The automaker, which makes the Accord sedan and Odyssey minivan, reports net profit for the July-September fiscal second quarter fell to $788 million.

Quarterly sales sank 16.3 percent from a year earlier to $24.6 billion, with sales in North America falling the most – 22.3 percent.

Honda Motor Co. said flooding in Thailand, where the automaker has parts suppliers and assembly lines, made it too difficult to forecast earnings for the full fiscal year through March 2012. A projection will be announced when it becomes available, the company said.

The Thai floods are the latest blow to Japanese manufacturers as they struggle to recover from the tsunami while also being pummeled by the yen’s record surge. Japanese automakers in particular use Thailand as a production base in Southeast Asia.

Earlier Monday, Japanese authorities intervened in the currency market to weaken the yen against the dollar and ease pressure on Japanese exporters. That caused the dollar to jump nearly 5 percent to above 79 yen after earlier touching a post World War II-low of 75.32 yen – a level that is excruciating for exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Nintendo Co.

The strong yen, which erodes foreign earned income, took a bite out of Honda’s profits. The automaker estimated that if sales were calculated at the same exchange rate as last year, quarterly sales would have fallen a less severe 12.3 percent.

Revenue from nearly all regions declined. Domestic sales were down 13.2 percent, revenue from Europe sank 10.4 percent, and in Asia outside Japan sales fell 10 percent. Sales to South America, Africa and the Mideast inched up 0.8 percent from a year earlier, the company said.

Honda’s motorcycle business was one of its few bright spots in the quarter, with sales rising 14.2 percent to $4.6 billion.

As trucks idle at the Marathon Pit Stop just north of Marysville, head cashier Rene Harney says she’s already noticed a change in mood among some of her customers.

“Some of them are a little quieter when they’re coming in,” she said. “So, yeah I’m sure they’re worried just like we are, you know.”

Harney said half of her customers are either Honda workers or have jobs directly tied to Honda.

“They stop in and buy their lunches on their way to work or to stop and pick up a pizza on their way home,” she said.

Don Woda fills up a styrofoam cup with hot soup. He runs a used car and car repair shop. He expects many of his customers will keep tight hold on their wallets in the coming months.

“Business slowing down, because I’m just right down the street from Honda and it’s a large portion of our business, is Honda employees,” Woda said.

Woda estimates 25 percent of his customers are Honda workers. At the gas pump, Peter Arbogast fills his Honda civic. He’s on his way to his job at the local Honda dealership and he admits that the production slowdown is the talk of the showroom and shop.

“Obviously alot of my friends and customers work out there and it could definitely impact things,” Arbogast said.

Honda maintains there is no immediate shortage of cars or trucks at its dealerships. But Arbogast said supply of new cars and trucks could remain an issue through the spring and early summer.

“This is a short-term effect with the supply and then I think we’ll see long-term effect on some of the Japanese built cars that we get in,” Arbogast said. “They still have three or four models that are exclusively Japanese built. So in three months, we’re going to feel that impact.”

While Honda dealers still have full showrooms, the production cuts have a more immediate impact elsewhere. Mike Roark of Dayton hauls parts from factories in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky to Honda assembly plants.

“You know some of the other suppliers I haul to, I was in Kentucky yesterday and they were talking down there that Monday is really going to effect them. You know, lack of parts, different parts that we haul,” Roark said.

Honda has about 150 Ohio suppliers, including U-co based industries in Marysville. CEO Glenna Reed said her company makes owner manual kits for Honda.

“Depending on what we see in the future as they adjust their hours, we will probably do the same accordingly,” Reed said.

Honda said it’s uncertain when engine and electronic parts from Japan will again be available. The company said it will make every effort to keep its assembly plants operating, even at lower production levels.

Auto industry analyst, Dennis Virag of Toledo, says carmakers’ confidence is building like a “snowball running downhill.” He says pent-up demand for new cars and light trucks will force the industry to ramp up production.

“Not only for Ford, but also for the domestic auto industry, we see 2011 as a good year and we see 2012 as an even better year. So things are looking up.”

And, Virag says Ohio is among a group of Great Lakes states that will see a pick-up in new jobs.

“And really, I think the real pick up, in terms of hiring is going to be in the second half of 2011 and in 2012. I think we’re going to see a good ramp up of employment during that time frame.”

