When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Have you ever seen cost cutting measures applied by car makers that just does not sound or look right? I have one, and everytime I see it, it proves why GM is such a failure.
There are a number of very common cost-cutting measures today....some of which I've complained about for years in my reviews:
Donuts, temporary spares, run-flats, or compressed-air bottles instead of real spare wheels/tires.
Manual prop-rods for hoods (especially for heavy, hard-to-lift hoods) instead of struts or springs.
The omission of standard body-side-mouldings for parking lot protection. Only a few automakers still offer them, and then only as extra-cost or dealer-installed accessories.
Red and blue idiot-lights on the dash instead of coolant-temperature gauges. Though the new two-stage lights (flashing/steady) do give you more advance warning than older ones did, IMO they are still not the same as having a real gauge. They are used, of course, because they are cheaper than an analog or digital gauge.
Few, or greatly-restricted exterior paint color choices than in the past. When I first learned to drive in the 1960s, for example, even many cheap vehicles offered dozens of color-choices....including, in some instances, two-tones. Now, five to eight monotone shades are the norm...usually, except for some sport-oriented models, in dull, funeral-home shades. Some automakers also charge extra for metallics and pearl-coats, which never used to happen.
Interiors also used to come in many different colors....blue, green, red, brown, gray, black, white, , etc.....Now, most are some shade of either black/gray or beige/tan, with some exceptions here and there for extra-cost special-packages.
Exterior logos such as hood ornaments, traditional styling cues (like Buick's fender-portholes) and chrome trim are also steadily being cut back, in the (so-called) name of a "cleaner" design, but the truth is that it is cheaper to do so. Pedestrian-safe hood ornaments can be done with soft springs to allow them to flip or be torn off easily on impact, but, of course, that costs money. Even Cadillac, lately, changed their multi-pattern company logo to a simpler design that is cheaper to produce....hoping no one would notice. Well, Inoticed.
Rigidly-attached side-mirror housings that do not swivel or lock. Those are obviously cheaper to produce and install.
Plastic parts underhood and for exterior/interior trim that age, crack, and or break apart much quicker than traditional metal parts. (Though, in some cases, they admittedly resist corrosion better until they break).
Have you ever seen cost cutting measures applied by car makers that just does not sound or look right? I have one, and everytime I see it, it proves why GM is such a failure.
What is your issue with the car -- the fact that it is a Chevy Malibu or the missing right-hand side exhaust tip?
And GM has been doing this for years. It actually makes it very convenient for after the fact installs of manufacturer options as the wiring is already there for it.
GM hasn't always done this. Here's my old '98 TBSS that should have had dual exhaust. People that were modding to dual, had to be creative with cutting out the opening.
Most cost-cutting doesn't bother me these days, although I'm frequently annoyed when I see cheapening out from generation to generation. I hated that BMW quit outfitting their 5-series and 7-series with articulating wiper arms after the E60 and E65 generation. Small quibble but annoying nonetheless.
Originally Posted by chikoo
GM is such a failure.]
They're not doing badly these days and have been putting out some solid product.
Speaking of GM, cost cutting, and exhaust setups, they drove me nuts with the 3rd gen and 4th gen fbody(Camaro/Trans Am) exhaust setup. I had a couple of these cars, they came from the factory with a single exhaust setup(one muffler with two exits to make it look like a dual exhaust). GM designed the floor pan, rear suspension, heck the whole car to make it extremely difficult to install an aftermarket dual exhaust with an x or h pipe, which makes the car sound so much better(that's the setup Mustangs use). Granted you can get good flow numbers with a single exhaust setup on these cars, but they just do not sound as good as a dual exhaust, especially if you do long tube headers and get rid of the cat converters.
Donuts, temporary spares, run-flats, or compressed-air bottles instead of real spare wheels/tires.
Yeah this one drives me nuts as well. Especially when there is room to have a full size spare and they give you a donut, or even worse no spare at all. IMO having a full size spare should be considered a safety feature on family type cars like a Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot, etc. Most of the time these big crossovers are going to be loaded with 4 or 5 passengers, luggage, maybe towing a trailer, ie you are going to be pushing the load rating of the SUV. Then you have a blowout in Montana on a family vacation, you're stuck with this dinky spare that isn't rated for all the weight you have in the car, its flat out dangerous IMO.
Oh and don't get me started on run-flat tires, those things are the spawn of satan. They're incredibly noisy and ride like an ox-cart. Buddy had them on his Corvette, drove him nuts enough that he got rid of them with the tread looking like new for some conventional Micheleans, said it totally transformed the way the car rode.
Most cost-cutting doesn't bother me these days, although I'm frequently annoyed when I see cheapening out from generation to generation. I hated that BMW quit outfitting their 5-series and 7-series with articulating wiper arms after the E60 and E65 generation. Small quibble but annoying nonetheless.
They're not doing badly these days and have been putting out some solid product.
I guess I am sore that I had GM shares back in the days
Yeah this one drives me nuts as well. Especially when there is room to have a full size spare and they give you a donut, or even worse no spare at all. IMO having a full size spare should be considered a safety feature on family type cars like a Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot, etc. Most of the time these big crossovers are going to be loaded with 4 or 5 passengers, luggage, maybe towing a trailer, ie you are going to be pushing the load rating of the SUV. Then you have a blowout in Montana on a family vacation, you're stuck with this dinky spare that isn't rated for all the weight you have in the car, its flat out dangerous IMO.
Oh and don't get me started on run-flat tires, those things are the spawn of satan. They're incredibly noisy and ride like an ox-cart. Buddy had them on his Corvette, drove him nuts enough that he got rid of them with the tread looking like new for some conventional Micheleans, said it totally transformed the way the car rode.
I remember that my 2007 (6Gen) Camry came with a full-size spare here in Canada but came with a temp spare in the USA -- same car, just some minor trim detail differences, including availability of a full-size spare. I believe it was the same for the previous (5Gen) Camry also.
My pops had a first-gen Cadillac SRX. One day upon crossing the Canadian border we saw that were were no kmh markings on the speedometer.
Sorry, but this is ignorance rather than cost cutting. You could press a button and the speedometer needle would switch from mph to the right kph equivalent. My friend had a hand-me-down first-gen SRX and I'd play that trick on her all the time. The Malibu of that same time frame had the same feature. .
Originally Posted by BrownPride
Maserati Ghibli - window switches straight out of the Chrysler 300
They're actually not the exact same since they have little silver tips on them, but what I find interesting is that no one notices Mercedes using very similar switches still:
05-09-16, 08:10 AM
In the name of cost cutting
They're not doing badly these days and have been putting out some solid product.
