GM: Making something better means knowing about the problem
In light of the massive bailout for the automobile industry and the constantly shifting executives a rather interesting story has surfaced as to one of the reasons that GM is having such a hard time. While it is somewhat of an inside joke many people have wondered why it is that GM cars has such bad interiors compared to their competition. Sure some of the blame can be transferred right down the supply chain but it turns out it could be much more basic than that.
According to a well placed GM insider who contacted the crew at The Truth About Cars (TTAC) blog it all boils down to the executives. As it turns out the executives of GM have never known, and still don’t know that there is any real problem. Robert Farago at TTAC writes
As you probably know, ever since GM was founded, its execs have either been driven by a chauffeur or provided with carefully prepared and maintained examples of the company’s most expensive vehicles. Of course, there are times when the suits must sign off on the company’s more prosaic products. Since 1953, this intersection between high flyer and mass market occurred at GM’s Mesa, Arizona, Desert Proving Grounds (DPG). The execs would fly into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport, limo out to the DPG and drive the company’s latest models.
Our agent says that all the vehicles the execs drove were “ringers.” More specifically, the engineers would tweak the test vehicles to remove any hint of imperfection. “They use a rolling radius machine to choose the best tires, fix the headliner, tighten panel and interior gaps, remove shakes and rattles, repair bodywork—everything and anything.”
Did the execs know this? “Nope. And nobody was going to tell them . . . As far as they knew, the cars were exactly as they would be coming off the line. That’s why Bob Lutz thinks GM’s products are world-class. The ones he’s driven are.”
I asked Agent X if the GM execs would ever drive the cars again. Did he know if Wagoner or Lutz dropped in at a dealership to test drive a random sample off the lot? He found the idea amusing.
Robert also writes that their contact says that rather than the situation improving it is actually getting worse. Between selling off their major testing grounds in Arizona and some real problems at the replacement facility in Michoacán, Mexico the situation doesn’t look good.
But then of course we all get to see these new television ads proclaiming the new GM …. I wonder if that means the executives driving the real cars that are going to market or just some more specially prepared ringers.
