Odd that Cadillac commercials imply MagneRide is still owned by GM.

[Frag Maniac]

After seeing all the recent Cadillac TV commercials saying Ferrari employs their MagneRide technology, I looked into this a bit because I often hear Brits on race game forums wax on about how Americans don't know how to make cars, esp regarding their handling. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical whether Americans actually designed it.

Well, turns out the first generation of it actually was designed by Delphi of Troy Michigan. Problem is, if you look at what followed in GM's chapter 11 problems, they apparently sold off their global suspension and brakes business as one of many divisions they scaled back overhead on, which includes of course MagneRide.

This is why MagneRide is now actually owned by Beijing World Industries Group. So while those commercials may be giving Americans new hope in buying domestic, they seem to hide a sad, sad truth about the state of our economy and the reality of just how long it will take to truly recover. Even with the Tsunami in Japan and flooding in Thailand, US auto sales haven't increased to be anywhere near what they were before the recession.

What I find odd, is that Delphi, according to Wiki, rationalized the sale of their global suspension and brakes business, which of course includes MagneRide, by viewing it as one of the "facilities and business lines that do not support the company’s future strategic framework", yet here we have big names like Ferrari interested in MagneRide, but now the Chinese are the ones profiting off it.

After looking into this I came away thinking it's not the way Americans design cars that's the problem, it's the way they manage their business. So while it sounds all good at first when you hear Lawrence Fishburne making it clear that Ferrari is copying Cadillac's suspension, and not the other way around, what he doesn't tell you is that financially he's really being a spokesperson for the Chinese. Any thoughts?

[zanzabar]

u should just ignore it, its like the zr1 commercial were they say they had to loose 150HP but they had a 6.2L supercharged engine that would be counted as an 11.1L engine (displacement x 1.8 for forced induction), or the gm one were they are the "most powerful and fuel efficient" when they compare base v8 engines to their tiny v6 for fuel efficiency and the 6.2L for power, or the dodge one that says the cars are "made all in the USA" when they are made in mexico and canada mostly then assembled here, or the ford one saying the torus has better resale than the 2010 camry (the camry got a quarter year run and its the last year of a not so good car when ford just updated to a mondeo based car with new quad cam v6 engines or turbo 4.) there are others but ya the commercials are misleading thats the point.

on topic, i thought that there was a merc with magnetic shocks in the 90's and i thought that toyota had one in the late 80's or early 90's that came in the celica rally edition (gtr4 i think)

[don_xvi]

I think you're reading things into that commerical that aren't intended.
All they're trying to sell and promote is Cadillacs, not Delphi, Beijing Industries or Mageride. Nobody watching that commerical is in the market to buy any of those 3 things, just a new Caddy.
They never said that GM owns the company making the technology, just that the CTS had it before the 458.
Cadillac is big right now on promoting their technology, just like the commercials advertising they have auto-dry brakes and 4 wheel ABS. They're not claiming to have patented these things, just showing that Caddys have a lot of technology inside.

[Frag Maniac]

@zan,
I'm not saying Cadillac or GM is embellishing by these ads, nor is your pointing out examples where others have really to the point, after all it IS true that Delphi originally patented the tech and Ferrari now uses it. If anything I'm saying it's sad they don't own rights to the tech anymore, mostly due to poor management decisions during their chapter 11 problems as I pointed out.

@don,
No I'm not reading more into the ad than is intended. The ad seeks mainly to sell Cadillacs on the qualification that Ferrari uses a tech they employ, that part is completely understandable. However it can't be denied that they are pretty much saying that tech IS Cadillac's, which is not true anymore. Somehow you misconstrued my meaning as saying it never was, it's just that poor management decisions caused them to, probably regrettably, sell it off.

This is the only practical response I've seen yet to this thread, where I posted it elsewhere:

After looking into this I came away thinking it's not the way Americans design cars that's the problem, it's the way they manage their business.

"That has been the US auto industries problem for fifty-years."

For some reason I assumed, this being a more tech oriented forum than Filefront, that the responses here would be more understandable, in fact that's why I posted it here first. Silly me.

[[XC] Lead Head]

You're trying to find something that isn't there. That commercial meant only what it said. The CTS-V Series use the same magnetic shock absorber as the Ferrari 458. Delphi probably developed and tuned the shocks with Cadillac, but the tech was never GM's. Delphi was spun off from GM as a separate company in 1997.

