The Lansing State Journal reveals the reason Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Malibu sales are stuck in second gear: parts. According to Gary Cowger, GM's group vice president of global manufacturing and labor, "a lack of components" underpins this December's decision to shut down a third shift at Lansing Delta Township factory. "Even if that had kept running, we still wouldn't have been able to make more Enclaves." What's more… "As you know, we put that third shift on for a while to try to ramp up. But at the tooling rates of the supplier base, you'd have to buy another set of vendor tools (to make more parts) and that takes time. We're maxed out from a tooling standpoint." Cowger also implied that the Chevrolet Malibu drought is down to the same parts problem. "What we're doing right now with the Enclave and CTS and (Chevrolet) Malibu is doing a very detailed analysis of the bottlenecks in the supplier community so you can invest in the right tool sets out there and increase the capacity of that product at the plant." Cowger admits GM underestimated demand for all three cars, but said it's "a good thing." Try telling that to the 1000 GM workers who got laid off, or the GM dealers desperate for product to sell. Oh and don't think we've forgotten that back in October, when GM announced they were shutting down the third shift, they told the LSJ they "eliminated the third shift to keep from overproducing the crossover vehicles made there." I wonder why they didn't bring up the parts issue then? [thanks to Sparky for the tip]
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…..well as Paul harvey says…now you know the rest of the story. I think others have posited this therory—now we know the facts.
Also Robert—you hit it in the head regarding Cowgers statement—“Try telling that to the 1000 GM workers who got laid off, or the GM dealers desperate for product to sell.”
My only add would be try telling that to consumers who actually want these products and are forced to wait or have to move on to their second choice.
When baking a cake I make sure I have eggs before I start…
Wait…wait…no wait a sec:
The Malibu is supposed to be this huge thing for GM and they have “been surprised on the high end, which is a good thing.”
If this is true, they spent how many hundreds of millions of dollars to promote a car that someone should have known couldn’t be produced at the levels the marketing money shot required!
I’d like to hear how many Malibus (Malibii?) GM truly expected to sell.
GM is 100 years old and in that time they have launched countless new cars. One could be forgiven for assuming that they should know more about the dynamics of launching a new vehicle than anyone else. Yet despite this they have totally screwed up the launches of 2 very important vehicles (for them) like a company that has no clue about the business they are in. That’s it! GM IS clueless about the business they’re in. I can’t imagine Toyota or Honda or any half decent car company pulling a stunt like this. If this does not speak of the ineptitude of the high priced help I don’t know what does. To make matters worse, as they fail miserably doing what they should do better than anyone else they have ol’ Bobus Maximus yapping his head off about this and that just to make doubly sure that GM does not ever make the mistake of exciting the public with new products and then following it up in short order with the actual product. If there was not so much at stake, like the jobs of thousands of people, it would be funny. What a ridiculous situation they have gotten themselves into. One wonders if GM can do anything right.
Sometimes suppliers don’t come through when they’re expected to. Just ask Boeing.
Yeah, but they’ll get it ALL right with the Volt.
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ChrisHaak, care to elaborate? Is something external holding up the 787?
Not too surprising. On the one hand, GM usually overestimates volumes when in the planning stages. But suppliers have been squeezed so lean over the past 15 years that they have absolutely no reserve capacity beyond what they quote and no incentive to do so.
Being a supplier to any of the big 3 OEMs is tantamount to masochism.
oboyleper “I can’t imagine Toyota or Honda or any half decent car company pulling a stunt like this”
I am a domestic leaner and this makes me pissed as both the Malibu and Enclave are top notch products. To your comment—Toyota and Ford may have f-d up the mix with the Tundra and Mustang launches—but they didn’t have to limit supply due to underforecasting demand against models they know were going to move. Plus, they fixed the mix as soon as they could. Tooling / Parts issues on the other hand are not something you can right with a snap of the finger.
GM is so prepared to gouge for a product they came in their pants over it. I wonder how customers feel being manipulated by a manufacturer like this? I know, they go buy Honda and Toyotas
what type of components?
wasn’t platform sharing/commonality supposed to solve these problems?
Acadia, Enclave, Outlook should all have the same parts (save body panels and interior trim).
Please, pray tell what the Malibu/Enclave have that the Aura/Acadia don’t.
Somebody find Herbie and ruin his s#|t.