Virag declined to estimate the number of new jobs the auto industry might add. The Ohio Department of Development says the car and light truck makers employed nearly 77,000 Ohioans in 2009. The last year figures are available.

Jen Monroe, WOSU News.

Chris Cozad leans back in her chair as she talks to a client. The shop’s office is so narrow only one person can walk through at a time, but it works. Cozad owns Alternative Auto Care, a Short North business that’s about to have its 26th anniversary.

It’s a typical garage…the smell of oil in the air, car hoods propped open, countless tools. This shop has four mechanics, three are women.

Cozad took an interest in mechanics during college when she had no choice but to keep fixing her old car.

“At one point I was unemployed. And my friends kept calling me. ‘Chris my car won’t start,’ or ‘will you do my breaks,’ ‘my mom’s car won’t start.’ And I reached a point where I was doing four or five cars a week like that for friends, friends of friends and friends of friends’ mothers-in-law and, you know. And I thought, well, heck, I can do this,” she said.

So Cozad had some business cards printed and threw her tool box in the truck. She worked, in her words, “on the street.”

“Your street, my street, didn’t really matter,” Cozad said.

Then Ohio’s cold weather kicked into high gear.

“I realized pretty quickly that that wasn’t going to be very much fun.”

She rented a tiny garage for a few years then moved to a bigger place on Second Avenue. Alternative Auto Care’s now located on West Fifth Avenue. Cozad, who’s an advocate for women in non-traditional jobs, said she’s employed mostly women over the years.

“Sometimes you’ve gotta have a man just because there aren’t enough skilled women. There are certainly more now than there used to be,” she said.

Cozad said less than one percent of auto mechanics are women. And she faults the industry for not recruiting them more. “We have this sort of old grease monkey vision of what it means to be a mechanic. And that’s really a thing of the past. We really need highly skilled people who are good with computers and technology and electricity and that is not typically where this industry recruits,” Cozad said. One of Cozad’s employees is Constance Taylor, a petite, young woman. She said she got her love of the trade from her dad. Taylor calls herself the “grunt” of the shop.

“They still teach me lots of things while maintaining the integrity of the shop. I’m not in there blindly banging around. Don’t worry,” Taylor said.

Cozad said people were surprised by women mechanics in the early 80s, but most accepted the idea.

“People want honest, competent auto repair at a fair price. And once they realize they’re going to get that here the fact that we’re women doesn’t matter anymore.”

Auto mechanics have a bad reputation of ripping off consumers. But customer Philippe Nadaud said he was not worried because the person working on his car was a woman.

“I was actually more confident. I had the feeling they were more serious and more, not lying to me, or trying to charge me more for something,” Nadaud said. Cozad said some people might trust her garage more because women run it, but she’d like to think it’s because she knows the trade and is open with her customers.

In a Worthington Industries plant on north I-270 coils of steel are being cut to a buyers’ specifications.

Worthington Industries began operating in 1955 when founder John McConnell discovered a niche in the automotive market’s demand for steel. Since that time the Big 3 automakers have all been customers.

It’s good business, it has been good business, they are some of our top customers in the steel processing group but the automotive business has been good business to Worthington over the years.

Cathy Lyttle is a Worthington Industries spokeswoman. She says it would be hard on the company to lose a large purchaser of steel like an automaker.

“We like the car business but at the same time we know that if we lose one of them it would certainly be something that we would have to work through as a business to deal with that to lose a customer of that caliber.” Says Lyttle.

Rumors that one or more of the Big 3 are teetering on the brink of collapse has people worried. People like the president of the local United Auto Workers.

“That’s always on our minds.” Local 969 president Dave Davis used to work at the Delphi plant in Columbus, a plant that made parts for General Motors and once employed 5,000 people. But the number of employees dwindled to a few hundred before the plant was shut down last year. Asked about the impact on Columbus if other automotive suppliers were to close, Davis says all you have to do is look at the west side of town

“Well there’s always the trickle down effect which if you look at the west side of Columbus from where Delphi used to sit several businesses have collapsed and a lot of the small mom-and-pop stores have closed down and other large ones as well.” Says Davis.

The state of Ohio is heavily devoted to manufacturing says Ryan Augsburger with the Ohio Manufacturers Association.