Delphi had been struggling for a long time. Magnetic adjustable shocks are not a very large market, and Delphi was probably loosing money on it, so they sold the division off.

[Frag Maniac]

Actually they go literally out of their way to say Cadillac didn't get MagneRide from Ferrari, Ferrari got it from Cadillac, but in reality they don't even own the tech anymore. The only reason MagneRide stagnated while they DID own it is they poorly marketed it, and now that they don't own it anymore they're spending big money to market it with these commercial. You're telling me you don't see the irony there?

Furthermore GM FORMED ACG, which later became Delphi, so Delphi pretty much IS part of GM, and it wasn't Delphi or MagneRide specifically GM sold off, they sold off their entire global suspension and brakes business. Delphi is pretty big, and they don't just make suspension and brake parts.

THAT'S the reality, like I said, the only one responding so far that gets it is the one that said "That has been the US auto industries problem for fifty-years", regarding poorly managing their business. Whatever, maybe I shouldn't have posted it here. I can't believe no one here gets what's going on. Maybe someone that doesn't try to be a auto industry know it all can chime in and actually say something sensible.

[STEvil]

The mismanagement is not specific to the auto industry even.

Also its possible the patents to the magneride are owned by cadillac.

[[XC] Lead Head]

Actually they go literally out of their way to say Cadillac didn't get MagneRide from Ferrari, Ferrari got it from Cadillac, but in reality they don't even own the tech anymore. The only reason MagneRide stagnated while they DID own it is they poorly marketed it, and now that they don't own it anymore they're spending big money to market it with these commercial. You're telling me you don't see the irony there?

Furthermore GM FORMED ACG, which later became Delphi, so Delphi pretty much IS part of GM, and it wasn't Delphi or MagneRide specifically GM sold off, they sold off their entire global suspension and brakes business. Delphi is pretty big, and they don't just make suspension and brake parts.

THAT'S the reality, like I said, the only one responding so far that gets it is the one that said "That has been the US auto industries problem for fifty-years", regarding poorly managing their business. Whatever, maybe I shouldn't have posted it here. I can't believe no one here gets what's going on. Maybe someone that doesn't try to be a auto industry know it all can chime in and actually say something sensible.

Once again, Cadillac, GM, etc.. never owned MagneRide. Yes, Delphi was part of GM, but it has not been for 11 years. MagneRide was developed 3 years after Delphi split off. The sooner you realize money Delphi Spends/Loses != Money GM Spends/Loses, the better. Delphi had their own stock symbol, their own CEO, their own headquarters, and their own budget balance sheets. It was an entirely different company. Delphi filed for Bankruptcy in 2005, and they finally exited it relatively recently. They have nothing to do with GM internally except that they are a large parts supplier for GM vehicles.

GM may have co-developed MagneRide with Delphi, but they still didn't own the rights to the technology.

The problem is you're seeing something that isn't there. Cadillac is advertising their vehicles, that their vehicles have MagneRide shocks, and they use the same shocks Ferrari adopted. GM never got any profit from MagneRide since it was not developed by them. That's Delphi that is loosing money, not GM. (Not even, since Delphi profits and revenues are up) Magnetic suspension is a top tier luxury vehicle technology, so profits are minimal.

I can't believe no one here gets what's going on. Maybe someone that doesn't try to be a auto industry know it all can chime in and actually say something sensible.

That says it all really. You don't actually care what anyone one else thinks if it doesn't agree with your opinion. You came in here asking for people's thoughts on the matter, but you get upset when their thoughts differ from yours?

[don_xvi]

OK, so I went and actually re-watched the commerical in question. I stand corrected, they did say "Ferrari borrowed the technology from Cadillac", so I was starting from an erroneous recollection of the nature of their claims. I guess my "auto industry know it all" self (being a vehicle handling development engineer for a major auto manufacturer) immediately saw through the marketing hype and knew this stuff is a commodity you go buy from a supplier, so when I filed the commerical away in my head, I didn't take it to be such an atrocity as it actually is! This is horrible, I'd suggest you buy a CTS-V and file a class-action lawsuit against Cadillac for false advertising.

