Despite Lower U.S. Sales, GM's Mexico Exports Rose Big-Time In 2017

[Gorehamj]

John Goreham

Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com

1-9-2018

From January through November, GM increased exports of its vehicles from Mexico by 26%. The largest import market for those vehicles is, of course, the United States.  General Motors is the largest exporter of vehicles from Mexico. Nissan makes more vehicles in Mexico, but more stay in the country for domestic consumption. 

 

During the second half of 2017, Canadian workers at one key GM plant went on strike over job guarantees that their jobs building the hot new Equinox compact crossover would not go south to Mexico like the GMC Terrain had. Union representatives pointed out that workers in Mexico have a lower cost to GM and wanted the company to promise not to shift work there. GM did not make that promise, and as crazy as this might sound, increased the Canadian workers' pay to kick that can down the road a bit longer.  

 

In stark contrast to GM's big Mexican export increases in 2017, Ford's exports from Mexico dropped. One reason for that is Ford had been making mostly cars in Mexico and cars have jumped the shark. GM makes trucks and crossovers in Mexico. Overall, about 14% of all the light trucks and cars in the U.S. in 2017 were built in Mexico. 

[GMdenali831]

interesting article

[mookdoc6]

My 2000 Impala from Oshawa and 2016 GMC Sierra from Mexico both from outside the USA were TOP Shelf!  Honestly, my 2016 GMC Sierra @ almost 50K takes the cake!  The fit and finish is pretty much perfect.....We all want American jobs but subpar quality and I don't give a crap attitudes obviously not coming from these plants......

[PhantomSierra16]

4 hours ago, mookdoc6 said:

My 2000 Impala from Oshawa and 2016 GMC Sierra from Mexico both from outside the USA were TOP Shelf!  Honestly, my 2016 GMC Sierra @ almost 50K takes the cake!  The fit and finish is pretty much perfect.....We all want American jobs but subpar quality and I don't give a crap attitudes obviously not coming from these plants......

Lol I don’t know about you but my 2016 GMC Sierra that’s 51% Echo en Mexico has been to the dealership twice one for a failed catalytic converter, and a failed chassis module. It has less than 36k miles on it, has been properly maintained and treated fairly nice.

 

My 2013 VW Passat that’s made in the USA has been in the dealership only for a couple oil changes and some maintenance as well, at 90k miles it makes GM’s Quality control look like a pre K student aweing at car. 

 

I love the GMC when it works, but come on man if you’re a US company build your top sellers in America. 

[mookdoc6]

Lol, VW has far more issues than the General as for quality control VW is not top tier nothing great about them other than, Hey, "I am the guy who bought something different"  VW's pretty much suck on many levels...

[Nargg]

The only real problems I've seen with my Mexican built Silverado is mainly software.  That and a bad seat design that had to be fixed under a service bulletin.  I hope they redesign the seats for MUCH better results in the 2019 version.  The current seats really suck.  Anyway, the software problems are definitely NOT Mexican in origin, so I can't say the build quality is nothing than good on my Silverado.

 

@ PhantomSierra16 - Where was the catalytic converter and chassis module made?  In Mexico they just put those on the truck, I doubt they made them.  Trucks as with most cars are truly built all over the World, with parts from many corners of the World.  Final assembly really doesn't amount to very much any more.  Especially since it's growing to be more and more robotically done than hand labor.omSierra16