Ford Closing.

[HK1837]

Agree, but you have to pick the right auto trans for heavy towing, and they need a good quality cooler on them. AU Falcon auto and Adventra autos are not great boxes. The Landcruiser you have would have got the same tranny as my Hilux ie A750F if it had been an auto, unfotunately the Hilux diesel gets a dodgy baby Thai made 4spd auto that you wouldn't want to tow with, the over-temp light comes on these when in 4WD not towing. The Hilux manual would do it in low range too, but as it doesn't have freewheeling hubs it is automatically in 4WD in low range, and that is a big no-no on a twisting concrete uphill driveway with full load on it. Auto does it so much easier. As far as average cars towing today with a manual, i'd forget that with any decent load, the dual mass flywheels are not up to the task. Holden even used to heavily de-rate the manual versions because of the clutches eg VU-VY utes.

[buck]

Just had a problem yesturday after a great day at winton historics, neighbour had his v8 manual torana sitting on his driveway, roughly same angle as ours with the handbrake on, he thought it was in neutral and let the clutch out.
BANG! one of the loudest mechanical noises i have heard in a while.
I thought he has blown the clutch or first gear, but on inspection it has snapped an axle, bloody banjo diffs and steep drive ways dont mix!

[V8VAN]

Especially when the handbrake is on...

[GNW1974]

It is not up to governments to decide what car manufacturers we have in Australia, it is up to us to tell them what we want to keep. We have a choice in this country to decide what industries survive and what go. Is it not better for our government to support an industry and keep people in a job producing something of value rather than throwing them a whole heap of money to relocate into other jobs, where these jobs will ultimately go as well.

What jobs will those people, through no fault of their own or by choice, are suited to manufacturing type work do in the future? Not everyone can be an I.T. Whiz, engineer or whatever.
My family proudly drive three Australian made cars with a HQ in the shed. How many real Aussies can say this? I just came back from Japan, cant say I saw too many imported cars being driven there, no they are proud of their home made products. I am sure the French, Italian's and Germans think in a similar manner. Australia has 62 manufacturers selling cars here, the US has only 46 or so.
Just consider the size of the car restoration industry as a start and the parts components still being made for early Holden's, Fords and Valiant's. Until it was bought to my attention I did not realise how huge this part of the automotive industry is.

16 000 jobs in SA are attributed to car manufacturing alone, with many thousands more indirectly related. The amount of innovation, research and development in this industry is immense and not only of benefit to the auto industry. We buy 1 million cars a year in Australia, surely we can make 300 000 of those Australian made purchases. This would mean 3 manufacturers selling 100 000 cars each, a very viable proposition.
Should we say to those countries who wont trade with us on equal terms - no thanks we don't want your product or we tax the hell out of it. It seems to me our governments for too long are only too happy to make it easy for countries to sell here.

[Robbo]

Australia is too busy keeping all the asian's in work, to be bothered with looking after it's own. We have had consecutive governments that look after workers from everywhere else, the first fair dinkum government that look's after Australian workers once again will be in power a long time.

[jennie285]

We have five Australian cars in our garages. I have always had a Holden or ford as my daily until I needed a car to tow our K kamper so we bought a jeep. Still keeping the gt for long drives without the camper.
We are having trouble getting carpenters to work as they have all gone Chasing the big money in the mines and we can't compete. There is no way we are going to import off shore workers. Lots of gov funded projects eg our new massive police station, and also non gov. Eg, bunnings and aldi who appear to have a lot of foreigners working on their sites. They all stay in the local pubs spend money in our town and are nice people but surely we can give some incentives to the youth of today to try and encourage Australians to be tradesman. Classic example Northparkes fleeced 25 jobs a fortnight ago and a third of these people don't have trades to fall back on. so how will they be able to maintain their life style they have been accustomed too? Anyways it seems we are labour short and are importing man power, we tried to keep Japan And the red peril out during the second world war and Vietnam war so what was the point? We are now importing pork fruit and things we should be able to grow in Australia anyway that is enough ranting from me. I think it's a sad day when we no longer have ford and Holden both of which are near and dear to me

[SLR_dave]

its ridiculous to say that cheap imports need to be taxed higher.... the days of import tariffs died 10 - 15 years ago as australia needed to play on the big stage in relation to global trade agreements.... we had to stop taxing inports if we wanted to export on a level playing field...

we simply cannot compete in manufacturing compared to asia

Urm, just politely, I dunno about that. Australia still had an import tariff on general passenger vehicles in 2008-2009, I think it was 5%, and that was before the dollar hit US parity, I'm no banking and finance expert, but I never understood how free trade agreements would assist Australia, it seemed to me we were bullied into them by the US. We sell largely commodities and primary products, and always have, so, free trade was only gonna assist Australia if everyone else played fair too, which of course is still a developing idealogue.

I havent checked, but last I heard, in Japan, there are still regulations which make it difficult to register a Japanese made vehicle once it exceeds three or four years of age, which of course encourages the purchase of new vehicles built domestically in Japan, and I dont actually know, but doesnt Germany still have an import tariff on vehicles? We can, and still do do, compete with Asia, and Australian auto manufacturing workers get paid more than in competing countries (Thailand, China, for example).

If globalisation was truly to be a step forward for humanity, I thought the point was that once the less developed nations became developed to that of the richer nations, then their workers would also have the opportunity to expect higher wages.

Untill that happens, shouldnt the Australian Government be able to impose a tarriff on products produced in countries where workers are given less opportunities than those of a competing product here?

It's a crying shame about Fords demise in Australia, and its been allowed to happen not just because of the financial ebb and flow of the last few years, but also, to a large extent because of decisions made by Ford in the US... surely, so, its not just Asia that gets competetive with the domestic product! The Australian product (considering all that) stands up pretty well!......till recently at least.

[Taily]

Spot on Dave.

[HK1837]

At the end of the day there is no point having protection tariffs if the market doesn't want to buy the Product. Locally made Ford product is good quality, but the market doesn't want to buy it. Ford do not sell ANY Aussie made stuff that I want to own, even if you took the Ford badge off it I still wouldn't want it. The ute has some very good stuff that Holden should take note of: 3 seats, column shift auto, 1-tonne load (rear leaf springs), 2300kg tow capacity with the auto. But there is no V8, only 6cyl. Having said all that Holden don't make any car I want either, but at least they offer a decent engine. If they'd get together and sell a cab chassis with all the desirable specs the Ford has but with the Holden 6.0L and 6spd auto and a badge other than Ford it'd have it today.

[Robbo]

Yes, that may be true Byron, they may not make a vehicle that you want to purchase. Because they have nothing for you, this is not the reason that Ford is closing and Holden may soon follow. Both manufacturer's make excellent product's, they can both hold their head's high. I would own a vehicle from Ford tomorrow, I have no qualm's about that. The reason these companies are in trouble is because of cheap crappy import's, of very questionable quality from oversea's, where the labour is so cheap. People unfortunately buy these cheap car's, because of price.