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> The 70s destroyed the reputation of American car makers for a whole generation. It's more like the second half of the 70s/early 80s that's responsible for th

> The 70s destroyed the reputation of American car makers for a whole generation. It's more like the second half of the 70s/early 80s that's responsible for this. Which was all due to the 1973 and 1979 "oil crises", and introduction of smog controls to a mature and established large-scale American auto industry that seemed utterly incapable of quickly transitioning to computer controlled closed-loop fuel injection without first making an absolute unmitigated mess of their engine control systems. My father was a proper American auto enthusiast purchasing anew both a 60s Mustang and 70s Torino, and myriad American work trucks for his construction company. That all came to a screeching hault in 1981 after purchasing a more family-oriented post-smog 81 Ford Thunderbird. He never bought another American vehicle again. That car had so many vacuum lines, solenoids, and pneumatic actuators under the hood in service of the emissions controls, they were an endless source of dysfunction. The car never idled right, and my dad never spent so much time cursing under the hood of a car. The adoption of smog controls and Big Auto's inability to implement them sanely until literally the 1990s is what killed the American auto industry. Japanese cars did it better and rode on that inertia for decades. In the case of my parents they replaced the T-bird with a Hyundai Sonata V6 (Mitsubishi V6 in a tin can, car was proper quick for an econobox) to test the waters and never looked back. Nissan Maximas and 350Z then 370Z after the Sonata. You couldn't pay them to buy American again.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> adoption of smog controls and Big Auto's inability to implement them sanely … is what killed the American auto industry I would add: the inability to create a 4-cylinder engine that lasted beyond 60,000 miles (at least without significant work)
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >I would add: the inability to create a 4-cylinder engine that lasted beyond 60,000 miles (at least without significant work) Tell me you get your car info from Reddit without telling me you get your car info from Reddit. My eyes are rolling loops in my skull right now. Ford's Pinto engine, GM's Iron Duke and Chrysler's 2.whateverIforgetthename are all generally considered highly reliable engines. The competition was good too, Honda's E engine, Subaru's EA and Toyotas <insert alphabet soup here> are also held in high regard. The 80s was a great time for 4-banger engines. When you encounter an unreliable one it's generally a problem to the tune of a specific external system on a specific model and year range. The domestic's primary problem was they considered these small cars value priced economy cars and it showed in the fit and finish, ergonomics, available options and engineering quality all around, they were simply built to a price point in every way. So people preferred the generally nicer (and generally slightly more expensive) Japanese cars.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    > Ford's Pinto engine, GM's Iron Duke and Chrysler's 2.whateverIforgetthename are all generally considered highly reliable engines. The only of these I have firsthand experience with would be the Iron Duke in the Fiero, and "highly reliable" is the last thing coming to mind. It had a plastic timing gear that liked to disintegrate FFS.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      You're confusing it with the GM V6 which was optional in the Fiero and had timing gears that tended to go out around 80-100k. Almost every OEM that used a gear timed engine has also used plastic composite timing gears over the years. They're less reliable than metal but not so much so as to really be an issue in practice. Ford 300s and their plastic gears last more or less as long as the owners are willing to run them. Just to really drive home that this is a "people forming opinions based on the badge on the grill" issue and not a "actual performance of the hardware" issue I'd like to point out that a) Grumman LLV which is the reliability darling of the internet is basically a Chevy S10 with a funny body on it and b) the Toyota 22R and RE, also fanboy favorites, eat timing guides and then the sprockets on a ~100k timeline if not equipped with the double roller version of the sprockets and chain.
      - pengaru 4y ago
        > You're confusing it with the GM V6 which was optional in the Fiero and had timing gears that tended to go out around 80-100k. No, I'm not. I worked as a shop assistant @ v8archie.com in my youth, and swapped out the Iron Duke in my 2.5l Fiero purchased with a busted rod (surprise surprise!) in favor of a 3.1 stroker v6 that started life as the 2.8. The Iron Duke was the absolute laughing stock in that shop and the community in general. Neither of these engines were particularly good, but the Iron Duke was notoriously bad. It took me under one minute with ddg search results to find this gem [0]: 'I have an '87 Sport Coupe with the 2.5L "Iron Duke". This past July, with 126,000 miles on the engine, the timing tear sheared off about 30% of its teeth and stopped the engine dead.' The Iron Duke was so bad it singlehandedly ruined the Fiero's reputation by having a tendency to throw rods through the block which then set the car on fire by blowing crankcase gases and oil on the hot cat below. Am I actually arguing with someone defending the Iron Duke on the internet first thing in the morning right now? On HN no less? What has the world come to. [0] http://www.calgaryfieros.com/OSGdocs/timing-gear.html http://www.calgaryfieros.com/OSGdocs/timing-gear.html
AlbertCory 4y ago
All that certainly accelerated it. The Pinto / Vega / Gremlin were a rousing start. My dad, too: finally caved in and bought a Camry. By the 80s everyone could see it.
cafard 4y ago
The Ford Falcon was a very decent smaller car. The Falcon station wagon I drove one year to high school got around 20 mpg in light traffic. I will add that it wasn't just Detroit that had problems in the 1970s. I remember the Volkswagen Rabbit as a pretty terrible follow-up to the Beetle.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  As was the Dasher, which I had and got rid of at 60K. Japanese cars were just better, sorry. They still are. There is something about "fanatical attention to quality" that beats the shart out of "ok, that's good enough." As for the Falcon, that came out before the 70s: https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/mcnamara-the-father-of-the-ford-falcon/ https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07...
ghaff 4y ago
That was also the period when Oldsmobile came out with a diesel station wagon (and I imagine other models). As I recall GM basically stuck a diesel into an existing design and it had all sorts of problems. I think GM eventually did a rather major recall.
- bluedino 4y ago
  It was a very successful engine. It soured American's tastes for diesel engines for a good 30 years.
greedo 4y ago
It wasn't a matter of transitioning to new technology, it was a lethargic, dimwitted corporate mindset that they would never face real competition. Not only did Japanese cars offer smaller, more fuel efficient cars, but their quality was just worlds ahead of the US automakers. Deming had tried to get them to view quality as an integral part of manufacturing, but they dismissed his ideas. The Japanese automakers were smart enough to see the wisdom in his ideas. Same thing happened when Toyota started their Lexus division. Mercedes etc thought they had it made, but Japan quickly began to steal marketshare from the luxury segment. Later on, Korean automakers decided to follow the Japanese playbook, and again, were met with derision buy US automakers. When Rodney King was arrested and assaulted after driving his Hyundai at high speed, everyone made fun of the LAPD lying about how fast he was going because a HYUNDAI could never go that fast. Today, Hyundai and Kia are very reputable automakers, and Detroit is still struggling to make cars with consistent quality.
Gibbon1 4y ago
I owned a 1984 Corolla in the early 2000's. Under the hood was a mass of vacuum lines, solenoids, pneumatic actuators. Ran perfectly well. I have this belief that US auto company management thought they could use their political clout to get rid of the new emissions and safety rules and go back to the old cheap way of doing things. So some of the malaise era crap was a feature not a bug. The Japanese managers though had no such illusions and they were also engineers at heart. Vs US managers who were all MBA's and finance guys.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> adoption of smog controls and Big Auto's inability to implement them sanely … is what killed the American auto industry I would add: the inability to create a 4-cylinder engine that lasted beyond 60,000 miles (at least without significant work)