KixStart :
From what I’ve read, the design and fabrication of major subassemblies of the 787 were subcontracted, but the suppliers didn’t have enough oversight and didn’t deliver their respective projects in timely or completed fashion. Boeing was supposed to have fused the carbon fiber parts and link the electrics, and voila, a plane! It didn’t work that way, and one of concerns was that the plane was outsourced to the hilt and beyond reasonable control.
Enclave production limited by components shortages? Not a surprise, that’s what I was suspecting after thinking about yesterday’s thread about Buick’s PR spin. Time to cue the snark about porthole shortages…
I recall reading that the supplier for the Envoy XUV was barely hanging on financially after they had geared up to built 100k power roof/tailgate assemblies but GM sold barely over one tenth that number. Did they even survive?
GM can blame the suppliers all they want. At the end of the day, it’s GM that runs the show, and it’s GM that blew hundreds of millions on an ad budget for a car that’s simply not available in all the places it should be.
This article is spot on. The ineptitude at this company is a bottomless pit. Has anybody been fired for this? Where is the accountability?
Maybe holding a gun to your suppliers heads and squeezing the life out of them isn’t the wisest thing. Maybe that has repercussions just like treating your end customers like shit had lasting repercussions. What supplier is going to bust their ass to fill GM’s parts shortgage after they have been repeatedly hammered by GM?
I’ve always loved the “we’re a victim of our own success” line.
-Matt
Cowger’s explanation begs the question as to why there weren’t sufficient parts ordered in the first place, which may raise more questions about GM’s supply chain management than it answers.
It seems that demand for the Enclave is about on par with what it was for the Rendezvous, but that production was planned on the presumption on sales of the Enclave would be below those of the Rendezvous. The vehicle may not be a huge hit in the grand scheme of things, but it is probably doing better than GM expected. What is odd is that a vehicle with moderate production levels could have such problems, it’s not as if this has been a monster hit that has absolutely overwhelmed the industry.
As a subtext here, TTAC readers should note that the Lansing State Journal has previously reported claims by the UAW that dispute GM’s reasons for cutting the third shift. This is the hometown paper for the workers in the plant, so Cowger would have been motivated to grant this interview in part to deal with those criticisms by the union about the decision to cut the third shift. Here’s an excerpt from a Lansing State Journal article from October, 2007 —
Workers and the local union have raised doubts about GM’s reasoning for getting rid of the third shift.
“It is the union’s position that this is at least in part a ploy to avoid the hiring obligation outlined in the 2007 National Agreement,” a UAW Local 602 memo to its members states.
“It is also our position that if the reduction in force is indeed volume-related, there is no justification for overtime work in the production area except to make up vehicles lost to schedule due to breakdown,” it said.
Gregg Shotwell, a union activist who works at the Lansing Service Parts Operation in Delta Township, said there is a growing belief GM timed the layoffs to entice older workers to leave should the automaker offer a buyout and early retirement program.
The new contract allows GM to pay new hires in noncore jobs about half the hourly wage of assembly workers – $14 an hour versus about $29 an hour – and offer them a lesser benefits package and less expensive retirement benefits. The new contract says those workers can advance to the assembly worker wage rate but will never get the benefits package current workers have.
“That’s absolutely wild speculation,” said GM spokesman Tom Wickham. “At Lansing Delta Township, we said early on that the third shift would be temporary in scope. At Detroit-Hamtramck, the segment has been down for those products. And with the pickup truck plant, the segment has been softening throughout the year. The decision was made to announce the layoffs now very much as a courtesy.”
This fiasco about the parts shortage itself would have made a great new GM Deathwatch article.
Couple of questions:
1) Has GM paid their suppliers on time, in order to get sufficient parts? Didn’t I read on this site sometime back that the domestics were stretching out the payments to suppliers? Being the owner of businesses myself, it is not Phi Beta Kappa to figure out if you don’t pay your suppliers, and on time, you don’t get the suppplies.
2) If anyone needs warranty work on these vehicles and need the parts that are in short supply, how much exra time do they wait for the repair work to be done? Do they get a loaner car while they are waiting for non exisitent parts? I can see it now “Sorry, Mrs. Smith, the parts aren’t in yet to repair your car. Mrs. Smith: It has been three weeks: Dealer: Sorry, it is out of our hands, here is the number of the GM rep.”
Adrian:
Thanks for the reply in the other thread. This sounds like a juicy and complex article you’re working on, please keep us posted.
