By Eric Peters on 3.20.07 @ 12:07AM
American car makers are earning the right to win back buyers' trust -- though it might take another 20 years.
How do you recover trust once lost?
The dilemma's as real for American car companies as it is for
estranged couples in divorce court as a result of some extramarital
hanky-panky.
American cars have improved dramatically over the past few
years; the "quality control gap" is not nearly as wide as it once
was. As machines, American-brand cars are sometimes actually
better-built than their equivalent Japanese competitors. (The GM
3800 series V-6, for example, is both endlessly durable and simple
and cheap to maintain. Conversely, Honda's recently let loose with
some iffy transmissions that tend to fail early and often -- and
Toyota had a major recall over a sludge problem with one of its
big-selling engines.)
The days of genuinely awful cars with egregious build quality
and serious design defects are long gone.
However, the perception lingers. And that can be just as
devastating as the actuality of a Fiero with Chevette running
gear.
It's hard to get buyers to give GM or Ford or Chrysler another
go at their business after having been burned in the past -- even
if the "burning" took place 20 years ago. People have long memories
for stuff like that. Anyone who bought a mid-1980s Oldsmobile
diesel (or a Dodge with "lean burn combustion") has that debacle
seared into their consciousness like an event requiring trauma
counseling.
In the meanwhile, a great many of these former GM/Ford/Chrysler
loyalists went over to Toyota or Honda -- where they enjoyed good
service, good value, etc. The cars generally worked; the dealer was
friendly and competent. In contrast to their experience with the
domestics, it was akin to an oasis in the desert.
Why would they risk going back? Would you give a "second chance"
to an accountant who screwed up your return? A doctor who operated
on the wrong leg -- even if he had gone back to medical school and
been lauded for his abilities by the AMA? Why should the
consequences of poor customer service, etc. be any different when
the business at issue is an automaker? Just a reality check.
And then there's the secondary fallout.
Even if the cars themselves are very good these days, the fact
that GM, Ford and Chrysler have that ongoing perception problem
with buyers means domestic-brand vehicles tend to lose value
(depreciate) faster than the imports with "good names" -- based on
the legacy of the latter being "better built," etc. If domestic
brand "x" is worth 30 percent less than otherwise equivalent import
brand "y" after five years, do you think that fact will tend to
discourage buyers from considering brand "x" -- even if "x" is more
or less just as solid a car? Of course it will. Who willingly
tosses several thousand dollars (or more) in
re-sale/trade-in/residual (lease) value out the window? It's a
no-brainer.
One may want very much to purchase an American-brand car --
whether for reasons of style or simply out of a sense of loyalty.
But when you run the numbers and find that it's going to involve a
big sacrifice, financially -- it's a lot harder to make the
commitment.
These are the stark realities -- the karmic ghosts of yesteryear
that continue to hobble the recovery of America's automakers.
There's no getting around them -- at least, not easily or
quickly.
Just as it took 20-plus years of spotty quality control, shoddy
cars and indifferent service to alienate a buying public that once
overwhelmingly bought American brand cars, so it will probably take
20-plus years of building vehicles that are consistently the equal
of (if not superior to) the mainline Japanese competition in every
way that "value" can be measured -- from what you get up front, to
what it's worth ten years down the road. Anything less won't cut
it. Any major missteps along the way could be fatal.
We're talking a long-haul commitment here; perhaps even a
generational shift. It may take that long for the burned buyers of
the '70s and '80s to leave the marketplace -- and for a new cohort
that has no memory of the bad old days to take their place.
Recapturing trust is arguably a lot tougher than simply building
better cars. And that may ultimately be the epitaph on the
tombstone of the U.S. automobile industry.
topics:
Trade, Business
