American 2005 Honda Element - Coach work sucks

First and last Honda I will buy if built in America. When I read the
sticker on the car. (After I purchased it of course, I found out it was
made in Ohio... My heart stopped....)

There is not a f*cking square corner on the car...

You sorry as American UAW workers... Who spend the first four hours of
work shooting the breeze about how drunk they got last night then the
last four hours of work concentrated on where they are going to get
drunk that night.

 

Surprised there isn't a square corner on the car given that it is very
box-like. In any event, Honda labor in the US is non-union.

 

Honda is crap quality nowadays - stick with GM. Chevrolet HHR perhaps?

 

You have got to kidding! Maybe thats why GM puts a Honda engine in it
Saturn Vue . Scott

 

Top three quality awards (yes, gold, silver and bronze) have gone to GM
plants. The top models in quality happen to be GM and 3 of the 4 top
brands are now GM. They are coming back strong at a time when Honda is
struggling with overproduction while quality has been dropping. Honda
engines are good, but there are more and more customer complaints. By
the way, Saturn has since replaced the Honda engine in its Vue with a
more suitable Ecotec V6.

 

Wow, really. I just gave the triple platinum award to the Honda plant
so I guess that settles that.

According to the Consumer Reports owners survey (based on about
700,000 cars) Toyota and Honda are virtually tied for best quality
honors. Looking at the 2004 results (I don't have 2005 handy) here
are the number of model years for several nameplates rating above
average, average and below average:

Total Better Ave Worse

Honda* 39 37 2 0

Acura 31 27 4 0

Buick 34 12 19 3

Cadillac 20 0 3 17

Chevrolet** 98 9 34 55

Lexus 30 28 5 0

Toyota 89 85 3 1

* excludes the Passport, an Isuzu product
** excludes Prizm and Tracker, products built by Japanese companies.

GM is so strong that their corporate bonds just got down rated to a
lower grade of junk last week.

Market Cap Recent Stock price
($ Billion) (Relative)

Honda 54 All time high

Toyota 149 Approaching all time high

GM 16 Lowest since ~1983,
about half of 1965 value.


GM lost $1.6B last quarter.


As for sales, I can only quote from the most recent sales reports:


http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aNEyMGdjmVfY

-- quote --

GM sales fell 24 percent, and Ford dropped 19 percent, the companies
said in statements today. Toyota Motor Corp., the No. 1 Asian
automaker, had a 10 percent increase, No. 2 Nissan Motor Co. rose 16
percent, and Honda Motor Co. advanced 12 percent. DaimlerChrysler AG's
sales of Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz vehicles were up 3.7 percent, and
Hyundai Motor Co. climbed 9.1 percent.

-- end quote --


http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=HMC:US&sid=atYRaRSgiXZg

-- quote --

TORRANCE, Calif., Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Total September Honda and
Acura automobile sales increased 11.7 percent over last year to
121,163 units, and shattered the previous record of 93,779 set in
2003. Driven by September's 22.5 percent increase in Honda car sales,
American Honda's year-to-date sales continue on a record-setting pace
of 1,112,917 cars and light trucks, increasing 6.4 percent over last
year on a daily selling rate basis, putting the company in line for a
12th straight year of sales increases.

-- end quote --

Hard for Honda to overproduce in that environment, wouldn't you say?

I would ask for a source but I know that it would be fruitless.

They also replaced their CVT with a conventional transmission when it
proved to be a disaster after only a few months of sales. How big a
bath did they take on that fiasco? Meanwhile, Honda has been selling
CVTs for years with excellent reliability.

 

Thanks for putting all those figures together. The sales tell the true
story. Scott