Originally Posted by
7milesout
Steve - I don't mean to poop on your parade. For me the issue is: I was a patented design engineer for Toyota. I loved that place, loved the guys, they insisted I didn't do work if it wasn't accomplishing anything useful. They'd rather me jaw about cars and drink beer in the office versus waste my time on useless work. So they focus on only useful work. And they are on the inside, exactly what they portray on the inside. And that's at the Japanese Corporate level. Once it transfer to US side sales, well, the US sales side sucks just as much as every other OEM US sales and service.
I left Toyota to join Hyundai (due to the wife's preferred living region), assuming it would be virtually the same. Boy was I shocked. As far as a people, South Korean people are warm, loving, dedicated, respectful people. I love 'em. As far as the Hyundai-Kia engineering mindset, they stink to HIGH HEAVEN.
Their corporate mission statement is: "We're going to see how Toyota did it, then we're going to try to do it the same way, without the bother of understanding the basis of WHY whatever it is we're copying has designed in that way. By "it" we mean everything. And, we're going to do a shi11y job copying it, and lie to each other about how well we're doing, all along the way."
Out of all the "work" I did at Hyundai-Kia, I would say less than 5% was even useful. And that was the case for most engineers, especially the American side. Their engineers are really only experts at powerpoint. They are an absolute joke compared to Toyota. And ... 2 things. 1) The only reason they're better than all European crap OEMs (excluding Porsche), is because, even though they do a lousy job copying Toyota, at least they're copying Toyota. If they were copying BMW, OMG they would cease to exist. 2) They stole a stylist (not sure what they call the position) from Volkswagen in the neighborhood of 10 years ago. Peter Von Something from my memory (assuming he is still there). He did a fantastic job to bring up the style of the cars.
Yet still, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still pig. The crap that the Korean engineers do KNOWINGLY against the law (regarding Free Trade Zone rules) and God knows what else, is appalling. I felt so worthless while I was there. But the feeling was so strong in that way because I had left Toyota, where EVERYTHING I did had value. Toyota didn't want us to spend much time creating powerpoint presentations. They wanted us to engineer. Yeah, slap some pictures on a ppt and talk to it, format be damned. But at Hyundai, all I and the Korean engineers did all day every day was work on stupid powerpoint presentations. And redo them half a dozen times because they weren't elegant enough for the suits. As soon as the powerpoint was looked at (if it ever was), it was into the trash and onto the next powerpoint. Ridiculous and worthless. I reached the level of Jedi-Master on powerpoint. My Korean manager was a Sith Lord, and my powerpoint was never good enough for him.
When I took my next position after Hyundai-Kia, I was shocked to realize that I had forgotten how to do work. I had to go to rehab in order to relearn how to do work again. Other people were there learning how to walk again. But when I was there, they'd say, "Ok 7milesout, do work, design something." And I'd open powerpoint, and they'd hit me with electrical shocks, until I learned to open SolidWorks and get out my calipers...
All this to say, I don't blame you for buying that Elantra. It's almost a Corolla. But there is a reason why an Elantra after say 5 years is worth $6,500, and the equivalent Corolla is worth $12k (just round numbers, not saying those are accurate). A 5 year / 60k mile powertrain warranty with Toyota is nearly worthless, because mostly it is not even needed. A 10 year / 100k mile power train warranty with Hyundai is extremely valuable.
7milesout
Cheap Plastic Car
My Mirage
Reply With Quote
Blueberry
