Trouble in Motor City

It is indeed a cruel concatenation of events that brings Super Bowl XL to Detroit just as the American car industry is reeling. And it is reeling. Last week alone Ford announced that it was laying off 20,000 workers. In any event, the presence this year in Motor City of America’s largest annual sports/entertainment spectacle has elicited much commentary about the reasons for the decline of “The Big Three” in the marketplace.

I know the reason. I’m driving one of them.

Because some asshole saw fit to scratch up my car with a set of keys, I am driving a 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix courtesy of State Farm while it is in the shop. (By the way, the bill for this repair job exceeds 1500 bucks. By way of comparison, a certain medical procedure that I underwent recently cost a mere 700. But then again, they didn’t have to replace any of the parts on me when I was “in the shop.” Still it is amazing what stuff costs.)

This is a terrible car. It only has 22000 miles on it and it already feels like it is about to fall apart. Granted, people drive rentals to hell and back. Who knows what kind of fools were behind the wheel of this vehicle before I wound up with it? But still, the handling has a jerky feel to it and the front end doesn’t feel like it is in alignment. The hard plastic interior is tacky. The instrumentation is tricked out to make you feel as if you are in a real sports car instead of a 4 banger piece of tin foil. When you start the ignition, the speedometer and tachometer roll over to the red zone then back down to zero. I laughed out loud the first time I noticed it. In fact, I turned it off and started it again a couple of times just to see it. Ridiculous.

Further, the damn thing is noisy as hell on the Interstate. I was doing 70 the other day and it sounded like a helicopter was directly overhead. It is 3 times as noisy as my Pathfinder which is a class of vehicle notorious for road noise. And finally, I am a tall person and not an especially graceful one at that. I can’t exit the vehicle without sticking one leg up in the air and pulling myself out. I cannot imagine how a tall woman in a skirt could get in and out without putting on a show.

Actually, I take that back. My friend Jeanette, who has legs up to her ears, once demonstrated to my disbelieving eyes how a lady in a short skirt and high heels can primly extract herself from a Mitsubishi Eclipse without showing the outside world the directions to Memphis. So, it can be done with more dignity than I can muster. But I don’t wear skirts and I was terrible at Pilates so it seems like too much damn trouble to do it her way. Besides, I have been in low slung vehicles that weren’t this much trouble to climb in and out of. My friend PM had a little Acura that was quite comfortable. My buddy Matt has a Cooper Mini that is pretty much as accommodating as a full size car despite being only as tall as my belt buckle. It is a design issue, not a class of vehicle issue.

And that’s the heart of the problem. Detroit doesn’t build cars that the majority of consumers want to buy. My friend PM and I talk about cars a lot. Hey, we’re guys. You expect us to discuss our feelings? Anyway, he is of the opinion that the days of manufacturers producing lemons are pretty much past. Further, he feels that the quirks that you could once expect with some brands (Chryslers won’t start, Fords don’t run right, GM products fall apart) are also largely a thing of the past.

Maybe so. But these damn cars cost a lot of money, every one of ‘em. And you would like to think that they put more thought into their design before they put them on the market. You would like to think that they would not be satisfied with mere competence.

Further, it is easy for the Big Three to blame their labor costs for their current woes. And indeed, it is manifestly difficult to turn a profit when each vehicle is supporting two or three retirees. But, while I am no economist, it seems evident to me that those numbers would flatten out if you sold more cars. And while I know that it is more complicated than that, I don’t think that it is terribly more so.

But Detroit will not rebound until it changes the perception that foreign cars are built better than domestic vehicles. Because perception is reality in the car business just like in any other.

As for me, I just hope that I don’t throw my back out exiting this damn Grand Prix before I get the Pathfinder back.