OK, so GM launches a money-back guarantee for its cars and trucks. A kind of riff on the old “Try it! You’ll like it!” campaign. Except of course, those of us who actually remember the old Alka Seltzer ad (before Kathy Griffin murderized it) will recall that the exhortation to experimentation was ironic. The line—repeated by tens of millions of people ad nauseam—came from the waiter. The waiter, the bad guy of the piece, led the protagonist to try food which later made him want to hug the porcelain god. And that’s the key difference. The Alka ad was selling relief from remorse. The GM ad is selling the customer on the idea that they won’t need relief from buyer’s remorse. The GM ad highlights the possibility of buyer’s remorse, on the second biggest purchase of their customers’ financial lives (after their house). Which makes the nationalized automaker’s buyback campaign as dumb as rocks on toast. The man behind the plan, Maximum Bob Lutz, is completely oblivious to this analysis. In fact . . .

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MB Chris posits the following:

A straight EV at this point isn’t very useful to many people because of the current technology’s limitations. And, for me, hybrids are far too expensive and complicated to consider buying. I’m an ASE certified mechanic (25 years) and work in automotive manufacturing (nobody very important). The big thing that I can’t figure out about hybrids is why have a conventional drivetrain at all? Why not have the car operate similar to a diesel electric locomotive? Drive a large alternator with a combustion engine designed to run most efficiently at [a certain] RPM. Have no idle at all. It’s either on driving the alternator or not running. NVH engineering would only be needed to cope with that one RPM and startup/stop. Put an electric motor to drive each rear wheel. Mount them inboard so unsprung weight will not be increased. Even 4 electric motors or one on each axle if you want AWD. No transmission, driveshaft or differential is needed. That would come close to offsetting the weight of the battery pack.

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Thanks to Marko for the heads-up.

Daniel Howes’ column for the Detroit News is based on an interview with GM CEO Fritz Henderson, while the latter was embarked on a national dealer handholding tour [your name suggestions below]. And here’s the first money shot: “It’s just really good to be back in the car business.” Howes reads TTAC; I’ve taken him to task many times for his transformation from kick-ass European correspondent to Motown pom-pom waver and, at best, chronic fence sitter. “Now, before all the cynics glom on to that single sentence as proof — proof, I tell you — that GM’s leadership is back to the bad ol’ days of denial, I’d offer this: There is more that’s changing inside GM today than staying the same, starting with the fact that the CEO and key leaders of his management team spend a whole lot more time talking about cars and trucks than the nonautomotive headache du jour.” This is all kinds of wrong.

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Jim Tarbox is not a man who suffers in silence. Since New Chrysler handed his Jeep dealership its walking papers, Tarbox has been a man on a mission. “I was a top performing dealer,” Tarbox told me. “The executives terminated my dealer out of spite.” Tarbox ain’t just whistling Dixie. The video above features audio from U.S. Bankruptcy Court testimony from Peter Grady, Chrysler Director of Dealer Operations. Tarbox’s lawyer, Len Bellavia, confronts Grady re:  a letter that says, in no uncertain terms, that New Chrysler shit-canned Tarbox because of a prior territorial beef. “He is a belligerent combative dealer who litigates and protests any new Jeep franchise in the Provo [Providence, Rhode Island] area. So management made decision to cut him. He has not operated in good faith.” Uh, what about selecting dealers to cull based on an objective, performance-related formula? Grady agrees to the idea, in principle. In practice . . .

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Back in February, a tipster told us that pre-C11 GM was cutting white collar pay. And so it did. Thousands of non-union GM workers—both here and abroad—took a three to seven percent hit for the team. Executives salaries received a 10 percent haircut. The move saved the on-the-cusp of nationalization automaker a reported $50 million. That’s not much compared to, say, the $100 billion in taxpayer funding and subsidies and whatnot that GM’s received since. But at least the move signaled the beginning of a new era of  accountability at GM. Just kidding. In any case, we now read that GM workers’ in-boxes received a notification from HR that New GM is restoring previous pay levels.

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One of our sources e-mailed me a copy of GM’s pre-bankruptcy dealer strategy, including the formula deciding which dealers lived and which ones died. [Download PDF here] According to the doc, the proto-nationalized automaker pegged its ‘ideal’ dealer total at 3,380. Only, Fritz Henderson’s mob overshot their target by 220: “objective performance criteria yielded approximately 4,100 dealers vs. 3,380.” Flash forward to today, and Automotive News [sub] reports, “The House’s No. 2 Democrat said lawmakers may try to revive stalled legislation to reverse dealer terminations if General Motors Co., Chrysler Group and dealer groups don’t sit down soon to begin negotiating a settlement.” Hang on; where’s the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles in all this? Meanwhile, Senator Grassley said “it’s important for Congress to get an explanation from the manufacturers as to how they determined which dealers would be terminated and which would be retained.” Well, now you know.

The Governor’s Highway Safety Association has just released a report entitled “Closing the Circle” [download pdf here]. The “study,” funded entirely by State Farm Insurance, is all about the ethnic outreach, baby. Why? Because non-whites need more highway safety more than whites, apparently.

Motor vehicle crashes are a public health threat for all Americans. However, the threat is more pronounced among multicultural groups who are disproportionately killed in traffic crashes. A recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that 6.8 percent of Native American deaths, from all causes, were attributable to motor vehicle traffic crashes, and more than 4.7 percent for Hispanics or Latinos. For the non-Hispanic White population, the percentage of those dying from traffic crashes was just below 1.6 percent, and for African Americans and Asians and Pacific Islanders, the percentages were 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.

Why would anyone want to go there? But go there they did . . .