Wow, GM the largest auto-maker in the world and still the largest in North America is having trouble acquiring parts in it own home market.
My how the mighty have fallen.
Is it the case that while many other manufactures have set up shop in the USA the overall size of our entire auto-industry have NOT grown? Can it be that GM is so not top dog today that they need to wait in line with Toyota and Honda to get parts for their cars and trucks?
If this is the actual situation forget about “deathwatch” because GM is so screwed at this point that the party is over.
It seems several of us get it. Could someone please ask this guy which is it:
A) They did not properly plan to have the resources to build enough vehicles to make a profit. (They are incompetent).
B) They believed they would not sell enough vehicles to make a profit but went ahead with all the marketing and hype anyway. (They are lying to the stockholders).
Is there really any logical third choice?
Landcrusher :
January 16th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
It seems several of us get it. Could someone please ask this guy which is it:
A) They did not properly plan to have the resources to build enough vehicles to make a profit. (They are incompetent).
B) They believed they would not sell enough vehicles to make a profit but went ahead with all the marketing and hype anyway. (They are lying to the stockholders).
Is there really any logical third choice?
At least with Ford and the Mustang, they just underestimated the demand for the GT Mustang and didn’t get the product mix within the Mustang line correct. They didn’t market/hype the new Mustang in general with the expectation of equal or decreased sales over the previous generation Mustang, which is what GM appears to have done.
Who really cares about the supply issues? What people should be more concerned about is that these two automobiles are head and shoulders above the other in their class…namely the Japanese.
What TTAC and others should be writing about is the wide spread misconceptions that Japanese cars and trucks are better than their American counterparts. Just look at the joke the new tundra has became. Very weak tailgates, floppy beds, engine problems, tranny problems. The fact that Toyota sold (almost) their goal is PROOF that people are buying because of the name and nothing else.
P71_CrownVic: There was lengthy discussion sometime back on this site regarding the public’s perception, specifically regarding the 2.8 vs Toyota, Honda etc. You may be correct the new GM models are the equal or better than Toyota etc nameplates, but perhaps you are not correct. Perception is a powerful tool of marketing, and the 2.8 are losing big time in the perception arena. On the west coast, GM and Ford autos are getting absolutely hammered in sales compared to Toyota/Honda/Hyundai etc, part of the reason is the perception that Toyota/ Honda etc are simply better cars and valueIts a fact the resale value of the 2.8 do not compare favorably to the resale value of Toyota/Honda etc.) How does Ford/GM etc change the publics perception of this? It will take a mammoth effort of a huge number of great cars over an extended period of time in my opinion. But time (and money) they may not have. So the Toyota truck may be a lesser vehicle than its competitor, but people are buying it in droves (200K sold in 2007). If GM massively advertises a car (Malibu) and then does not have the product available for people to test drive, that adds to the perception that GM does not know what its doing.
How would you change the public’s perception?
Thats thing that cracks me up, Management wonders why the corporation isn’t doing well and has to lay off employees just to justify saving their butt’s, and writing down loses and blame those overpaid ,loyal blue collars…I really wonder if corporate america has been taught well, because 20-30 yrs ago, they did give a dam’mm about the health of the companies and their employees, they tried not to do impulsive stupid things..like buying troubled companies, they grew from the core! I think if they would of kept technolgy here instead of exporting it somewhere else to be built cheap, this country and it’s corporations would of masivly benefifted from it…instead of shoving down their GREEDY POCKETS!
You have GOT to be kidding me. So let me get this straight: the Malibu and the Enclave, both of which share a GREAT deal of parts with their Acadia/Outlook and Saturn Aura siblings are having production problems due to PARTS?
The Malibu, that GM promised would achieve a great increase in sales? The Malibu, that GM talked about as being THE volume car for the Chevrolet brand?
And if we dig deeper, the situation only gets worse. Either there are not enough parts because GM hasn’t paid it’s suppliers on time which makes it GM’s fault … or GM has squeezed suppliers so tightly they’re having trouble making the parts at high volume which is again GM’s fault.
So nobody here is to blame for the supply problems of the Enclave and Malibu but GM ITSELF.
P71_CrownVic:
Who really cares about the supply issues? What people should be more concerned about is that these two automobiles are head and shoulders above the other in their class…namely the Japanese.
Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter HOW good the new Malibu and Enclave are if customers can’t even buy them due to supply issues.
The major concern plain and simple here is GM’s incompetency. If GM HAD done everything right, there would NOT be any supply issues and a lot more Malibus and Enclaves would be in customer’s hands.
What TTAC and others should be writing about is the wide spread misconceptions that Japanese cars and trucks are better than their American counterparts.
It’s not a misconception it’s reality.
Well, whatever the reason for this cockup is, it’s clear that Toyota is the king of an efficient supply chain and GM is the joker.
Here’s my favorite story on how Toyota balances supply and demand: When Toyota first launched Scion, they screwed up the product mix big time. They thought the conventional looking xA would sell twice as much as the funky looking xB. Prolem was, the xB sold twice as much as the xA. Doh. Now, if they were GM, there would be a massive shortage of xBs and a massive glut of xAs, probably with thousands of dollars in cash back on the hood to blow them out (similar to Outlook/Enclave, actually, although they can’t do the standard “big rebate” thing easily on Saturns). But no, Toyota managed to ramp up production of the xB before they took the brand nationwide. Of course, this still left them with too many xAs. So, basically overnight, a “Toyota xA” appeared in Toyota dealers in a half dozen Middle Eastern markets. They merely slapped Toyota badges on the unwanted Scion xAs and shipped them to the Middle East-supply problem solved (keep in mind the original name for the vehicle was the “Toyota ist” in Japan-there was no such thing as a “Toyota xA” prior to the quickie supply fix).
Can you imagine GM shipping excess Outlooks overseas? Um, no, they don’t work that way.
And this, ladies and germs, is why Toyota makes ten billion dollars in profit in a year, year after year.
oboylepr :
January 16th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
It’s not a misconception it’s reality.
It most certainly is a disgusting misconception. Again, just look at the Tundra…or Toyota’s sludge issues.
Toyota does NOT have anything over the domestic auto makers. I would love to see a Toyota do 100K miles of severe police use and then go on…with nothing but routine maintenance…to do another 250K-300K as a Taxi. My FORD can.
I am not saying that Toyota builds poor automobiles…but they certainly do not build the best vehicles…they are far from it.
So this is a good thing for GM? Tell that to all the people who went to look at the Malibu “car you can’t ignore” and couldn’t find it. I can assure you they all promptly went to Toyota/Honda to buy “the car you can ignore but at least you can find one to buy”
P71_CrownVic:
It most certainly is a disgusting misconception. Again, just look at the Tundra…or Toyota’s sludge issues.
Toyota does NOT have anything over the domestic auto makers. I would love to see a Toyota do 100K miles of severe police use and then go on…with nothing but routine maintenance…to do another 250K-300K as a Taxi. My FORD can.
I am not saying that Toyota builds poor automobiles…but they certainly do not build the best vehicles…they are far from it.
There are plenty of Priuses that have done over 300K miles with only minimal maintenance. There are also lots of Siennas and Camrys with over 200K miles on them doing hard taxi service with no major problems. If these weren’t quality vehicles, then taxi companies wouldn’t use them, plain and simple.
Lets not get into another who makes the best car discussion. The point of this article is what went wrong in the supply chain that customers can’t get their hands on these great new Buicks and Chevys. However you look at it, GM screwed up. with the Buick in their evident inability to ramp up production to meet demand and in the Malibu in their spending mucho deneiro to promote it without the ability to meet the huge demand springing from these promotional dollars or just plain and simple from the quality of the product. They make a product people want and can’t supply it to the people. Example of why GM is waning while Toyota grows.
Good grief. Is this newspaper stupid, incompetent or apathetic? Here are some followup questions the Lansing State Journal neglected to ask:
“production of the Enclave has been hampered by a lack of components”
Which components? Doesn’t the Enclave share most parts with the Acadia and Outlook?
“at the tooling rates of the supplier base, you’d have to buy another set of vendor tools (to make more parts) and that takes time. We’re maxed out from a tooling standpoint.”
Exactly what is a “tooling rate”? What do you mean by “maxed out”? Why was that a problem only with Enclave and Malibu? How long does it take to copy existing molds, dies, patterns, etc.?
“What we’re doing right now … is doing a very detailed analysis of the bottlenecks in the supplier community”
Dealers have been saying for weeks they need more cars. How long will the “analysis” take? Don’t your purchasing and assembly people already know which parts are needed and where they come from? What’s the explanation the supplier(s) give? Are their contract or payment issues? Please name the suppliers, so we can get their side of the story. Many people in our city have a vital interest in this matter.
