Anybody who believes they are getting a car built in a French factory to German quality standards deserves what they have coming.
And any advertising agency dreamer who believes this must also be heading for a glittering future in the dole queue.
French car factories are like those in the UK in the 1970s - highly unionised labour forces are still fighting the class war and the poor old customer is the one who suffers the junk that results. Home market customers might be prepared to put up with this, because the French are brainwashed into believing that 'fabrication Francaise' is the best in the world - but no-one else is forced to.
I saw a TV programme not long ago that showed a factory in China stamping packing cases with the words 'fabrication Francaise', with the connivance of their French wholesale clients, because that's the only way they can sell sub-standard goods into France.
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>Anybody who believes they are getting a car built in a French factory to German quality standards deserves what they have coming.<
No doubt MH has good reason to write this, but it comes across as pure prejudice, especially when other posters here are grumbling about the falling quality of VW/Audi/MB. For 25 years (with one or two exceptions) I have driven Peugeots, not for any particular francophile reason, but simply because they have been good to drive and I have not been let down. I don't think the difference between 99.5% and 99.7% 'perfection' is going to affect many car owners; but of course if one gets a (rare these days) rogue car it can colour one's attitude for years.
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No doubt MH has good reason to write this, but it comes across as pure prejudice, especially when other posters here are grumbling about the falling quality of VW/Audi/MB. <<
Right or wrong, the perception is there.
They've got it all wrong anyway. People choose French cars for style, German cars for build quality. I don't necessarily agree with either of the stereotypes, but them's the breaks.
So why would you want a German-style car with French build?
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Personally I think the C5 looks quite appealing, so if I could be persuaded it's been built like a BMW (which I've never owned so just going on preconceptions) but with French comfort, next time I win the lottery I might get one.
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When I lived and worked in London the wearing of a high quality suit was mandatory (Savile Row no less was expected) for the firm of accountants I then worked for.
Hence me saying, 'I do like the cut of the models (not he car either because to me it is ugly) jib.'
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....... French cars for style ............ German cars for build quality.
I don't hold either of the above perceptions, so the Citroen advert is wasted on me. I'm certainly not bothered about looks. I buy a car to drive, not to stand and admire its looks. I assess reliability on media reports or past experience. The other factors affecting my choice are type of fuel, performance, specification, price, insurance group, and distance of nearest dealer from my house ~ but not necessarily in that order.
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I'm not prejudiced against French cars - although, having recently had to watch a friend go through the excruciating and expensive business of getting the Eolys system sorted out on his young Pug 607 I might well be - I'm prejudiced against French workers.
I remember the grief and expense Midlands car workers caused me years ago when I was stupid enough to think it was a good idea to buy British. Sorry, L'escargot, it isn't personal, but workers at British Leyland, the Rootes Group and Jaguar among others weren't thinking about customers like me when they pursued their power struggles with the management and didn't give a stuff about the quality of the product they were turning out and being paid for.
Now I can see exactly the same situation in France, where industrial relations are evidently light years behind the rest of the western world.
It may be almost an impossible dream, but I'd like to buy a car put together by people who are interested in what they are doing and proud of doing a good job.
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and didn't give a stuff about the quality of the product they were turning out and being paid for.
but I'd like to buy a car puttogether by people who are interested in what they are doing and proud of doing a good job.
Mike,
It wasn't the fault of the workers that the design and building practice and poor materials in those dreadful cars were used in the first place.
If a team of chaps is putting together a marina or allegro with poor paint, zero rustproofing and poor quality equipment the people mainly to blame are those managers by name only, the chaps making it didn't design the thing and they probably had no input whatsoever into the practices used.
Think how good some of the cars those same chaps made were once some input from Honda went into the machine and its design.
Rover 600 series for example, every bit as good as its Honda accord equivalent.
I'm not saying the unions were blameless in this, but other car factories managed to produce good for their day vehicles.
The managment must take the responsibility for not doing their jobs properly too, a bit of leadership is sometimes called for.
Your last sentence says it all really, and i agree with the idea, and i dare say one of the few places in the world that you would get that sort of comittment would be Japan.
The Japanese car makers seem to be able to get that quality at nearly all of their factories too, certainly in Britain, Toyo's for example at Burnaston and Honda at Swindon turn out vehicles of consistent quality, but the whole operation from factory to delivery to customer is quality controlled to the nth degree.
British workers, same as at Longbridge.
Small example, friend of mine, loading a Honda at Swindon some years ago caught one of the fitted wheel trims on a ratchet strap and scratched the trim, he popped into the despatch office to say, and get a spare trim if poss, answer no, the vehicle was replaced and would be checked out for any misalignment etc before re despatching, that would not be the case at some others.
I understand Toyota's philosophy is the customer is all important, not a bad one IMO.
They could train a few managers elsewhere.
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Gosh GB, quite an insight. I confess to always having held the view that union driven subversion was the major contributor to the denise of the British car industry. I do suspect still that it was not altogether blameless.
The motion that it was entirely mis-management also feels flawed. I fear the truth is that there was actual culpability on both sides.
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I agree Humph and rereading my post it sounds as if i'm putting all the blame on poor management, the unions shoulder their own share of responsibility.
It wasn't meant to sound quite so dogmatic, apologies all, i didn't word my rant very well, i am after all a working class chap, not management material...;)
Wasn't having a pop at you Mike hope it didn't come over that way, just giving the other side.
I believe that a good union should have high production and quality values in their remit too, after all if the product is NBG and no one buys it, then workers lose their jobs, the company also has to be profitable, but management also bears their full share of responsibility in all these failures IMO, the company i work for has strong sensible union representation, it works.
Just who did design those appalling cars and manage the admittedly poor quality control, someone passed them as suitable for production, back sides and kicking all round spring to mind.
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Cars like the Marina and Allegro could have been built anywhere in the world, they would still have been bad cars because the design was bad.
In the early 1980's I bought a Triumph Acclaim (basically a Honda imported in kit form and assembled in the UK). I was a little worried it might turn out to be a nightmare, but in fact was an excellent car and covered a high mileage will little in the way of problems (I think the Acclaim was generally rated as a very good car). This lead me to believe that a lot of the problems of the UK car industry were in fact down to poor design, rather than simply poor assembly.
I think the French must be doing something right because they still have a substantial engineering industry (not just cars, but aerospace, railway engineering and electronics). On the other hand we sold most of our industries to foreign companies who mostly shut them down. I notice that we are now going begging to EDF of France to take over our remaining nuclear power company (British Energy) because the French still have the expertise to design and build nuclear power plants, whereas we don't.
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"the French still have the expertise to design and build nuclear power plants, whereas we don't. "
Because we flogged Westinghouse to the Japanese perhaps??
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