GM and Ford work to keep their momentum with an increased focus on reliability

At the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Mich., workers use magnets to mark some cars for extra scrutiny in vibration testing. (Fabrizio Costantini / New York Times News Service)

MILFORD, Mich.-- Josh Smith is a large man with a shaved head, a goatee and a look in his eyes that can only be described as stoked. And he is never more stoked than when he talks about his job, one of the strangest at the General Motors Proving Grounds, in this suburb 45 miles northwest of Detroit.

All day, he breaks GM parts.

Not just any parts. Smith is a member of Red X, a team of 33 engineers who study auto parts that are malfunctioning for reasons that have everyone stumped. The work is a little bit "CSI" and a little bit "MythBusters." Red X takes working parts and methodically torments them in controlled experiments, hoping to re-enact the demise of the ones that failed.

"Every defective part is like a dead body," says Smith, giving a tour of the premises in late February. "To figure out what killed it, we need to duplicate the crime."

Members of this elite group say they have gone from fixing major problems that affect hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road to fine-tuning pre-production models that are not yet on sale. And that change highlights a message that GM -- as well as its domestic rival Ford -- are both pitching hard these days: We're better now. Take a look.

Adam Freeman, left, and David Pfarr investigate steering vibrations on a 2010 Buick at the General Motors Proving Grounds. (Fabrizio Costantini / New York Times News Service)

In the past few months, GM and Ford have been handed a once-in-a-generation chance to make their case to an American buying public that is listening as never before. But are GM and Ford ready to answer?

Absolutely, the companies say, and analysts and consumer surveys suggest that both automakers have made substantial strides in the last three years in improving vehicle reliability.

Jamie Hresko, GM's vice president for quality, has reduced the employee-to-foreman ratio to 5:1 from 15:1. It has revamped its repair information processing system -- just as Ford did -- and vastly increased the amount of punishment each model is designed to endure.

"We've substantially upped the testing," says Hresko. "We used to build vehicles to a certain mileage requirement. Now, they're built not to fail."

However, both American companies know that to turn the gains of the last few months into a long-term trend, they'll have to do more than capitalize on other automakers' mistakes.

"We know we can't take our eye off the ball," says Bennie Fowler, Ford's vice president for global quality. "We need to continue our momentum."

There was evidence of progress at Red X on the day of the tour. A handful of parts were undergoing tests, including a seat cushion that was being pounded by a robotic elbow and a seat slide bar that was being yanked by a machine.

Josh Smith, the engineer, stood near the pummeled seat cushion and recounted a mystery that the team solved not long ago, involving a clunking sound in the Cadillac DTS.

After some tests, Red X concluded that the problem was a machine stamping out a steel part at a supplier in Alabama that wasn't doing enough maintenance on that machine.

"We called the company and described the tool to them without even seeing it," Smith says. "We knew what it was just from the forensics."