I have to agree with Lead Head, you came in here and asked for our thoughts, then dismissed us as idiots for not agreeing with your interpretation of a commercial, when your real point seems to have been that the American auto industry is grossly mismanaged. WTF?

[Judaeus Apella]

I agree 110%. I've read about so many failed models and terrible flaws that were directly the fault of poor business practices and business ethics of the company, and their efforts to minimalize cost that led to design problems, recalls, total failures, and safety issues. I remember Ford being one of the worst ones in the past. Remember their runaway explorers? And lets not forget those exploding Pintos!

[zanzabar]

there was never any exploding pintos, there was a problem were if u did not remove the key affter an accident the electric fuel pump in the 1st year would keep going and pump fuel into the road and torch the car. there were never any that exploded and the fuel tank was not more vulnerable than any other car at the time as they were all under the trunk/hatch directly behind the bumper.

the pinto was really a great car since it good power to weight for the time, RWD and they were extremely reliable once the smog pump was pinched and a real carb was added. the engine was the best american i4 and was the same block as the svo cars, and the stock car with a proper carb and smog pump fix would run a 2L with 70's fuel at 125-130HP and ran 100 stock (chevy was runnig a 4L i6 for 100hp in 74 and the pushrod ford stuff was running 3.3L for 100HP. so the pinto was really a great step foreword in the us market.

it also can bolt on a turbo easy on the pinto but they were not easy to get then. i saw a perfect low mileage 72 on the mechem auction a month ago go for $2200 that had one owner and like 20k miles with ac, i would love to buy a pinto for that much and i would drive the crap out of it.

[Judaeus Apella]

Tell that to the hundreds of people who burned to death... oh wait, you can't. They're dead.

[zanzabar]

Tell that to the hundreds of people who burned to death... oh wait, you can't. They're dead.

there were 3 fatalities and less than 10 injuries from the fuel pump,(27 died total from fire), it was blown out of proportion and skewed by a lawyer who bought one that broke down on him, who was latter found to have ties to chevy, and berated them in the media affter a mother died her daughter was burnt and ford was found guilty since they knew that there was a potential problem (not the same lawyer), and only effected the 1st year. sure the car was unsafe since it was small and had no crumple and people did not wear seat belts then, but u would not catch on fire if u turned the car off and it statistically happened that less % of pintos went up than the % of all cars on the raod that caught fire in crashes.

and if it was so bad and they were unsafe the mercury bobcat (aka pinto) would not be something that people would want now, but they are one of the quickest growing makes for collector/classic cars.

[Judaeus Apella]

I read an article earlier this year and I remember them saying that the number of burn deaths in Pintos was conservatively around 500 fatalities.

[zanzabar]

there was a guy from rutgers who looked at every case and found that there were 27 fatalities, http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/archives/000023.php

the fuel pump was tied to the ignition running for the 1974 model and the fuel pump was made to not pump with no restriction in the 73 model. so it was no more unsafe than say a chevet that had the tank in the same spot. so it was just something that caught on with the public. if u want to get on ford for burnt up cars the cruse control catching fire from the cap on the brake fluid being eaten by abs fluid and burning down houses, or using firestone tires that were not rated for the speed and load of an explorer being used is good place to start.

[STEvil]

I had a mercury bobcat.. kind of miss it now lol

also to add to the flames there's the huge issue ford had with the solenoids in pretty much everything from 1980 to 2005..

[[XC] Lead Head]

Yeah, the Pinto issue was hugely exaggerated. Hundreds of people did not die. I've never heard of runaway Explorers either. Flipping over because of under-inflated tires? Yes.

The other Ford fire issue is not from solenoids. It has to do with a cruise-control cancel switch that was brake pressure activated. The brake fluid would break down the components of the switch over time, and cause it to short out. The switch was made by Texas Instruments - not Ford.

[STEvil]

just read the info on that one, wonder if brake controller problems on the 250's are indicative of an issue? Boss's truck is randomly having lighting issues through the trailer brake controller..

edit - could swear the one I was thinking of was the solenoids.. but maybe it was the TFI module? That'd be ~10-20 million vehicles probably anyways..

[[XC] Lead Head]

Yup, TFI modules on the distributor based engines was a big one.

[Sparky]

Fuel tanks cannot explode. Gasoline does not explode in liquid form.