Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut

VARIED THOUGHTS - JIMMIE JOHNSON SHOULD RETIRE TODAY!

We have a big stage in this country, but the fame it offers is short-lived.

A friend of mine, well-known for his collection of classic automobiles, won so many Best of Show titles at major Concours d’Elegance events that he was asked to remove his cars from competition and enter them in an “exhibition only” class.

And when it comes to winning – again and again -- just how genuinely excited can any rock group be while on-stage playing their 50-year old hits for the 1000^th time? 

This peculiar “Here today, gone tomorrow” American phenomenon is nowhere more powerful than in the world of sports.

Now, winning a fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title championship, is it time for Jimmie Johnson to leave NASCAR? 
 
Absolutely. And he can’t do it soon enough. He should announce it at the NASCAR Awards Banquet this week in Las Vegas. 

We Americans love our winners, but we soon come to hate anyone who hangs around too long, who overstays their welcome. 

We’ve even placed a limit on how many times anyone can occupy the job demanding the best skills, most popularity and practiced, highly-specialized experience in this country and, arguably, the world: President of the United States. 

Two times and you’re out, no matter how loved and popular the incumbent might be. The fact that this particular term limit was added to the Constitution fairly recently (within many of our lifetimes) shows that “out with the old, in with the new” remains more than a catch phrase; indeed it has become a staple of American life.

(And another fact -- that political term limits don’t allow the public to vote for whoever they feel might be the best candidate, which some argue makes for a somewhat less-than-free nation -- is rightful fodder for another posting altogether).

Johnson is about to get swept-up in America’s own “What have you done for me lately?” mentality.

It’s already a reason why, for all his amazing accomplishments, including the one this past Sunday, he is rarely mentioned as deserving to be a member of that rarefied group: the world’s greatest race car drivers.
 
Yep, boys, that there's nothing other than a Tucker all set-up for NASCAR racin' back in the far-away '50s!

Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, Roger Penske and Carroll Shelby, Americans all, are considered among the world’s greatest drivers (and racing engineers) because they have excelled in more than one major form of motorsport.

Compared to those listed above, are Johnson’s five NASCAR titles enough for the price of his admission to best-ever club?

Apparently not. For all JJ’s success, even NASCAR’s TV announcers, who never met a driver they didn’t love, while occasionally calling NASCAR drivers as a whole “the world’s best race car drivers,” have yet to call Johnson, as far as we’ve heard, the leader of that (somewhat generic-sounding) pack.

GM's A WINNER TODAY, BUT DANGERS STILL LURK!

As TV's Craig Ferguson often says, "It's a great day for America, everybody!"

And, it was quite a day for General Motors.

The company raised more than $18 billion in the larget and most-successful Initial Public Stock Offering in history, has now paid-back the federal government more than 1/2 of the $50 billion in bail-out funds it received after going into bankruptcy some 17 months ago and the Chevrolet Volt extended-range hybrid sedan was named Motor Trend Magazine's 2011 Car of the Year.

And in the meantime, analysts estimate GM, in the course of all these accomplishments, has managed to save about 1.4 million American jobs. Naturally, and rightly so, President Obama and the White House have come out looking pretty good, too.

I got into the auto journalism business in the early 1970s, during the first days of the "Asian invasion," which set the U.S. auto industry on a 30-year course which resulted in its near-demise. The first oil shortages of the '70s allowed lower-priced, higher-mileage cars, mostly Japanese, to challenge the then-Big Three, a challenge which some say those companies have still yet to fully answer.

And due to my history following the worldwide auto industry, I can see where GM could fairly easily fall into many of the same bad habits which resulted in their first, recent bankruptcy. They need to be careful and e-mail this column to every employee in the company.

While today is surely a time to celebrate GM, it's also critical to take a quick look at the 11 ways GM could find itself in the same BK boat which nearly destroyed forever the American auto business as we'd known it for 100 years.

1- Arrogance
The good ol' boy network which built itself inside and around GM (and Ford and Chrysler) was the result of too many top executives of those companies coming from the same cultural backgrounds (and often same families), going to the same schools and sharing the same Wall Street and boardroom values. If the current and near-future crop of Big Three execs allow the same old arrogrance which dominated the industry  for decades to crop up again, GM, especially, will be putting its neck on the line.

2- Focus on quantify, not quality
GM sales are not great, but are starting to grow and look solid. Certainly the possibility exists for GM to not become as dominant as it once was, but to be an important powerhouse in the American and world economy. But through the '50s, '60s and '70s, GM's biggest problem was building enough cars for their dealers to sell (and dealing with an ongoing threat from Washington to label the company a "monopoly" and break it up). Akio Toyoda, head of the Japanese giant, now the biggest car company inthe world, recently testified in front of Congress that his company concentrating on growth and not ongoing quality set the stage for Toyota's worldwide safety and quality problems. It happened to GM before and could easily happen again. Stay lean and mean, GM.

