I have, however, been financially hurt and morally thrashed by people who did not.

Detroit could and needs to learn a lot from them.

My girlfriend (because of her father) swears by Toyota.

She drives the Lexus RX400h and the Toyota Highlander Limited.

I know the RX400h is technically a CUV, but I will use it for comparison purposes.

She states that, “The Lexus has better acceleration and ‘pulling’ ability up hills – but the Highlander feels better during the ride.”

However, she drove my Mother’s Ford Explorer and she was amazed at it. She could not get over how it pulled better up hills, accelerated, and rode better than her two cars.
I second her opinion, as well, but I believe I have a bias in this matter.

The thing is, my Mother paid about $10,000 less than the Highlander and a God-awful amount less than the Lexus.

She also loves my Mustang GT.

But, she will not own a Ford. I am not sure why. I’ll have to ask her tonight.

People still say “Fix or Repair Daily,” but I will put any of my Fords up against anything in terms of value and quality. Knock on wood, but there has not even been a single minor repair done to any of the vehicles we have ever owned from Ford (and that is over a million cumulative miles logged over 5 people within the last 10 years).

I can hardly wait to see the ‘car of the future’ designed by a committee. Anyone recall what happened when a committee designed the replacement for the M113 armored personnel carrier?

GarandFan on February 23, 2009 at 2:55 PM

How about when the transportation secretary wanted motorcycles to have rear wheel steering.

I bought 1 toyota truck because it was the only 4 cylinder model i could find anywhere..

So americans are trying to buy american but a lot of this is due to the Big 3 decision to keep building
giant gas guzzling monsters when gas keeps climbing to new highs..

Oh yea right now gas is back down (but you just wait and soon it will jump all the way up)..

Detroit needs to start making real fuel efficient models,
if they can survive..

I tried all i could including emailing the morons running detroit..
they didnt listen so i had no choice..

Olds and Pontiac cars me and my family have owned have run just as long as the “Japanese” cars my friends owned. They’re cheaper to operate and maintain too.

I’ve owned Chevy Tahoe and Silverado truck products with 0 problems, defects, or issues. I gave my Dad a 1990 Chevy pickup I bought from a friend with over 185,000 miles. It was on it’s 2nd transmission (used to pull campers alot) but didn’t burn any oil and was tight as the day it was new. I guess it depends on the assembly plant…

When the press dug up the fact that Joe the Plumber was neither Joe, nor a plumber but that he was not in arrears with his child support payment, that was a Gestapo-like invasion of his privacy. Yet now you guys think nothing about digging up what kind of cars Geithner has and where they are registered. Double standards?

factoid on February 23, 2009 at 4:24 PM

I don’t know why but it always surprizes me to read someone like you who totally bought the MSNBC media lies… I shouldn’t be surprized because Obama did win. But still you really believe the crap that is spewed. I just can’t believe people can be so dumb.

Try thinking on your own once in a while why don’t you. It’s actually quite fun when you get the hang of it.

From Japanese engineering diagrams.

Toyota.

Know why? Because at 200,000 miles, they’ll still be running, instead of heading for the scrapyard at 80,000 like the last Detroit P.O.S. I owned.

I don’t know why Toyotas are better made than Chevys, I just know that they are.

Mew

We need to be careful. Next thing you know, we’ll be FORCED to buy American cars.

My favoritest American car I ever had was my ’74 American Motors Javelin. Bad ASS.

But a piece o’ $hit.

Even though the early Toyotas and Datsuns were rattling deathtraps, they STILL kicked the crapola out of anything Detroit had to offer, both gas mileage (Even/odd lic. days ring a bell…?) and endurance wise. My ’87 Pathfinder has 350K miles on it (and we had the confidence to buy it with 197K of that already), as well as turning a pretty penny when we finally sold the ’85 Toyota SR-5 4X4 (bought brand spanking new) just 3 years ago.

The only thing reMOTEly tempting lately has been that new Impala, but then we stumbled over a 6 year old E-430 with 45K that just took our breath away…for half the price. And a 100K warranty. Done deal.

The fact that several of these people drive elderly cars simply means that autos play little or no role in their lives.
That makes me feel quite confident they have the best interests of Detroit at heart./

THE SETUP
In the 70′s American cars ruled the North American market. Everything else was junk by comparison. So the Japanese car makers realized that to make money they had to improve their product until it beat American product hands down. Only in this way could they garner sales. So they did, via 6-sigma quality optimization and other ingenious refinements developed for the purpose.

THE DIVERSION
Meanwhile, the American companies maintained business as usual, secure in the knowledge that Americans would always want to buy American, so they were not required to maintain a competitive edge in product quality.

THE STING
By the early 90′s the Japanese had thoroughly surpassed the Americans in factory technology, quality assurance, and customer service. It got to the point where only the diehard “Buy American” folks kept buying American cars unless there was a huge price differential. The Japanese were able to charge nearly double for their cars and still compete in sales.

THE MARK REALIZES HIS MISTAKE
Too late, the Big 3 began trying to catch up by copying Japanese production techniques (even down to the Japanese words used to describe them). They are now a solid 20 years behind, and they will probably never catch up.

THE SPOILS
Imagine: if it hadn’t been for “Buy American”, the forces of the free market would have forced American car makers to compete from the get-go. 6-sigma and many of the other Japanese innovations for quality control might have been American innovations instead, and the companies playing catch-up would be the Japanese to this day.

THE MORAL
Buy the best product. If American ingenuity is truly world class, that product will be American more often than not. Buying American for its own sake only sets American industry back by removing the driving force behind all of American success: fair competition.

And I’ll say it again, the problem is not wages, the problem is the healthcare that employers in this country are saddled with whereas Japan/Germany have national systems and their auto manufacturers just have to worry about making cars.

DeathToMediaHacks on February 23, 2009 at 3:48 PM

Because we all know that Japanese/German auto companies have persuaded those governments to pay the health care costs of the US workers employed at their US plants here right? I’d love to know how that works… The biggest difference between foreign owned plants here in the US and the big three is Union labor and the huge cost incurred. Period. Full stop.

“Buy American, so we don’t have to!”

“Send your kids to public schools, we don’t!”

“Pay your taxes, suckers! We don’t”

Anyone notice a trend here?