Have fun with your chinese Camaro

Reply #15 – April 24, 2009, 08:09:36 PM

This is driving me nuts, but I can't find the article I read. I was positive it was autoblog as well. But that article is from the sixth and is over a rumour. Common sense tells us that North American buyers won't go for a sport Compact for $40,000+. European buyers don't see size as deterrent.

Have fun with your chinese Camaro

Reply #16 – April 24, 2009, 08:55:07 PM

Quote from: oldraven;268935

More on what Cassidy and Eric are talking about. Look on Ebay for a 'turbo' and see how many are for sale for $150-300 brand new, buy it now. These are cheap Chinese grenades, and these products being put on the mass market have caused the deaths of top quality brands. GReddy, for example. You've got a Garret going for $1,300, and right below it an XYZChina model goes for $200. Most ignorant and cheap consumers make up their mind on dollar value alone.

The sad thing is a lot of those companies brought about their own downfall. They "outsource" labour to China because it's cheaper to pay a Chinese worker $100/month than it is to pay a unionized worker $100/hour (and because of this, unions must shoulder a great deal of the blame here too - they've priced themselves out of work). They set up a factory over there or contract the work to an existing factory. That factory makes the components the company ordered. Now they've got the tooling (but often use inferior raw materials). They then produce millions more of the product and sell it on the black market for 10% of what the legit company can sell it for. The legit company goes out of business because they can't compete with the knockoffs.

...and we're all guilty of putting dollars before patriotism. Anyone who has ever shopped at Wal-Mart or bought Harbour Freight tools (or Princess Auto junk in Canada) have committed the "crime". I have a garage full of Princess Auto tools, some rather expensive, but still bought for a fraction of brand name stuff (engine lift, engine stand, shop press, pipe bender, bench grinder, sliding compound mitre saw, to name but a few). And all of these tools have performed as well as and brand name tools I've owned or used. There are certain tools I would not buy from China (hand tools, such as wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, etc) but for seldom-used tools my Chinese stuff has performed perfectly well.

I just bought a Chinese-made 4-burner + side stainless steel gas BBQ from Wal-Mart for $269 - this is less than half the price of a nearly identical BBQ from Canadian Tire. And I'm not even convinced the Canadian Tire one was made in North America.

We stand at the precipice of great change in the automotive industry. The Chinese ARE coming. They may stumble out of the gate with inferior quality cars, but they WILL learn the trade and they WILL improve, and the cars will be priced low enough that py quality will be forgiven at first (as it was with the puppiesanese and Koreans). The puppiesanese have usurped the Americans, the Koreans are currently usurping the puppiesanese, and the Chinese will usurp them all. Toyota and Honda are every bit as afraid as the domestics, perhaps more so because they can't even play the patriot card. And the Chinese will not be alone. The Indians are coming, too. This is perhaps GM's greatest folly in selling off brand names: They are giving the Chinese and Indians a well-established port of entry. It will not be long before you see Chinese cars sold under the Saturn brand name. Hummer will likely become a brand name for Mahindra & Mahindra or Tata.

I would not buy a Chinese or Indian car right now, much the same as I would not have bought a Hyundai back in 1984. I would certainly buy a Hyundai now though (think about it: Hyundai now offers a near-400-horse V8 RWD luxury sedan for about the same price Ford charges for a Taurus), and should China and/or India prove themselves I might even warm up to one of their cars in future.

We are becoming unindustrialized nations, and we are doing it to ourselves. Unions refuse to lower labour costs and drive our jobs overseas. High wages drove the electronics industry away (try and buy an American made TV set, I dare you), and the automotive industry will follow unless workers accept that they must make a fair wage, not a king's ransom.

People can cry patriotism all they want, but I only make so much money, and I'm loathe to spend it on item A and thus subsidize unionized assembly line workers making much more than I do when I can buy item B for a fraction of the cost and end up with more features and similar or higher quality - and if the quality is lower the difference in price usually more than makes up for it. The success of Wal-Mart proves I am not alone in this opinion.