One GM Plant Closing in the US Means Very Little to the Company

[BumRushDaShow]

18. I think the protestations in the thread are more about the impact to the workers

vs the company itself - and other than MD, taking note of the impact on the states that tipped the scale to Drumpf - i.e., OH & MI. And it's not just the actual assemblers but all the parts plants also located on those states, that will be majorily impacted with reduced requests for all the nuts and bolts and staples and vinyl and leather and filters and glass and pumps and tubing and tires, etc.

I have only owned U.S. cars - and at least one from each of what was once known as the "Big 3" - Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, GM, and Ford (although at least one may have been partially assembled in Canada - which I think was a Chevy).

One of the reasons I ended up going to the crossover/SUV size was because the trunks in the sedans were getting smaller and smaller and what I needed to haul just wouldn't fit. I grew up in Ford station wagons (Country Squire and LTD) and my Mom used to have a Mercury with a huge trunk.

I suppose the "downsizing" of the sedans in general was due to the continual updates of the CAFE standards for reducing environmental impacts, but there was also an issue where the U.S. carmakers lost their innovation and recently attempted to revive some of their iconic brands (but at a premium). But one cannot ignore all the Hondas & Toyotas (although noticeably a shrinking market) and most significantly, the Nissans & Kias. The odd decisions over the years - like Ford deciding to ditch their iconic Taurus a bunch of years ago (then eventually returned) or Chevy ditching their Cavialier, etc., ended up pushing more buyers either to foreign cars or to the larger crossovers/SUVs. It's not like people aren't buying the smaller cars, but once they find a brand, they tended to stay with it, and in this case, it wasn't an American brand.

And many seemed to continually complain about reliability but over the past 10 years, I have been hearing the nightmare stories about the much-hugged Toyotas and Hondas and all their recalls - notably the airbags, and transmission issues. So really, there are few cars that are problem-less but people will often pooh-pooh problems they DID have because of loyalty vs how that problem compared to the same happening in a different brand (since parts manufacturers often sell to multiple brands).