3- Complacency
Failure to grow and thrive is an enemy of almost every grand undertaking. Sitting back on its laurels (GM can boast about the Volt for years to come without necessarily moving forward) is a real danger to GM. The company needs to make sure the people who worked on Volt and similar projects the past decade remain and grow into real positions of power within GM. Bean-counters in the executive suite are important (I guess), but forward-thinking engineers and stylists, among other futurists, are key to the company's survival and growth.

4- A quarterly focus only
The record-setting $18 billion IPO has created new standards for every industry worldwide. But it also reminds us that while public ownership is the very spirit of American industry, it can also set the stage for a corporate focus on the next quarter, forcing the company to hit the accelerator and then the brakes wuthut regard to anything beyond the next three month's of the company's growth. We've seen all too clearly what dangers lie for a giant corporation when the next quarter becomes all-powerful.

5- NIH
"Not Invented Here" has been a too-dominant philosophy in the auto industry worldwide for as long as the business has been in existence. Too often, only ideas and inventions developed "in-house" are acceptable to a corporate board, and NIH almost guarantees those are the only ones which are developed into future products. NIH forces a company to ignore the vast majority of developments and inventions and concepts from competitors and others around the world, forcing an arrogant (there's that word again) and often wasteful viewpoint throughout a company. Again, GM,  has done this before and can easily find itself in this same dangerous predicament again.

WINTERIZE THAT CAR OR TRUCK ... AND THIS TIME, DO IT RIGHT!

As cars and trucks have gotten to the advanced stage they are in today, the idea of "winterizing" your bad ride has taken on new meaning. These days, for instance, getting ready for the new and potentially harsh season involves the driver and his or her driving skills as much as it does readying the car and its systems.

Here are some ways to help guarantee your driving safety this winter. As I write this, sitting in Southern California on November 11, with the temperature arund 75 degrees earlier today, let it be known we have the utmost sympathy for those of you around the country and world who really need these tips!

Right...

First, and perhaps the changes in cars and trucks that best illustrates how different winterizing is from the days of your father's Oldsmobile (your father's what?), is the concept of a "tune-up."

In cruising the Web while doing a bit of research for this post, several reputable sites featured "Get a tune-up" when offering their opinion on winterizing your car or truck, but there's really no such thing as a traditional tune-up anymore. Other than checking the spark plugs and spark plug wires, there's not a lot for the owner (or technician) to do when readying for a new season of driving in the form of a tune-up.

In fact, most cars and trucks built since the mid-1990s perform their own tune-ups hundreds or even thousands of times a minute. But those spark plugs and plug wires do deserve an inspection and replacement if warranted. So do it.

Second, check all the vehicle belts, hoses and fluids. Remember that belts and hoses in particular are hard to check, mostly because rubber rots from the inside out and if a belt or hose is getting ready to blow, it's hard to tell from the part's appearance. But you definitely don't want a fan belt tearing off on the coldest day of the year, so just figure it's a great idea to replace belts and hoses about every 60,000 miles, regardless of how they appear.

Problems with fluids (from washer fluid, which should be mixed with 1/3 anti-freeze for the winter months, to checking the power steering and brake fluid and other sundry liquids) can put you on the side of the road as sure as a busted belt or hose. Note which fluids need topping-off or replacing and make CERTAIN you replace or add to them with the vehicle-maker's recommended liquids. This is not an area in which to get creative.

Go through the HVAC system (heating, vent and air conditioning), turning all the system components on and off and checking that the properly heated air is coming out of the right vents at the right levels. You will probably want some help from a technician in making repairs to the system, and this is one of those cases where it's worth it to shell out the dough to get everything working right before the first blizzard of the season hits.

Also make sure the electric heaters embedded in the windshield or rear glass (aka "backlite") are working properly.

Five obvious items on the winterizing checklist which you may forget about are: four tires and a spare. Whether you use snow tires or not during the cold months of the year, having a good, discernible and useful tread on the tires you do use is crucial this time of the year.

Same goes for your windshield wipers. They're generally inexpensive enough that merely checking them is worth your time and trouble, but replacing them is safer and more cost-effective. Not a place to skimp.

Air and water leaking into your ride? Keep the inside high and dry. Now's a good time to replace any old and rotted rubber molding allowing that bad stuff into the car. An upholstery shop can help you get the right molding and slip it into position for minimum cost, time and trouble. And what a pleasant difference your efforts can make!

Run through the electrical system as much as you're able, but critical to a safe winter of motoring is a battery that's in tip-top shape. Again, here's an area when skimping makes no sense at all.

And learn how to drive what for you may be some of the new-fangled items on cars and trucks, especially Anti-Lock Brake Systems and All-Wheel Drive. Now is the time to learn how these systems feel in the real world, not after the first three inches of snow are on the ground!

Have a good winter and most of all, a safe one!

 Follow Steve Parker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/autojourno