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>I would add: the inability to create a 4-cylinder engine that lasted beyond 60,000 miles (at least without significant work) Tell me you get your car info from Reddit without telling me you get your car info from Reddit. My eyes are rolling loops in my skull right now. Ford's Pinto engine, GM's Iron Duke and Chrysler's 2.whateverIforgetthename are all generally considered highly reliable engines. The competition was good too, Honda's E engine, Subaru's EA and Toyotas <insert alphabet soup here> are also held in high regard. The 80s was a great time for 4-banger engines. When you encounter an unreliable one it's generally a problem to the tune of a specific external system on a specific model and year range. The domestic's primary problem was they considered these small cars value priced economy cars and it showed in the fit and finish, ergonomics, available options and engineering quality all around, they were simply built to a price point in every way. So people preferred the generally nicer (and generally slightly more expensive) Japanese cars.
- pengaru 4y ago
  > Ford's Pinto engine, GM's Iron Duke and Chrysler's 2.whateverIforgetthename are all generally considered highly reliable engines. The only of these I have firsthand experience with would be the Iron Duke in the Fiero, and "highly reliable" is the last thing coming to mind. It had a plastic timing gear that liked to disintegrate FFS.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    You're confusing it with the GM V6 which was optional in the Fiero and had timing gears that tended to go out around 80-100k. Almost every OEM that used a gear timed engine has also used plastic composite timing gears over the years. They're less reliable than metal but not so much so as to really be an issue in practice. Ford 300s and their plastic gears last more or less as long as the owners are willing to run them. Just to really drive home that this is a "people forming opinions based on the badge on the grill" issue and not a "actual performance of the hardware" issue I'd like to point out that a) Grumman LLV which is the reliability darling of the internet is basically a Chevy S10 with a funny body on it and b) the Toyota 22R and RE, also fanboy favorites, eat timing guides and then the sprockets on a ~100k timeline if not equipped with the double roller version of the sprockets and chain.
    - pengaru 4y ago
      > You're confusing it with the GM V6 which was optional in the Fiero and had timing gears that tended to go out around 80-100k. No, I'm not. I worked as a shop assistant @ v8archie.com in my youth, and swapped out the Iron Duke in my 2.5l Fiero purchased with a busted rod (surprise surprise!) in favor of a 3.1 stroker v6 that started life as the 2.8. The Iron Duke was the absolute laughing stock in that shop and the community in general. Neither of these engines were particularly good, but the Iron Duke was notoriously bad. It took me under one minute with ddg search results to find this gem [0]: 'I have an '87 Sport Coupe with the 2.5L "Iron Duke". This past July, with 126,000 miles on the engine, the timing tear sheared off about 30% of its teeth and stopped the engine dead.' The Iron Duke was so bad it singlehandedly ruined the Fiero's reputation by having a tendency to throw rods through the block which then set the car on fire by blowing crankcase gases and oil on the hot cat below. Am I actually arguing with someone defending the Iron Duke on the internet first thing in the morning right now? On HN no less? What has the world come to. [0] http://www.calgaryfieros.com/OSGdocs/timing-gear.html http://www.calgaryfieros.com/OSGdocs/timing-gear.html

