Lots of automotive manufacturing has gone the same way. They just keep going further south until they gut away from the evil unions and into the arms of anti-union policies (see also: right to work laws) and corporate welfare.

Or are those the workers that get hired because they’ll just fall into line?

Unions will only get away with as much bullshit as their membership allows.

So then you have to look at what allows global interests to compete with local manufacturers. If you do, you will see that duties and trade tariffs have been going down since the 80s. My understanding is also that these import taxes were also responsible for funding the federal government.

I’ve been driving in real winters where the snow falls in November and doesn’t go away until March, if we’re lucky, for 20 years and never had an issue worth noting with FWD only. Outside of times when you shouldn’t be on the roads otherwise, a proper set of winter tires is more than enough.

What’s wrong with roads in the west? There’s a highway just south of me that goes about 100 kilometers dead straight east to west and I’m not even exaggerating.

What caused the tire to go flat, I’m not sure. I can tell you that it has been driven on either flat or severely under-inflated.

To understand what’s going on, first thing you have to realize is that a vast majority of automotive techs are paid flat rate. Each job is assigned a value in terms of hours and that is all you will ever get paid for that job. Many dealerships take liberties with such values and trim times for various tasks as they…

No it’s accurate. They’ll fake sympathy when clocked (or flagged as it may be) hours mysteriously go missing. They won’t do anything about it, but they’ll say they care.

It’s because too many techs are distracted by the carrot of flat rate to go union.

I only have a relatively small toolbox, a Mac Tech 1000 series double bank roll cab, the box itself weighs almost 500 pounds. It’s easily over 1000 with my tools.

If they voted in favour of a union and the state certified it as such, even before an agreement is reached it’s effectively a union shop. Laws will vary across jurisdictions so I can’t comment any further.

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute. There’s way better things for cops to be over worried about.

Dealer parts + repainting

Sounds like any sales team to me.

I would have to agree. If you are some big shot and random sales guy won’t give you the time of day, I’m sure there’s something in your wallet more impressive than my gold credit card. Slap it down and give some indication you’re actually serious.

To be honest, a Ford dealer probably has way more hungry sales staff that can’t afford to NOT to take a lead. I worked at a large brand dealership and 60% of the salespeople were nothing more than cattle. Filling time before they get canned inside of 6 months. The big producers were held up as gods.

“Starting at...” is neither a new ploy, or exclusive to the automotive sector.

I went CP for only one reason. Demanding a premium price for what is really a collector car and the (presumed) dude listing it only posted 3 photos. WTF does the rest of the car look like? For all the ad shows it could be nearly destroyed.

Knowing what kind of racing most appeals to you should be the first step.