End of the line for Holden

[sideshow]

Australia is becoming the dearest place to live in the world which doesn't help
Toyota has been outselling cars in the usa for many years
fuel goes up big cars don't sell
why the hell would u buy a new ve commodore when within afew months its worth half what you paid new
I used to work for diahatsu 2 decades ago and we didn't make much on selling cars
they were hoping the customers would bring their cars back for consistant servicing
and they did

these days when it costs anywhere from 100 bucks to 150 bucks an hour to service your car at a dealership depending if its holden or mazda or Honda or location and I found closer to city got super expensive for a service and now everyone is tight for money
no one is getting their cars serviced
even the local guys are stuggling as I know afew of them
I am always getting calls people begging for their cars to be fixed because the immoiliser has shat itself and I tell them could cost couple hundred up to 1000 then they cry and say
im a pensioner so theres not much u can do except tell them to take it to dealer because
I don't want to have the job blow out and then they winge where as the dealer will screw u from day one hehehe

anyway if the govt want to give me a hand out to keep my business running and me have a holiday then ill gladly vote to give holden a hand out hehehe

the late model jeeps should be very cheap as some are piss poor quality and made in mexico
I guess that explains it all

[WKB]

Originally Posted by sideshow

the late model jeeps should be very cheap as some are piss poor quality and made in mexico

Sideshow,
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. I think Tomcat's opening line in post 16 says it all.

Jeep have assembly plants in Jefferson (Michigan), Toledo (Ohio) and Belvidere (Illinois). I think if you look at a map you will find these areas are in the USA.

Back to the topic.

As well as GM shutting down, this will put pressure on component manufacturers, which in turn could effect Toyota. More than likely by the end of 2017 there won't be any auto manufacturing left in Australia, component manufacturers will have shut down or moved off shore. This will have devastating effect on the economies in Victoria and South Australia. It will be anyone's guess how many jobs will be affected when this does happen.

Although it was 100 jobs lost, it is interesting that the media did not give much time on the Kellogs cereal packaging plant shutting down in Australia and moving to Thailand.
I suppose there would not have been the same sensationalism as shutting down of the production of the perceived "Australia's" own car.

Unless GM are willing to put a 4cyl in the Camaro or Corvette and make them available to England and Europe like Ford did with the Mustang they are not going to spend a lot of money developing a RHD version for a niche market like Australia selling maybe 100 per month.

Warren

[WACR]

Aside from manufacturing a product which the customer wants to buy, high wages can be competitive provided productivity is high enough to justify them. I constantly hear our productivity is falling behind the rest of the world, that may be correct, but we will never learn to improve this, unless we understand how we compare and how we can improve.Generalised statements are always vague, I am sure specific productivity comparisons are available to those in the know in each industry, and more importantly the detail of the productivity work practices. If the Japanese are much more productive at manufacturing a car, then it should not be rocket science for the industry to explain how they achieve this. If its down to work procedures and processes and not a significant wage disparity, then what have we failed to learn or copy in Australia? Ford , GM and significantly Toyota must have bucket loads of data which they will have tried to replicate in Australia, but to no avail perhaps. Maybe its as simple as economies of scale? Comparing apples with apples and this is important, we dont want to compare building a hyundia to a Ferrari, what are the production line personnel in Japan, Korea , USA doing differently in their working day to us in Australia?