AlbertCory 4y ago

All that certainly accelerated it. The Pinto / Vega / Gremlin were a rousing start. My dad, too: finally caved in and bought a Camry. By the 80s everyone could see it.

cafard 4y ago

The Ford Falcon was a very decent smaller car. The Falcon station wagon I drove one year to high school got around 20 mpg in light traffic. I will add that it wasn't just Detroit that had problems in the 1970s. I remember the Volkswagen Rabbit as a pretty terrible follow-up to the Beetle.

AlbertCory 4y ago
As was the Dasher, which I had and got rid of at 60K. Japanese cars were just better, sorry. They still are. There is something about "fanatical attention to quality" that beats the shart out of "ok, that's good enough." As for the Falcon, that came out before the 70s: https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/mcnamara-the-father-of-the-ford-falcon/ https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07...

ghaff 4y ago

That was also the period when Oldsmobile came out with a diesel station wagon (and I imagine other models). As I recall GM basically stuck a diesel into an existing design and it had all sorts of problems. I think GM eventually did a rather major recall.

bluedino 4y ago
It was a very successful engine. It soured American's tastes for diesel engines for a good 30 years.

greedo 4y ago

It wasn't a matter of transitioning to new technology, it was a lethargic, dimwitted corporate mindset that they would never face real competition. Not only did Japanese cars offer smaller, more fuel efficient cars, but their quality was just worlds ahead of the US automakers. Deming had tried to get them to view quality as an integral part of manufacturing, but they dismissed his ideas. The Japanese automakers were smart enough to see the wisdom in his ideas. Same thing happened when Toyota started their Lexus division. Mercedes etc thought they had it made, but Japan quickly began to steal marketshare from the luxury segment. Later on, Korean automakers decided to follow the Japanese playbook, and again, were met with derision buy US automakers. When Rodney King was arrested and assaulted after driving his Hyundai at high speed, everyone made fun of the LAPD lying about how fast he was going because a HYUNDAI could never go that fast. Today, Hyundai and Kia are very reputable automakers, and Detroit is still struggling to make cars with consistent quality.

Gibbon1 4y ago

I owned a 1984 Corolla in the early 2000's. Under the hood was a mass of vacuum lines, solenoids, pneumatic actuators. Ran perfectly well. I have this belief that US auto company management thought they could use their political clout to get rid of the new emissions and safety rules and go back to the old cheap way of doing things. So some of the malaise era crap was a feature not a bug. The Japanese managers though had no such illusions and they were also engineers at heart. Vs US managers who were all MBA's and finance guys.