Who’s to Blame for U.S. Auto Industry Problems?

Why doesn’t it occur to the Big Three auto makers that they might try building good cars for a change, “Experts Doubt U.S. Will Rescue Auto Industry” (March 30)? The industry’s problems will not be solved with politics, trade barriers, economic studies, or anything else except better cars.

The “cool reception” by the White House to recent industry proposals indicate that the government is starting to figure out what consumers have known for years--Detroit’s products are inferior.

The auto makers need to shed some of their greed, stop crying about “unfair competition” and get to building decent cars. Am I the only one that remembers the multimillion-dollar bonuses top auto executives gave themselves in the 1970s while the quality of their cars was going down the drain? The industry is suffering from a long epidemic of bad management.

Super crybaby, Lee A. Iacocca, took millions of dollars in pay plus perks out of Chrysler while giving customers myriad poorly made, technologically obsolete K cars, the sole merit of many of them being a Japanese engine.

The really bad news is that the worst may be yet to come. It has taken almost a generation for Detroit to persuade even the most loyal Americans to drive Japanese or European cars if they want to stay on the road instead of in the shop.

So, even if Detroit started to build good cars, it would probably take another generation before the majority of car buyers would believe it. Having been badly burned on my last three Detroit clunkers, I will probably not live long enough to ever be sold another one.

Come on, Detroit, what’s good for General Motors is no longer good for the country. You can no longer fool most of us.

CHARLES MCGEHEE

San Diego