According to Automotive News [sub], the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a stay of Chrysler’s asset sale, pending a hearing scheduled for Friday. The stay comes on a motion (PDF) filed by the Treasurer of Indiana, Richard Mourdock (motivation found here) on behalf of several Indiana funds which hold first-lien secured Chrysler debt. A panel consisting of Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs, Judge Amalya Kearse and Judge Robert Sack will hear Mr Mourdock’s appeal on at 2pm Friday, delaying the Chrysler asset sale which has already been approved by Chrysler’s judge Arthur Gonzalez. If the appeal delays the asset sale past June 15, Fiat could walk away. The appeal follows the arguments of earlier “hedge fund holdouts,” making the case that government is overturning bankruptcy law and screwing secured bondholders to move the UAW to the front of the line. Only the state of Indiana apparently isn’t scared of the alleged government strong-arming that squelched previous bondholder opposition. Hit the jump for selected quotes from their appeal.

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Ford is starting to get pissed off at the feds for rewarding their cross-town rivals’ failure, taking bread off their table. On Monday, FoMoCo spinmeister Mark Truby pointed out that “If you’re competing against a company that’s majority owned by the U.S. government, that does raise certain concerns about what the competitive dynamic will be for the industry.” Translation: will Chrysler and GM use taxpayer money to keep customers from defecting to The Blue Oval Boyz (amongst others). Yes they can! The Associated Press reports that Chrysler is tapping into bailout bucks to launch a fresh round of incentives to keep pumping blood into the Auburn Hills automaker’s corpse: 0 percent financing for 60 months or up to $4,000 cash back on “certain” 2009 Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models. Oh, and Chrysler owners get $1,000 loyalty cash towards a new 2008 or 2009 car. Yes, 2008. Chrysler says the promotion runs until July 1. At the least.

Well, that’s how the Freep puts it. So will GM be leaving the toilet seat down? Will it apply for a separate credit card to pay for its extramarital liaisons? Will it be hiding its Playboy inside the latest Economist? Want to clear this up for us, CFO Ray Young? “As a privately held company, it’s likely we’re not going to disclose information except to the shareholders,” says Young. “We do not have to file all of the same documents that we do when we are a public company,” clarifies Chairman Kent Kresa. All of which creates more mind-benders than Will Shortz on a weeklong acid bender.

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Chrysler may be headed out of bankruptcy, but it’s sales aren’t headed out of double-digit declines any time soon. Chrysler’s best performer? The Challenger, which racked up a meaningless 3696 percent increase over May 2008’s 71 units sold (per Chrysler’s official release).  That translates to 2,695 units sold last month. Also, Wrangler topped May ’08 sales by 34 units. 300 was down only 23 percent, Liberty was down only 26 percent and Ram only shed 21 percent. Otherwise, this was pretty much the monthly bloodbath routine. Aspen (-67 percent), Compass (-70 percent), Commander (-54 percent), Dakota (-76 percent), and Durango (-56 percent) all failed to break past triple-digit sales. Everywhere else, now-routine drops of 50-70 percent were the norm.

Last week, Maine became the fourteenth state to ban the use of red light cameras and speed cameras. Governor John Baldacci (D) signed into law a bill introduced by Representative Richard Cebra (R-Naples) that prohibits the use of a “traffic surveillance camera to prove or enforce a violation” of traffic laws. Cebra’s measure sailed through the legislative process with almost no opposition at any stage of the process. 

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TTAC Commentator Kericf asks:

I have a 1998 Isuzu Rodeo 4×4 with the ABS light starting to come on intermittently. The first time it happened I thought I heard a clicking noise under the dash like a bad solenoid. I had to replace the solenoid for my turn signals once and it made a similar noise when they would go haywire. A lot of forums on the Rodeos point to bad speed sensor on the rear axle, but if it’s just a bad solenoid that would be easier. The truck has 214,786 miles as of this email and I am wondering if I should also worry about rubber brake lines deteriorating. I can’t find any leaks but I don’t want to blow a brake line in Houston traffic.

