Packard Forum Index » Studebaker Built Packards (1957 - 58)

Randy: My point was and I will state again what you call those few problems Packard had when they introduced the 55 ( Cost Packard sales of units, gave them a bad reputation, and cost Packard a hell of a bundle of money to fix them)


In the first three months of 1955 it was costing Packard $85.00 per unit to fix the problems on cars that came out of the factory. Packard for the year 1955 sold close to 55,500 units according to figures I come up with. So in the first three months of 1955 only two out of every five cars were up to quality typical of the industry at that time. So to fix the other 60% at $ 85.00 a pop it cost Packard over $ 700,000 to fix those problem units.

I guess that was one of the reasons Packard ran out of cash was because of those few problems.


John F. Shireman

I tend to agree with Randy also.

When people start talking about "quality issues", and that word gets out, AND the company is having cash flow problems anyway, AND the perception is that they might become orphans...then all of that is a contributing FACTOR in Packard's failure.

I have made other posts in these forums regarding the number of Packards still out there and running after over 50 years. Not to mention those like the '37 in the latest issue of HCC that were stashed in garages for years (or out in the open), and end up running and drivable with a MINIMUM of work.

So IMHO, any quality issues with the 1955s-1956s turned OUT to be minor.

But they were not perceived that way at that time.

Look at what's going on with Toyota right now. I'd bet most of the millions of them out there are perfectly fine cars with all of the reliability Toyota is famous for. But all the attention is being focused om the few that have had issues.

Hi

In the auto business, two maxims apply: "Perception IS Reality" and "Nothing is more fragile than a reputation for high quality". Regardless of reality, these are the controlling factors. Rumors of quality problems spread like wildfire, just as those of financial distress and potential orphan status.

As complex and unfamiliar as the '55 models were, maintaining assembly operation as they were up to '54 would have gone a long way toward avoiding the situation that resulted in those quality problems. Plus, avoided the waste of $30 million to move into a crackerbox!

Apparently, they were able to overcome those challenges by indication of the existing cars. Still, better to avoid the potential problems in the first place. A damaged quality reputation is very difficult to repair, Toyota is about to find out how difficult!

Steve

In 1955 the average warranty expense for Packard per car was $30.00.

John F. Shireman

There have been recalls as long as I can remember. Some were publicised and many were not.
Why is Toyota getting beat up so bad, mostly by the government who should NOT be sticking their nose in it anyway.
There is a simple explanation - I wish I had thought of it. How do you hurt your competition? By having better styling? - new innovations? - lower prices? How about really jumping on them whenever they have a problem? Really run off at the mouth and declare how bad they are to have these recalls. It's just terrible! Who is Toyota's competition that would stoop to those tactics?
None other than Government Motors.

In 1955 the average warranty expense for Packard per car was $30.00.

John, how does this square with your comment in your post #11 above that the cost was $85 per? Was the $85 just for the first part of 1955 or am I misinterpreting your earlier post? I had thought I had heard that the 1954 cost was about $30 per car. Just trying to understand the difference.

Randy,

Your hypothesis is 100% correct about the Toyota takedown.

I won't go into it more here, but there certainly are people who will be benefiting from Toyota's troubles.

I just watched a piece on the news about some of the brake issues. Who will benefit on the whole fiasco is open for debate, IMHO.

It was alleged brake issues were known about and investigations were opened by the NTSB some time ago. Since there was apparently no staff versed in modern software & the technology involved expertise, they relied on Toyota to investigate. When Toyota reported there was no problem, the cases were closed. Now all of a sudden Toyota has admitted they knew about the problem, had developed a fix & repaired it on some vehicles and will begin fixing older ones "on a case by case basis for now". Ford also apparently has the same issue on their hybrids so must be buying their parts from same place. Since we have almost no domestic hybrid development thanks to the politicians believing that was not a proper place to use government funds and killing off all funding for programs a few years ago, guess that was to be expected.

There are also a few reports now of cruise controls gaining speed by themselves. The accelerator fix is still not totally being believed that it is mechanical rather than software so guess time will also tell on that. Other manufactures have had both minor and major issues they denied until forced to admit and fix them.

My point is that it is obvious that car manufacturers are not going to police themselves so who should be watching if government should not be involved? I guess there is always caveat emptor but I think I would prefer something a little stronger.

I don't remember the gov't being involved back in the 50s-60s.
But we did have good investigative reporting and if there was something serious going on, it would be reported. To be honest I just do not trust gov't and their motives. They are in our lives far too much as it is.
I'll get off my soap box now and return you to your regular programming.
(It's snowing like hell here - eight inches and still coming down.)

Quote:
But how long was the warranty period? I seem to recall in the owners manual my 1947 had a 90 day warranty.