states rust out underneath, the brake lines , floor pan, etc, disentegrate. Have seen this under later model "Northern Exposure cars" that I work on from time to time. The entire underside is completely worthless on any car that has been exposed to salt for any length of time and hasn't been washed out, Not as noticable due to plastic bumper covers and such. From a purely aesthetic point of view, it would be nice if a lot of newer cars did disappear more quickly.

[Alvin]

Truth in advertising - FIAT's Chyrsler Kiss.
Hint: Chrysler being the guy in the glasses - poor sap never knew what hit him!

http://youtu.be/fMjavRu4v5c

Slap some on black paint, red stripes and call it Tony!

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by Alvin

Truth in advertising - FIAT's Chyrsler Kiss.
Hint: Chrysler being the guy in the glasses - poor sap never knew what hit him!

http://youtu.be/fMjavRu4v5c

Slap some on black paint, red stripes and call it Tony!

And take it from a boozy, drug addled Hollywood type glorifying house arrest; FIAT Winning!
http://youtu.be/gDXmJ-AbE4Y

[Formulabruce]

In 2009 Dodge trucks ceased to exist. RAM truck corp was formed as a sub. of Chrysler. I DOUBT that anything related to them will be merged with fiat. I bet this isnt quite the whole turd just yet....
lets hope they keep Job here for the rest of cars.

[goatwgn]

My personal opinion (and that is all it is is my opinion) is that Fiat wants to get a hold of the Chrysler dealer networks so they can sell more of their crap here in the US ( a market they pulled out of due to our lack of interest years ago). They will come up with a bunch of cute gimmicks to get a hold of a new generation of buyers. It is a good deal for them. I predict less and less "Dodge" badged cars, and maybe even an eventual elimination of the brand. Chrysler itself may be reduced or eliminated sometime in the process. That would leave "Jeeps" and 'Ram" trucks (wonder why they stopped calling them Dodge trucks)(maybe so they could have the option one day to give the axe to Dodge and keep the pickups) . Your local "Fiat/Ram/Jeep/Alfa dealer".

[PonchoV8]

The coffee is getting cold, people.

On this day in 1998, the German automobile company Daimler-Benz--maker of the world-famous luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz--announces a $36 billion merger with the United States-based Chrysler Corporation.

The purchase of Chrysler, America's third-largest car company, by the Stuttgart-based Daimler-Benz marked the biggest acquisition by a foreign buyer of any U.S. company in history. Though marketed to investors as an equal pairing, it soon emerged that Daimler would be the dominant partner, with its stockholders owning the majority of the new company's shares.

[goatwgn]

Lets bring back Renault at the Nissan dealers while we are at it. Maybe we can find someone to sell Peugeots.

[moto-d]

Originally Posted by 455Grandville

Don't agree with the 70s car thing if you meant American cars -

With the exception of my parents lemon Volare everyone in our family and our friends had good luck with our 70s American cars. Plenty of Olds, Buicks, Chevys and Pontiacs giving good service made them loyal customers. Rust of course, was a problem especially in the early 70s.

I drove second hand '76 Bonneville bought from a family member that made it close to 250K and never left me on the side of the road.

About two years ago I mentioned on a thread here that I was at a Chevrolet dealer and for some reason they had new Fiat 500s parked to the sunset at the service center. All I got from one of the guys is that they were giving engine trouble.

I know in Europe Fiat based Alfa Romeos don't have a sparkling reliability record, and in the UK Fiats still have rust issues.

My Dad's brand new 74 Olds Delta 88 .... two trannys by 60,000 miles, continual carburetor problems, early rust, 455 with zero nuts. His '76 LeSabre, low-power gas hog with power windows that liked to go up sometimes, other times not. Multiple A/C compressors. His '79 Electra Limited, great runner, lousy paint ... started peeling off by 1981. My Mom's 75 T/A was a decent enough car, don't recall too many problems off-hand. By the time I started getting mid-70s cars, it was the late 1980s, so they were pigs by that time and I don't really count them. Compared to the GM cars my folks bought in the 60s, the 70s cars were shoddier than hell ... poor fit, poor finish. Nothing personal, see you like the Grandvilles. My personal experience was not flattering to that big-bumper era.