Please add political points in the debate forum. Thanks

 

After owning the Corvette since brand new in late 2005 (2006 MY), I have to say that the interior (especially the seats) is holding up better than my girlfiend's AM DB9 @~10KMI. It's not that bad. It's no italian exotic, but I didn't buy it thinking or wishing it was one. I already have one or two.

I also see people complain about the seats. Worse than porsches that I've had, but not that bad. A little more support would be great when I'm running it at the track (which I've done thoroughly), but AWESOME on the way to Vegas. My gallardo's seats had my back aching on a 1hr drive through LA. I'm a young guy too, so it isn't because my back has had it with the wear and tear of years gone by.

In the end, it's too good of a deal, and a car to pass up for me.

 

Underneath the stereotyping and exaggeration, the writer has some good points. Should the Vette continue to position itself as the best bang for the buck supercar, or should it try to adjust itself to compete with the changing needs of our generation?

I don't think the Vette needs a re-design, as its shape is iconic and classic. Just like the 911, everyone knows when they see a Vette, and that's def. a selling point rather than a weakness. They just need to refresh it every few years and that should be fine.

If GM is satisfied with the Vette being a niche car, then I don't see any problems. However, if they want to continue to expand its market and sales, then they should research other options in its price range and see where they can fill in the gaps to be competitive in other areas besides performance and heritage.

For example, the build quality and interior of the car is terrible. I know that the C6 has made drastic improvements, but it's still bad compared to other cars in the price range. My family friend with a C6 regrets buying one because he's having all sorts of issues with it. He owns a body shop, so he inspected the car at purchase, and he said that there were build issues like screws missing inside the fenders. To me, that's in excusable for a car of that caliber. That's not to say that they are all like that, as I'm sure there are plenty of owners out there without problems, but that's just my experience.

 

But you can say that about most American cars, build quality is terrible. I have seen quality problems in brand new Caddys and Lincolns. I would like to blame America workers for no pride in their work, but American auto workers somehow manage to build quality for foreign manufacturers.

 

Exactly! The Camry, Corolla, Tacoma, Tundra, etc. are made in America by American workers but the policies, procedures, philosophies, responsibilities, accountability, supervision, engineering, ideas, capital, goals and the ways are Japanese through and through of that being of Toyota...

 

Yup, great point. It starts TOP DOWN with management and company philosophy, goals and enforcement. If the management doesn't give a crap, neither will the workers.

Hell the Honda plant in Ohio actually builds Hondas AND Acuras. The build the Accord, Civic, RDX, TL on the same lines together.

 

The autoworkers or where the autoworkers assemble a car has very little to do with its reliability, quality, or durability. Reliability, and build quality has much more to do with engineering, materials, tolerances, design built into the car, and amount of money spent on it. American cars were and are engineered to be built to a much lower spec and price point hence the low quality and low reliability of most in the 80's and 90's and 2000's. Many Hondas and Toyotas are built in America and they are among the best built and most reliable cars you can buy because they are engineered to a much higher standard and price point then American cars and use better materials, the foreign American autoworkers are just assembling a much better designed and engineered car with tighter tolerances and better materials and it reflects in the final product. The workers just screw in and attach parts, you can't really do a half assed job doing that. Either it is done or it isn't and they will catch it down the line if a part is not screwed in or attached right. When is the last time a mechanic said the reason your car has an issue is because the guy making the car forgot to do something or did not screw something in right, it hardly ever happens, it is more design.

Is the reason things fall off or squeek and don't last on American cars because the worker somehow assembled it wrong or because American cars use cheap adhesives, poor tolerances, cheap materials, were not designed as well as Japanese competition? I would say it has much more to do with design and materials and not the people putting it together.

If American autoworkers were the only ones responsible for American cars bad quality and reliability then American made Hondas and Toyotas would also have this same bad quality and reliability.

German cars rank at the bottom of the reliability scale, is that German autoworkers fault? British cars are reliability nightmares and often have quality issues, same with Italian cars. There have been plenty of Japanese built cars suffering from quality reliability issues also like the RX-7, 80's Mazda 929, ES350, 2nd gen Lexus GS, Infiniti G35s, 3000GTs, etc so it is not like all cars made in Japan are great with no issues.

Don't blame the auto workers, blame the CEOs, executives, and engineers of the big 3 who design inferior cars and won't allow any money to be spent on them or don't care about reliability, materials, and durability.

 

Even the Toyotas/Hondas etc made here are usually midpack in quality. The best plants are usually in Japan and BMW plants.

Your list is odd. You are mixing cars with some issues with cars with horrendous issues. We can use Nissan as an example b/c NIssan quality has never been average, its always below average year after year and they make tons of products in Japan.

The GS and G35 and ES might have issues but they are not examples of cars to avoid.

It has A LOT to do with PRIDE of workmanship and again it begins with the top down. You can build the best quality products but if the worker doesn't care and puts a lazy effort, you will get a car with problems. Nothing is completely automated.

For Toyota and especially Lexus, there is huge pride in the Kaizen method and being #1 in quality. The "soul" some of the cars lack in driving is transferred to ease of ownership.

 

Who knows what this topic is anymore, but I'm not worried about Corvette, I'm more worried about GM.

 

Same here, I am not worry about the Corvette. It has more heritage in the USA then most sports car that I can think of. What I am worry about is that Corvette is losing its appeal to the younger drivers. Back 20 years ago, kids see Corvettes in old movies and on TV and they all want a Corvette when they grow up and can afford one. Today, the Corvette have lost a lot of its young fan base. Rather that will translate into poor sales in the future still remains to be seen.

 

In 1997 I was managing Parts & Purchasing for Shelby American Series 1 engineering, Shelby's contract with GM stated that GM would supply Shelby any GM parts we wanted to build 5 prototype cars with the exception of parts unique to the just released C5 Corvette. Most of the suspension parts for the 1999 Shelby Series 1 came from the C4.

 

Same here. I would be happy to buy a Ford if they build one I like, but never a GM, including a Corvette, as long as GM is on the public dole AND union owned -- no matter what they build.

 

I still love the Corvette though. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I could afford one. Doesn't mean that would be my only car though. I'd have other fun cars as well.

 

I don't care for it (heck, I'll go as far as to say I've always strongly disliked the Corvette - in particular its design phlosophy), but I also recognize that at $48,940, the base C6 represents pretty good value.

I'm also not sure the OP article's premise is valid, since the inflation-adjusted price of the Corvette hasn't changed much over time. For example, just picking an arbitrary year, the MSRP of the first C4 (1984) when inflation-adjusted to 2008 would be about $44,000. Certainly, I grant author's points about poor interior and shoddy construction.

 

I agree and view the Vette in the same way, having owned several cars in that price range but never wanted to actually own a Vette. I do recognize the value and performance attributes of the Vette.