If you're older than 35, you can remember a time when Ford cars and General Motors cars always seemed to be the subject of auto recall news. You can remember when Nissan and Toyota were symbols of quality and the term "recall" was never associated with them. You can remember GM selling a lot of cars, too.
Well, that's in the past. Today, the news leads with a massive Nissan recall, a Toyota recall that's crippled the brand, and Ford beating GM in sales. Why the 180 degree turn in auto industry brand expectations and performance? Before this blogger focuses on that question, a recap of recent events.
On wednesday, Nissan announced a recall of 539,864 vehicles for brake pin and fuel gauge problems. The recall effects six Nissan brands (Titan, Armada, Frontier, Pathfinder, Quest, and Xterra), the luxury Infinity model the OX56. While Nissan, like other car companies, has had recalls of individual model brands from time to time, this is the largest recall in their history. The Nissan press release with the full information is here:
NISSAN RECALL INFO.
Just a month before it was Toyota with a massive recall effort that's now damaged the brand's reputation for quality and safety. The culprit? A gas pedal accelerator problem that results in sudden car acceleration. The Toyota problem impacts millions of their cars around the World, and is now exacerbated by the
perception that Toyota's management is moving too slowly to fix the problem.
Toyota and Nissan are starting to look very much like the Ford and GM of the past. And in the 21st Century, it's Ford that's emerged as the quality, top selling car brand. Ford is the one U.S. auto organization that did not accept a large American government bailout (even though Ford Worldwide
has pressured the German government to extend that nation's version of the "Cash-for-Clunkers" program), making key concessions with its unions to lower costs and avoid additional layoffs in 2010. Now, Ford is hiring: an additional 1,200 workers at its new Explorer plant in Chicago.
Ford has also beat GM is sales and leads for the first time since 1998, to some small extent because of "bailout backlash" but the real reason is Ford has really worked the rental car and business market and Toyota has the problems mentioned above. Part of the reason is Ford finally has some interesting cars at lower prices and hot cars like the Mustang never seem to wane (but there's Lincoln brand, which this blogger maintains is not what it used to be and has been badly mismanaged).
What's happened is the end of the fall of the American car company. After decades of market share reduction, cross-tech sharing with foreign car makers and Worldwide auto market focus, the Ford, GM, and Chrysler brands have become the Japan of the 21st Century. Ford, in particular, has made cost cutting concessions and taken on innovative marketing approaches in the case of the Ford Fiesta that seem far different than what the firm was historically known for.
It's a new day. While it's too early to call it "the new normal" in this industry that seems to be in a constant state of flux, the result is the slow resurgence of the American car and at just the right time.