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Ford is in a [familiar] race against the clock. Pre-economic meltdown, it mortgaged everything up to and including their logo. Under ex-Boeing exec Alan Mulally, the Blue Oval Boys have cut costs, improved efficiency, launched new products and gained relative market share. But Ford’s still a gi-normous company that takes in less money than it spends. The Department of Energy’s $10 billion twenty-five year, no-to-low interest loan didn’t hurt The Glass House Gang’s bottom line, but there’s only one way for Ford’s going to become profitable, to begin to pay off their debt and stave off bankruptcy: volume. Specifically, they need the U.S. auto market to recover, in a big way, for them, and quickly. So it’s no surprise that that’s exactly what CEO Alan Mulally says is gonna happen . . .

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GM Service Operations

**Urgent Message**

DCS 412

DATE: September 21, 2009

TO: All US GM Dealers, Service Directors, Warranty Administrators and Parts Managers

SUBJECT: Changes to the General Motors 100,000 Mile/5 Year Powertrain Warranty for 2010 Model Year Vehicles

This message is to provide information regarding the a few changes to the GM Powertrain Warranty for 2010 model year vehicles.  Previous model year vehicles are NOT affected by these changes.

For model year 2010, General Motors is announcing a slight change in the components that are covered under the 100,000 mile/5 year limited warranty on all light duty cars and trucks.  The Warranty and Owner Assistance Information booklets have already been updated with these changes in all New 2010 model GM vehicles.

The following items have been eliminated from the Powertrain portion of the coverage for 2010, however, they will continue to be covered for the entire length of the Bumper to Bumper Limited Warranty for all GM vehicles.  Select components may also be covered by Federal or State Emission coverage.  Please refer to the Labor Time Guide and Policies and Procedures (P&P) manual for further details.

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For those of you unfamiliar with the secret language of telephone-based customer service representatives, RTFM means “Read the F-ing Manual.” Only now, for Chrysler, it’s PTF-DVD: “Play the F-ing DVD.” Automotive News [sub] reports that “Chrysler Group is replacing its traditional owner’s manuals with DVDs and an abridged printed guide in an effort to reduce costs and save 930 tons of paper annually.” Wow! Can you imagine how much better off the planet would be if Chrysler stopped making cars? Just kidding. As for costs, well, taxpayers have sunk over $10 billion in this bad bad boy, so every penny ChryCo doesn’t spend on paper manuals goes to their “Save the Sebrings!” campaign. Uh, how many pennies is that, anyway? “Spokesman Bryan Zvibleman . . . declined to say how much will be saved by the change, which is taking effect with 2010 models.” Declined? As in refused? I like “demurred,” but then I like my euphemisms shaken, not stirred.

Is this a big deal? It sure was to Chrysler (the artist formerly known as “under private equity ownership, we can move much faster than our competition”)  . . .

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Not THIS HUMMER (that would be a bit of a stretch). But a HUMMER nonetheless. The Associated Press reports that “Data released late last week by the Department of Transportation shows that tens of thousands of trucks, minivans and SUVs with relatively low gas mileage were among the nearly 700,000 vehicles sold under the program in late July and August. It even included a handful of Hummers, a hulking vehicle not usually associated with fuel economy.” I guess the AP couldn’t say “including a big ass gas-guzzling military-themed HUMMER, the vehicle most reviled by people who thought (even for a second) that the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program’s real goal was improving the fuel efficiency of America’s automotive fleet to help reverse the irreversible catastrophe of global warming.” Now, there’s a lot of parsing and wrangling and finger-pointing to be done here, as usual. But let’s not lose sight of the salient fact: A HUMMER! Why not? Lest we forget, “for buyers of SUVs, pickups and minivans, that difference [between the trade-in and the new vehicle’s mpgs] had to be only 2 mpg.”

In other news, the final sales numbers are out. The Chevy Silverado pipped the F-150 at the C4C post. The manly man’s pickup picked-up 16,330 sales, vs. 16,263 for the tuff enough [sic] F-150. What does that tell you? As the Silverado is a high profit vehicle for its nationalized manufacturer, the taxpayer-funded sales surge has certainly helped the taxpayer-funded automaker stay alive. How great is that? Oh, and HUMMER is still owned by GM, in case you (or GM’s management) forgot.

This morning’s New York Times had a jarring headline: “A Proposed Tax on the Cadillac Health Insurance Plans May Also Hit the Chevys.” I swear I thought they meant The Gray Lady was referring to a tax on Cadillac workers’ health care plan. To these admittedly jaundiced eyes (ew), “Hit the Chevys” sounds like something a GMC executive does when sales slide. “Hey, what’s wrong with Joe? Same as it ever was. Hitting the Chevys again? Yup.” Anyway, I can’t remember the last time I heard the phrase “The Cadillac of . . .” (Longtime readers may recall that I made this observation previously when the installation guy referred to my new KitchenAid as “The Lexus of dishwashers.”) When was the last time you heard  the Cadillac comparison, and to what did it refer? What, if anything, has replaced it? Meanwhile,  if Buick is “The Class of World Class” where does that leave Cadillac? I think the Beatles did a song about that.

From wreckedexotics.com:

This Mercedes SLR was purchased only a day before this accident. The 23 year old son of the owner borrowed the car and managed to crash it into 3 other cars.

Details are a bit sketchy, but reports say he had a young child in the passenger seat who was slightly injured. The driver left the scene of the accident and reported back 17 hours later. He said he had to leave the scene to take the child to the hospital.

The SLR was allegedly racing a Ferrari 599 GTB at the time of the accident. The car cost about $700,000.

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