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For the last ten years or so, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has pretended to make “concessions” to General Motors while doing nothing more than accepting pay-offs consisting of lump sums and promises to pay lump sums from fictional future earnings. Exhibit R: the fed’s recently promised $2.5 billion cash “top-up” of the UAW’s health care VEBA, ahead of other payment of other lump sums AND a slice of fictional future earnings. Automotive News [sub] reports that GM’s deep-sixed dealers are now playing grease my palm at wounded knee. “General Motors is offering some dealerships $100,000 to $1 million to wind down their businesses over the next 17 months, according to three sources familiar with the proposals.”
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The—mind you, tentative—agreement of Government Motors to sell Hummer to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery has people worried. No, it’s not the Americans who are scared of military secrets escaping to China. “The deal has observers in China worried,” writes Forbes. And worried they should be. The deal as it is makes little sense for a Chinese manufacturer. Especially for a manufacturer that has never built passenger cars. Tengzhong makes heavy industry vehicles, highway and bridge components, construction machinery and energy equipment.

What worries the Chinese is exactly what made GM so happy: According to the Memorandum of Understanding, Tengzhong will keep Hummer’s core management and operations team and existing dealership network. Reuters reports GM saying that “the buyer of Hummer would contract to build the H3 model SUV and the H3T pickup truck at GM’s plant in Shreveport, Louisiana — through at least 2010.” Why, oh my?
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The Alterman era is upon us.

Gosh that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Honda’s silver lining is (sorta) legit though, since the big H set an all-time sales record in May 2008. Toyota has no such excuse. Besides, falling sales are salling sales. So let’s put the lipstick away, and take a good, hard look at this pig.

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Automotive News [sub] cites two reports that Hummer will be puchased by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Sichuan Tengzhong does not currently build cars or trucks, focusing on road and maintenance equipment. No word yet on the agreed-upon price. Meanwhile, GM tells the AP that it is currently entertaining offers from no fewer than 16 interested parties for its Saturn brand. Hey, I want Saturn too . . . better make that 17.

GM sales dropped last month by 29.6 percent compared to May 2008, according to GM’s press release. Sales volume was up 11 percent compared to April 2009 though. Guess which number GM’s release latches onto with boa constricter force?

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Way hey! Ford is claiming a major victory, even as its U.S. May sales dropped 25.8 percent. The Blue Oval Boyz trumpet the fact their market share has grown to its “highest level since 2006.” So Ford is now where they were when ex-Boeing exec Alan Mulally took over (for a $25 million year one payout). And once again, Ford forgets to assign this glorious rising market share a numerical value. Let’s be clear here (even if Ford isn’t): they’re talking about retail share. At the end of  the first quarter, Ford’s overall share of the U.S. market, measured traditionally, fell to 13.9 percent, a loss of 1.1 percent. What was that about lies, damn lies and Ford press releases? Drilling down is even more depressing.

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Bankrupt parts maker Delphi is set to finally leave bankruptcy, thanks to a little help from American taxpayers (who else?). OK, sure, technically, only a small fraction of Delphi’s just announced $3.6 billion dollar rescue pack will come from the federally funded “new” GM. We’re talking table scraps, at $250 million. Mind you, this cool quarter billion doesn’t include GM’s forthcoming purchase of five– count ’em five Delphi plants– at an undisclosed price. And if past history is a guide, well, let’s not forget that GM has taken more than $11 billion in charges against Delphi since they spun-off their money-losing division. As Automotive News [sub] reports, we don’t know how much Platinum Equity is paying to buy Delphi’s worldwide ops, or how much of the manufacturer they’ll actually own (i.e. how much we own). Although Bloomberg seized on Delphi’s exit strategy as sign that the auto industry has turned a corner, it’s probably more of a sign that the strip and flippers—cough Cerberus cough—-know a sucker when they see one.

TTAC regular VerbalKint asks:

1. Should (can) any type of lubricant (ever) be used on the treads of bolts being torqued to specification?

2. Have you seen this site? I thought it was pretty well done, how ‘bout you? I really liked their section on oil scams additives.

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