Re: I told you so.
- From: DeserTBoB <desertb@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 21:36:00 -0700
On 15 May 2007 06:07:47 -0700, Geldbraucht@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
When Daimler Benz purchased Chrysler, I said that I would not believe
it until I saw a Penastar on a Benz.
I was right!
This "merger" between the 2 companies made no reason to be except one.
Greed.
The greed of Chrysler's management and shareholders who wanted to get
in on the stock market boom of the 1990's <snip>
It was Robert Eaton leading the charge...Iacocca's "biggest mistake of
my life."
As, for Daimler Benz's reason for buying Chrysler?
Too much beer during the negotiations? <snip>
I think they saw the US as a failing industrial country (true), and
the Japs were in line to take over the whole US auto market, so they
thought they'd get their slice of the pie before the Chinese got in
there. It's typical German arrogance, much like the typical Japanese
arrogance that cause them to tank their own economy. Note that both
these small but arrogant nations lost a major war against the
US...then. They had the bravada...we had the factories and workers.
We don't have 'em anymore, that's for sure.
No matter what the reason however, the Germans took Chrysler and drove
it over a brick wall. First by not shearing technology, then by
letting Chrysler have MB's old technology while they kept the new
stuff for them self. <snip>
Not the problem. ALL of Benz's "technology" is overengineered by
manic kraut engineers whose whole raison d'être is to engineer the
crap out of things á la GM's Frigidaire Division in the late '50s
through the '70s. DC doomed post-merger products with overcomplicated
systems prone to failure that only the Germans could love, similar to
what's wrong with all of VW/Audi's product line. Americans are too
stupid and lazy to maintain their vehicles well, and thus it was a
recipe for reliability disaster. Per CU, ALL new Ford product
platforms are now more reliable than anything from DC.
In the fatherland, Chrysler was looked upon in the same light as the
American GI who married into some aristocratic German family. In other
words, not good enough for their daughter (Mercedes), and now relieved
that a divorce is pending. <snip>
Good allegory. Also, well-off Germans think nothing of spending
thousands on car repair and maintenance, whereas US counterparts retch
at the thought of an oil change and are too ham fisted to do the job
themselves. Chrysler's engineering maxim of "KISS" served them well
with the hoary K-car chassis...not a great design and one with much
cheapness, but one which would keep running under tons of deferred
maintenance and abuse until the thing would finally die. All that
went away under DC. I saw how bad things got with DC reliability, and
now couldn't be given a DC product.
It's over. With idiots like Quayle and liars like Snow heading up
Cerberus (the three headed dog who guards the gates of Hell in Greek
mythology, for those with not-so-good educations), it's a "strip 'n
flip" operation designed to make the principals of that outfit
richer...NOT to build better cars or develop new technology.
Iacocca's got it right in his new book: "Can't anyone around here run
a car company?"
.
- References:
- I told you so.
- From: Geldbraucht
- I told you so.
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