“Whether you look at it by employment or productivity Ohio ranks third nationwide in manufacturing. Over 20 percent of the state’s gross state product comes from manufacturing and that’s double of any other private industry sector.” Says Augsburger.

G-M, Ford and Chrysler all employ thousands of people in Ohio but Honda is the largest car maker in the state employing 14,000. It builds some 680,000 cars a year at its Marysville and nearby East Liberty plants. Dozens of small to medium sized suppliers produce parts for Honda and other car makers. That means that it’s in Honda’s interest that those parts suppliers – the ones that also supply domestic producers — remain healthy. A Honda spokesman turned down a request for an interview on the subject but Ron Lietzke released a carefully worded statement:

“The auto industry,” he said, “is comprised of separate companies that are cross integrated through their supply chains. Honda encourages initiatives that are essential to maintain the short and long term viability of the auto industry including the hundreds of suppliers in the US.”

That means that keeping the Big Three in business is good for Honda as well. Chris Haydocy is president of a G-M car dealership on West Board Street. He looks at it this way:

“Name any supplier, the number one buyer or rubber, the number one buyer of steel, metal aluminum, chemicals, the number one buyer of microchips is the car manufacturer.”

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called off a planned vote this week on the $25 billion auto industry bailout. Reid says he wants to figure out some way to help Detroit’s struggling Big Three but that efforts to do so have stalled.

Sam Hendren, WOSU News

Chris Haydocy is president of Haydocy Pontiac, Buick GMC on West Broad Street. The dealership has been in Columbus for more than 50 years.

While union lawyers yesterday argued against Delphi’s proposed wage and benefit reductions in a US bankruptcy court in New York, union members in Columbus were voting at local UAW headquarters to approve a strike authorization. Mark Sweazy, president of local 969 says Delphi – not the union – is solely to blame.

“This provocation that we have today was not brought on by any member or any part of the organization,” Sweazy says. “It was brought on by the bankruptcy filing of Delphi Corporation. So we’ve been put in a precarious situation. The corporation wants to nullify the agreement we have with them. So the international union wants us to be prepared if necessary should a strike be necessary.”

Delphi employs 13,000 workers at its ten plants in Ohio. The company wants to cut workers’ wages from $27 an hour to $16.50 if General Motors agrees to pay a portion of the amount. If not, wages would be reduced to $12.50 an hour. Evelyn Martin, who says she’s worked at the Columbus plant for 29 years, flatly rejects the proposal and says she voted in favor of the strike authorization.

“I voted “yes” because of what they’re trying to do to us,” Martin says. “You know the ‘man at the top,’ they’re making all the money and they want to cut our wages. And it’s not right. If they want to cut down to $10 or $12 an hour, they need to ask themselves if they can make it at $10 or $12 an hour. I don’t think so,” she says.

Delphi’s ‘man at the top,’ Steve Miller says difficult but necessary decisions have to be made if the company is to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He says labor agreements must be modified if the company is to remain competitive.

But Tom Meyers, who says he works for Delphi and the UAW, says a contract is a contract.

“I’m almost to retirement,” Meyers says. “And obviously to me, I want to keep my pension, I want to keep my benefits in tact. It was negotiated. It was all negotiated; nothing was ever given to us. Everything was always negotiated – it was give and take.”

But if negotiations between the union and Delphi fail, local UAW president Mark Sweazy says he thinks a strike might turn things around.

“With the pressure of a bankruptcy pending – which would mean disaster to General Motors – if we would shut down at Delphi for say, 60 days, it would cost that corporation $7 billion to $8 billion. That’s not our goal. But we want them to live up to their obligations,” Sweazy says.

All UAW members working at Delphi plants will complete voting on the strike authorization this week.

The company says it wants to close or sell 21 of its 29 plants in the US. Six Ohio plants, including the Columbus facility, would most likely be shut down.

Anderson says, an estimated 10-billion dollars in losses to the U-S and Canada and a serious blow to the entire Midwest economy are the best possible outcomes of Delphi’s bankruptcy. Delphi operates a parts assembly plant on the Columbus west side.

About 200 Ohio workers would be affected by a plan Delphi Corporation reportedly is considering to overhaul its electronics and safety unit.

According to a document obtained by the Detroit News, Delphi’s tentative plan calls for getting rid of seven plants and seven technical centers. A Delphi spokeswoman says the document obtained by the newspaper is just a draft and may not reflect current planning.