Holden already in the crap... and local production hasn't even ended yet.

[JMP]

I beg to differ, it's all image problem. Who has ever thought positive towards holden with in the small car product, everything they have brought in was either average or poor which created the poor image. They needed to bring in vehicles that were above average quality and different to everything else out there at the time to make the public actually look at it. The cruze was ugly, poor equipped, poor quality etc and this was the vehicle that was supposed to breath new life into Holden. Unfortunately it damaged their reputation even further. The Astra has never really been looked at positive overseas yet Holden imported them. Not sure how much was actually Holdens own fault or GM dictating what us Aussies want, if it's one thing GM never could workout is that Aussie don't like being told what they want!

 

[crew_man]

Another point which we were discussing in the 'Value of VFII Commodore & Gen-F2 in the future' thread is that millennials are the new target segment for manufacturers, but the number of millennials choosing to own cars is shrinking.

This will have a significant impact on sales as the new growth segment isn't easy to market to, nor do they see car ownership as a must-do.

Having said that though, I imagine that the majority of millennials that are walking into a Holden dealership to buy a small car have never heard of the issues that Holden's small cars have had in the past, and are mainly concerned with the product and price. If Holden is struggling to sell cars to the millennials that are walking into the dealership, then there are obviously issues other than legacy.

 

[Sabbath']

I beg to differ, it's all image problem. Who has ever thought positive towards holden with in the small car product, everything they have brought in was either average or poor which created the poor image.

But that didnt drive the market away from buying Holdens other products. Did you, or do you know anybody else who bought a Commodore in the past 10 years second think the decision to buy it because Holden brought in a Camira in the 80's?

The market shifted, Holden didnt predict that and didnt position themselves with a locally made product that the buyer deemed "worthy" Whether that was a local decision or a global one. The products they needed to have werent available to them.

They needed to bring in vehicles that were above average quality and different to everything else out there at the time to make the public actually look at it.
The cruze was ugly, poor equipped, poor quality etc and this was the vehicle that was supposed to breath new life into Holden. Unfortunately it damaged their reputation even further.

More issue of the product not being what the market wanted and what they provided. For the pricepoint and in the sector they didnt provide a product that made it more desirable than what was also out there.

The Astra has never really been looked at positive overseas yet Holden imported them. Not sure how much was actually Holdens own fault or GM dictating what us Aussies want, if it's one thing GM never could workout is that Aussie don't like being told what they want!

The Astra (TS & AH) both sold overseas because they fitted what the market needed. Especially in the UK, but more recently the way they figure out registration/vehicle tax is based on emissions and engine sizes. Which is why Manufacturers like KIA & Hyundai are grabbing more share in sales because they can offer a 1 Litre, 3 Cylinder.

 

[JMP]

There wasn't a problem with the Commodore and that's not what I was eluding to, the Commodore was holding it's own in the large passenger car market so lets leave that out of this conversation for now.

How many people do you know that would say Holden build a good quality car other than the Commodore? My point was that over the years they have released many models with many problems which has given them a bad reputation for anything other than Commodore and until recently they were still dumping rubbish on us. The Cruze was average at best and the Captiva had a really bad reputation for being unreliable, everyone I know that was dumb enough to buy a Captiva sold it within a year as they got sick of it having problems.
There was a time when they had to release a small car and SUV on the market that was a hit, it needed to be top quality and different to what already was out there to try and undo the many years of damage they had done to their reputation for selling rubbish. What they did was give us the same old same old that was already out there when in fact it needed to make everyone stand back and say wow.
If we were to send out a survey and ask people if they were to buy a small car would it be a Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ford or Holden I bet that Holden would be towards the very last on that list and the reason for that stems back to image and reputation.

 

[zero_tolerance]

There wasn't a problem with the Commodore and that's not what I was eluding to, the Commodore was holding it's own in the large passenger car market so lets leave that out of this conversation for now.

How many people do you know that would say Holden build a good quality car other than the Commodore? My point was that over the years they have released many models with many problems which has given them a bad reputation for anything other than Commodore and until recently they were still dumping rubbish on us. The Cruze was average at best and the Captiva had a really bad reputation for being unreliable, everyone I know that was dumb enough to buy a Captiva sold it within a year as they got sick of it having problems.
There was a time when they had to release a small car and SUV on the market that was a hit, it needed to be top quality and different to what already was out there to try and undo the many years of damage they had done to their reputation for selling rubbish. What they did was give us the same old same old that was already out there when in fact it needed to make everyone stand back and say wow.
If we were to send out a survey and ask people if they were to buy a small car would it be a Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ford or Holden I bet that Holden would be towards the very last on that list and the reason for that stems back to image and reputation.