50merc:
GM was probably too cheap to pay their suppliers for multiple-cavity tools on the interior parts. A single-cavity tool can only crank out so many plastics, and the only difference between these cars is the interior plastics.
You imply it’s easy to just copy the existing mold, and it is, relatively… but no supplier can just make a whole new tool and put parts into production. You still have to prove out the new tooled parts and that takes months of temperature, vibration, humidity, shock, drop, and chemical resistance testing.
If the component has electrical components it’s a matter of getting hundreds of suppliers (resistors, capacitors, transistors, microprocessors and on and on and on) to up their output.
You have to think of the amplifying effect this has:
GM says “we must build more!” Now dozens of tier one suppliers must build more. Hundreds of tier two suppliers must build more.
Please do NOT blame the suppliers! (Is it obvious where I work?) :)
Actually, this is good news. When was the last time demand outstrip supply for a GM mid-sized sedan? Maybe for Olds Cutlass in the 70s. Suppliers drop the ball all the time and everybody on this site knows how many thousands of parts are in an Enclave or Malibu. I thought everybody here was up in arms about about GM over producing various vehicles becasue of inflexible UAW rules and the resulting dumping of surplus vehicles on rental companies. One of the positive results of supply and demand of these vehicles for GM and its customers is that residual resale values of these vehciles will improve over the old Malibu and whatever Buick called that hideos Trailblazer clone that the enclave replaced.
Thanks, picard234, for shedding light on the supply-chain process.
My aim was not to blame suppliers, but to show how the newspaper should have dug deeper into GM’s storyline. Lost Enclave and Malibu sales due to inventory shortages in the field probably cost GM a billion or more in revenue already. Oversupply of the Outlook is a related problem. If I were a GM shareholder or dealer, I’d want some accountability form the people who predict sales volume and those who decide production capacity.
P71_CrownVic:
“[Japanese superiority] most certainly is a disgusting misconception. Again, just look at the Tundra…or Toyota’s sludge issues.”
What sludge issues? I know 8 people with the alleged “Sludgemaster” V6 in Siennas. I have one myself. Perhaps a couple of my Camry-driving friends have a V6, too, but I’ve never taken notice of it (most are perfectly happy with the performance of the 4 – will any mid-size GM owner ever say that?). None have had trouble. None. And I don’t mean to limit that statement to engine sludge, none of the cars have had a significant problem of any kind. My Sienna has runs perfectly and, in spite of 7 years, 4 kids, long summer and spring break driving trips every year, a brigade of Scouts lugged back and forth to a variety of camps and so on and so forth, the interior is in great shape. Every Caravan I’ve ever ridden in – even when new – looked like it had been beaten.
Detroit Fanboys seem to think Toyota (and Honda) repeat buyers are stupid or, worse, un-American.
I can’t speak for all of them but I’m not stupid or un-American; I’m a realist. I measure my cars’ performance in dollars and cents.
I just ran off the numbers again; my Toyotas have cost me LESS than any Detroit car I have ever owned. By a wide margin. I have also owned some Volvos, which I dearly loved and thought were economical and reliable. Toyota beats them, too. If I adjusted for inflation, the Toyotas would be further ahead. The interiors of all but one look new and they run like tops. I’ve never had to call and say, “I’ll be late” because a Toyota let me down.
Toyota bought my loyalty just the way it should be bought; with satisfaction and cold, hard cash in my pocket. Am I going back for another? You bet.
And this isn’t about Japan; many Toyotas are built here, using components fabricated here (1.5 million engines and .5 million transmissions, I believe). They’re good cars. Most Mitsubishis are built in Japan. Would I buy one? Mmmm… no. It’s not about Japan, it’s about what the company values and how well it executes and the reputation it has built and my experience with it.
When I have reason to have the kind of confidence in GM that I have in Toyota, I’ll buy a GM.
That could take a while. Vaporware on wheels isn’t getting GM there, either.
50merc:
No problem, and sorry if I took your comments too far or too personally.
