For decades the imports have been eating their market share, mostly with weak, underpowered cars during the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s....so much so Toyota is now #1. Most import manufacturers have been building plants here while the Big 3 have been closing their's.

My question is....because you know...Honda doesn't produce vehicles with lots of power and torque yet they are very successful (same can be said for Toyota outside of their truck line), but some here would lead you to believe that torque and horsepower are the be all end all. If torque and horsepower are the be all end all...why is GM, Ford and Chrysler...with torque and power monsters up and down the line doing so poorly? I R CONFUZED.


PS....this gets edited or locked...you are a Nazi. This is a serious car talk question.

 

The Big 3 do build new plants, they build them in Mexico. So much that the one city across the border from where is it? Tucscon, AZ has been called "little Detroit." This is in sharp contrast to Toyota and Honda building plants in the USA!

 

I have been wondering if one of the reasons why Honda engines are so reliable might actually be due to less torque. I mean, would a lot of torque actually put more wear and tear on the engine components after a while (bearings, con rods, valves, rocker arms, etc.) than an engine with the same HP but less torque?

Any mechanical Engineers want to chime in on this?

Warren

 

Why do we have S2000s instead of Saturn Sky Redlines? To me, few American cars that I've driven make me feel like they are trying to be great cars -- they feel like the result of focus groups and minimum-cost tradeoffs. My Honda continues to surprise me with how solid it is, and how well-thought-out everything is. That's the kind of thing that inspires me to tell my friends that Hondas are a good deal.

I think the other big factor for most buyers is that reliability reputations are built over many years, and are ruined by even single poor products. Honda has built nothing but really solidly-built, reliable product for *decades*. Everybody knows somebody that has a Civic that's still running after 200k miles. The American companies seem to think they can sell quality on a per-model-year basis, and they ruin it for themselves by not maintaining it for *every* model, *every* year.

 

HP and TQ have nothing to do with why the American companies are failing. This is a moronic discussion.

 

I don't think the question is phrased correctly - they are not afraid, they are mismanaged. Its why today GM has something like 6500 dealerships to sell 30% of Americas cars while Toyota has around 1200 to sell 30%.

American car companies were kept too big when their market share shrank over the past 40 years because management and unions didn't want to face the music and took American buyers for granted.

It wasn't until 2000 when they finally saw the writing on the wall and started to change that American car companies started to turn around, but now they have infrastructure that is bloated and can't pare it down easily.

I think you're confused GP because you don't necessarily understand the auto industry GP. US automakers have had plants in NA for around 100 years but the oldest Japanese plant is only 35 years old or so. American car companies went from 88% market share to about 48% today so they should be closing plants, while Japanese automakers went from 0% market share to ~35% so they should be building plants.

Torque and horsepower are not the be-all end-all of good cars, good quality and reliability are, and American car companies made crap for a solid 30 years, losing a solid two generations of buyers in the process. If Ford, GM, etc had bothered to make a decent economy car in the past 30 years, Toyota and Honda never would have grown like they did - they overcame nationalist feelings with quality products and buy supplying jobs to America. It used to be, hicks would only buy a Ford, or Chevy, and no other brand. These days those hicks will only buy Toyota, or Honda, and no other brand. Go figure...

 

I'm a Mechanical Engineer... I don't think it's a huge factor on reliability. A company would have *serious* problems if it didn't design its products within sufficient margins to be reliable for the expected stress conditions.

What I think high-torque engines do is force design tradeoffs. If you want more torque, you have to build in more displacement. Larger displacement means lower fuel economy. It also means engines are larger and heavier, which impacts economy, handling, and aerodynamics. It also means beefier components throughout the driveline, and possibly more tire. All of this means extra cost, which you have to take out of other parts of the car if you want to keep the same price.

I think Honda's viewpoint is that small displacement, low-torque engines allow them to make the best possible cars for people's real needs, at the most competitive price.

 

Simple answer for me is the design - S2000s have good trunks and power tops. The Solstice/Sky has a retarded top and no trunk space - who signed off on that?

 

Let me mention what I think is a good example of what they do wrong: the Ford Taurus. In the early 90s, the Taurus was a breakout product, the ultimate family car and much better than the competition. It won awards, and Ford sold zillions of them. Then several years down the road, people started realizing that they were breaking down a lot, and by 2000 the Camry and Accord did everything the Taurus could do, with stellar reputations for quality. Taurus sales dropped off the chart.

So what does Ford do finally, years after it's too late? Do they revitalize the Taurus with a new commitment to quality and new features people want? No, they try to bury the Taurus name and come out with the "500", which is a me-too Passat-lookalike product with no reputation, only to shortly thereafter decide that even the Taurus name means more to people and slap that back on the same car. They've now ensured that nobody has any cohesive feelings about Ford family cars and they'll have to start at square-one with a truly outstanding, reliable product if they want to try to win back reputation and market-share over a period of many years.

 

There you go. Sometimes it's as simple as that -- just a little bit of extra thinking into the product to make sure you don't cheese off your customers.