Well said JMP. This has nothing to do with Commodore and I don't even know why it was brought up. We all know why local production is ending and that argument has been done to death already.
Holden now has to survive as a brand without the locally built product, but how can it possibly do that when it has completely trashed its own reputation and image by dishing out years of rebadged Daewoo garbage which has done nothing but drive customers away from the brand, never to return.
I cannot think of one Korean Holden which has rated well against the competition. They are consistently rated bottom of their class in just about every review. Rubbish like the Epica and Malibu... why did they even bother with these when they are totally unappealing and just don't sell? Cruze wasn't a bad car fundamentally but was let down by quality issues. Captiva... how a manufacturer can sell a vehicle with so many quality and reliability issues in this day and age is beyond me.
GM has been designing and building cars for over 100 years, so it's not like they don't have the experience. Hell, even Hyundai and Kia, who have been responsible for some of the worst abominations to ever grace our roads, are now producing quality products which put our imported Holdens to shame. It's an embarrasment, plain and simple.

 

[Sabbath']

My comment about it being a product problem as opposed to an image problem was in regards to this opening statement.

I blame the decision to rebadge Daewoos as Holdens for this spectacular fall from grace.
These rebadged Daewoos have done immeasurable damage to Holden's brand image and reputation.

There wasn't a problem with the Commodore and that's not what I was eluding to, the Commodore was holding it's own in the large passenger car market so lets leave that out of this conversation for now.

Yes, the Commodore was holding its own. Until that's not what the market wanted anymore (as can be seen by the failing sales figures). This wasnt caused by "decision to rebadge Daewoos as Holdens". It was that the market shifted and Holden didnt have a Product to fill the needs of the consumer.

How many people do you know that would say Holden build a good quality car other than the Commodore?

That they directly build or that they put their badge on? Surely that's a partial trick question.

My point was that over the years they have released many models with many problems which has given them a bad reputation for anything other than Commodore and until recently they were still dumping rubbish on us. The Cruze was average at best and the Captiva had a really bad reputation for being unreliable, everyone I know that was dumb enough to buy a Captiva sold it within a year as they got sick of it having problems.

There was a time when they had to release a small car and SUV on the market that was a hit, it needed to be top quality and different to what already was out there to try and undo the many years of damage they had done to their reputation for selling rubbish. What they did was give us the same old same old that was already out there when in fact it needed to make everyone stand back and say wow.
If we were to send out a survey and ask people if they were to buy a small car would it be a Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ford or Holden I bet that Holden would be towards the very last on that list and the reason for that stems back to image and reputation.

Yeap, Holden is a somewhat one-trick pony when it comes to supplying a vehicle for the Australian car market and they havent had to focus on gripping another sector of the market before because they have always been one thing to many people. Holden is Commodore, and if you want to drive a Holden other than a Commodore you suffer a product hat is less than the competitors but atleast it has the Lion badge on it.

And you're right. Put the Holden product next to any other in a sector other than the large passenger car market amd it's not going to shape up and be the top of the field. This isnt because people think it's a bad car, its because it IS a bad car.

 

[JMP]

The biggest worry for Holden would have to be sacrificing their best thing in a way by importing and rebadging it's replacement, I can't see this working as I truly believe that in most cases what sold the commodore was it being aussie built, take away that one thing and perhaps the V8 which they actually sell pretty well all things considered I think is going to hurt. They seem to be running with the attitude that they know commodore sales are going to take a nose dive when it's replaced by the imported model so to make up for sales they are going to inundate the public with numerous other models. This has to be fraught with danger cause as I alluded to they have a crap name for everything other than Commodore (and Monaro but they wont give us that back) so trying to convince the public that they have turned a new leaf with their product quality is not going to be easy, no matter how much advertising they do.

Past government put one nail in the coffin with the tarrif crap but Holdens were banging their own nails in the coffin long before that decision was made and kept hammering nails after that decision with poor choices on models they brought out.

 

[c2105026]

Whilst Holden may lose 2000 sales a month by canning the Commodore (I don't forsee its imported replacement selling well - for a non-suv its too big), its financially a very smart thing to do. Removing the factory removes a crap load of overheads. Pure and simple. Why dump a billion dollars into designing a car that only sells 20-30,000/yr globally, especially when you can tap into existing GM products and import those?

An issue moving forward is that GM has sold Vauxhall so any Vauxhall-developed products have a finite future. Opel is still in the mix, and I imagine that some RHD chev models can make it over here to freshen up the range.

That being said, cheap and nasty rebadged Daewoos have done significant damage to the holden brand image, simply by being poor products.
Even though this is a Holden site, I would currently rank ford as having a more positive brand image. Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo, Falcon are all reasonable products at least, available for a reasonable price - as a new car.

That being said, behind the swish product and brand image is crap reliability and even more crap customer service. I had 4 warranty defects on my Fiesta before I traded it on my Mazda 3 when it was 2.5yrs old.

 

[VS 5.0]

An issue moving forward is that GM has sold Vauxhall so any Vauxhall-developed products have a finite future. Opel is still in the mix, and I imagine that some RHD chev models can make it over here to freshen up the range.

PSA bought the European operations of GM (including Vauxhall and Opel)

 

[c2105026]

PSA bought the European operations of GM (including Vauxhall and Opel)

Oh yes my mistake

Well Holdens pretty fecked now. All that's left in the GM inventory that can be sourced in RHD is...err...the same Korean-derived filth that got them to where they are.

Cruzes til 2098!