I agree the LSJ should have dug deeper, but maybe they tried and got nowhere. You’d have a hard time getting any supplier to throw their own customer under the bus while ‘on the record’…
This is exactly why GM should not be building multiple vehicles off a common platform aiming at the same target market. I would bet anything that the Malibu supply problem has nothing to do with those components it has in common with the Aura and everything to do with the many, many unique parts. Almost everything you see and touch on a Malibu is different from an Aura and the same goes with the Acadia and it’s stablemates.
The tooling costs for body panels and plastic parts like bumpers and dashboards are extremely high. By making multiple variations on the theme GM has upped it’s costs dramatically without producing meaningful product differentiation.
At the end of the day there is no good reason for both Malibu and Aura to exist. Needless complexity is the enemy of productivity.
The Camry and Lexus LS300 go after entirely different market seqments while sharing a platform. Malibu and Aura do not. The same goes for Enclave and it’s platform mates.
If they let the supplier make a fair profit and didn’t inflate the volume numbers on previous platforms, GM would not have supply problems.
I’ve seen enough manufacturing operations intimately to recognize a supply chain issue when I see it. Marketing budgets are set, timelines established, and purchasing made from media outlets in much the same way as other functional areas of concentration throughout the company (meaning WAY ahead of execution), so there may have been some indication that the problem would not manifest itself until it was too late. Rest assured the Board has hammered someone about this already.
This might help to explain why MB is running the company. GM may be forsaking long-term strategic vision in favor of short-term operational expediency. Apparently that might be a good place for them to focus, based on this issue.
Sometimes lack of availability still works in a Manufacturers favor. My father, getting older and looking for something more comfortable than his ’05 Frontier, convinced himself he wanted the New ‘Bu. He looked all over the Charleston area and none that he wanted were available. He “settled” on an ’08 Impala V6. GM won anyway, and Nissan lost a customer.
Its always good to see someone stick up for all those workers getting laid off. I bet those GM workers have a new found respect for you Robert.
In a quest to get beyond the GM hype machine, allow me to address this point by MPLS: When was the last time demand outstrip supply for a GM mid-sized sedan?
Let’s put this in the context of actual sales. Between July and December, Buick delivered 23,722 units. If we assume that the annual sales pace is similar to this amount, that would mean that the Enclave is good for 48-50k vehicle sales per year.
The Enclave is a replacement for both the Rendezvous and Rainier. The Rendezvous was first released in 2001. Rendezvous sales during 2002 and 2003 (its first full years of production) were 61,468 and 72,643 units, respectively.
So at this rate, the Enclave is actually selling in lower numbers than the sales that were generated by the vehicle that it replaces during its first years of production. Many Rendezvous went to fleet sales, so it is possible that the retail sales figures will turn out to be similar, but obviously, the Enclave is not providing a huge sales surge for GM. Meanwhile, overall Buick sales are falling, so it doesn’t seem to be helping the brand, either.
The point being made here is that Enclaves are not flying off the shelves, they just don’t have that many on the shelves. Whether GM is generating more profit per vehicle sold on the new model, I don’t know, but we do know for certain that they aren’t selling in large numbers. And when you compare it to the sales volumes of its competitors, it’s selling at half the pace of direct rivals such as the Lexus alternative, which helps to explain why this supposedly hot commodity makes only occasional appearances in your neighborhood.
Blister,
I think you may have hit on the heart of the problem. Few of us here have any faith that the right person was blamed by the board for this problem.
We have a product that is NOT selling near enough copies to meet the goals (we can only assume what the goal should have been since they won’t tell us). If they were having a problem meeting demand for some number ABOVE what would be a home run hit, this would not be an issue. However, they are not even hitting a double and they are running out of cars.
The pro GM crowd all want to tell us how great a car these are, and how lame Toyota really is, but the skeptics are pretty sure that is not the point. The point is that little has changed at GM. There is no sign that we should buy the stock, that the turn around is coming, or that anyone over there is taking responsibility for anything.
I am actually thinking it’s time Maximum Bob opened his big mouth again. He should walk into RW’s office and tell him, “It’s you or me, pal”. Anyone at GM who thinks they have the ability to lead the place needs to start trying to take charge or get out. GM is NOT a government, and continuing to play along is not living up to their responsibilities to the stock holders and employees.
Try telling that to the thousands of potential Enclave owners who are being forced to purchase from another auto maker because of these delays as well. There’s no telling how many more of these would have sold had they not run into this issue. http://www.enclaveforum.net has lots of would-be Enclave owners talking about having to look for an alternative now.