Observations about the american car industry

Since I am a mechanic and auto historian I often get asked the question: What is wrong with American cars today? Here are my observations.

For this blog I will use my current cars as examples, they are a 1999 pontiac sunfire, and a 1929 Ford Model A town sedan.

The American automobile was always known for its reliability, ease of maintenance, and its robustness. These design principles are evident in the design of the model A but lacking the new Pontiac. One can easily go to a hardware store to pick up many common parts for the model A, all bolts are SAE size and grade and it is for the most part a simple design containing only the necessary parts to get perform well, an exception to this is the brakes.

Henry ford had an unrational fear of hydraulic brakes and insisted on a mechanical linkage from the pedal to each wheel. The model A is solidly built, it has some of the thickest sheet metal ever in the automotive industry. These cars do not just rust away to nothing. Also, the model A was a leader in advanced materials and designs, the goal of ford was to improve the longevity and performance of the parts of the car while still keeping it affordable.

The opposite is true when looking at the Pontiac. If there was ever a car to demonstrate the demise of the American auto industry this would be it. This car is a great example at America cutting corners.

These cars are very poorly built. Engineers have designed this car with too few spot welds, there is not much metal holding this car together. There are many reasons why this is bad but one of the biggest reasons is safety.

There are no braces in the doors or side of the passenger compartment. In crash tests this car received a rating of 2 out of 5 stars for front passengers and 1 out of 5 stars for rear passengers. This poor rating is the result of very little metal between people and the outside world. the lack of proper welds also results in a very annoying shake. Whenever one drives across a pothole, crack, bump or other defect in the road surface the entire dashboard violently shakes up and down and sounds as though it's going to fall on your lap.

The worst part about this car that I have noticed on many other new American cars is an oversimplification of fasteners on the car. The car does not have lock washers or lock nuts on any of its suspension components, and in the service manual it says under the 6,000 mile/ 6 month service to "be sure to check and tighten loose suspension bolts and nuts." This should not be. Compare this to the model A.

For its time the model A was one of the safest cars on the road, it had laminated safety glass, and doors that would not pop open in an accident the bodies did not deform under impact. There have been many stories over the years of model A's being driven off bridges, overpasses or into ditches fliping over an landing on their roofs. The bodies did not deform the doors still operated smoothly and they were none the worse for wear. I understand the need for crumple zones, they do make cars safer but there has to be a limit. I set a heavy box on the roof of my Pontiac and perminetly dented it. Conversely I have sat on the roof of my model A with no damage done to the car. These are problems inherent in most modern cars regardless of where they are made, but the real issue comes with lack of standardization.

American cars today do not use any standardized system for fasteners, on many American cars there are both metric and SAE fasteners! The Sunfire has a German engine(read Metric fasteners) the fenderbolts are SEA, the suspension components are a mixture of both metric and SAE fasteners.

Then there are odd fasteners, I have seen Allen head bolts where hex head would have worked better, the car also contains Robertsons fasteners, a style particular to Canada. It seems as though GM execs reached into their world wide parts bin and pulled out what would work that required the least modification. This is not just a GM problem, Ford and Chrysler do it as well. Take the new 300 series, a Mercedes E-class platform(metric)with an American SAE body

The American auto industry has also stubbornly ignored the worldwide trend of better fuel economy. The modern American car gets the same gas mileage as a model T did in 1908! I looked in a European car magazine's buyers guide and the average fuel economy was 40MPG with the highest being 87MPG, and it wasn't a hybrid.

Other complaints I have are cheap interiors even on expensive American cars, hard plastics, and poorly designed seats are real problems for the American auto industry if they wish to remain competitive. People expect high quality and the American auto industry does not deliver. That is why my next car will be Japanese or European

The American auto industry has somehow continued to maintain its old technology, and 1950s engineering. If the American auto industry wishes to remain competitive it must change.

When I was working in Germany for Mercedes one of the German mechanics said to me, "why doesn't your auto industry listen to its consumers. What it is doing is the same thing that the British auto industry did in the 70's. They refused to change their methods." That is the real lesson we should have learned, that if you want to remain competitive you have to change.