Monster104: Hey! Stop drooling all over my 2000 Maxima SE 
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My very subjective and extremely generalized view.
German: Best overall performance and aesthetics ( including intangibles like the quality of materials such as upholstery ).
Japanese: Best overall mechanical reliability ( but not necessarily the best durability when it comes to the little things - trim, moldings, paint, etc.).
American: Best air-conditioning ( no, I’m not kidding ).
Here is something of subject but perhaps a certain poster will see it.
This is a link to the rotating cylinder 4-stroke engine I mentioned earlier.
Things have moved on quite a way and it has now been upgraded to a capacity which is capable of powering a bike or perhaps a small car.
My car history:
1980: A series of VW Beetles (family cars), which I either drove into the ground or other cars. That was while I was still on my leaner’s permit.
1981: Ford Escort (family car). A steaming pile of excrement if ever there was one. I don’t know how this thing became so popular (or so I heard) with all of the breakdowns & general poor performance we experienced.
1983: Honda Civic Hatchback (my first official car). I was a 20 year old still acting like a punk teenager, and didn’t know I had to take car of my car. This resulted in all of the following:
• oil not being changed until the dashboard idiot light came on or smoke started coming out from under the hood.
• brakes not being changed until metal was grinding against metal.
• clutch not being serviced until I could no longer generate enough friction to pull the car up the ramp of a standard parking garage.
• tires not being changed until ordered to do so by the law.
Even through out all of this, that Civic went ten years & well over a hundred thousand miles. I suspect if I had taken care of it, it would have gone well over 200k.
1993: Honda Prelude. By the time I got this car, I had mostly grown up. I was 29, and fell in love with the car when I saw it at the dealer (I initially had all papers drawn up for an Accord, but changed my mind when I arrived at the dealer & saw the shiny silver bullet on the lot that reminded me of Speed Racer’s Mach Five). I’ve taken better care of this car, and will mourn the day when I have to put it down because I don’t care for the look of the new preludes- too angular. This car has purrrrrred like new from day 1. I have attempted to have the brakes serviced several times (remembering my failure with the Civic), but each time I was turned away by the mechanic & told that the brakes were still in good shape (I know- an honest mechanic? Maybe they thought I was from Hard Copy). This happened every year or two until just this past Fall when I finally decided to have them done no matter what. The mechanic said they still had some life left in them- and this was at almost 80k on the odometer.
This story goes for all of the other regular maintenance I’ve had done: they always ask my why I want to have the work done again so soon- telling me that it looks like I just recently had the work done. The oil is always clean, the fluids full. Maybe the car is enchanted, but I’m sticking with Honda regardless.
No major problem or “little annoying defects” like peeling weather stripping or funny noises with either Honda. I think Ford holds the patent on defective weather stripping & random funny engine noises.
It’s not just the bad experience with the Escort, either. It seems like I’m always listening to my coworkers bitching about their Fords. One in particular has a Mustang. His trunk has been leaking ever since he bought it. He has taken the car to the shop at least five times that I know of & it still leaks. This seems to me to be a fairly simple problem, so I must conclude that the service department is just incompitent.
Well, my feelings about domestic cars seem to be justified. At least I’m not alone.
Anyway, I’ll probably nurse this Ford along for a couple more years, till I can get what I really want.
An Audi Quattro 4.2, methinks.
Thanks, folks. I feel better now. 
Peace,
mangeorge
I posted this here, in GD, because I expected some arguement. Didn’t get much of that, did we?
I wonder if any American auto manufacturers are aware of this phenomenon?
Peace,
mangeorge
If the knowledge that American cars are crap is so widespread:
Well, I’ve only owned 2 cars (a 1986 Subaru GL and a 1988 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24), but my parents have owned a lot, so I’ll draw on my experience from both.
Every Chrysler product we’ve ever owned has had recurrent transmission trouble.
Every Subaru product we’ve ever owned has had brake trouble.
Every General Motors product we’ve ever owned has had trouble with the exhaust system, except the Z, whose only problem is that the trunk leaks.
Mr2001 asks a good question. Probably another topic altogether;
I think that maybe some buy American for patriotic reasons.
And american cars tend to be cheaper than comparible imports.
Question #2 answers #1.
Peace,
mangeorge
I drive a '92 Honda Civic DX with 184,000 miles on it. Other than minor maintenance-type repairs (belts, plugs, etc.) the only things that have gone bad on it were the water pump (my fault) and the distributor (which Honda replaced at half cost, even though the car had 150,000 miles on it, because there had been distributor problems ON A DIFFERENT MODEL and they figured it might be related). The first 100,000 miles was most my Dad driving it, and he does baby cars and takes really good care of them, but the rest was by me. I frequently drove it with practically no oil, have gone tens of thousands of miles between oil changes (I think I have changed the oil three times since I got it), and drive it hard (I know it has no problem doing 107 and I drove from New Orleans to Dallas in 7 hours with it once). The car still runs fine, never gives me any problems though it does use a little oil now (have to put a quart in every 5 or 6 thousand miles). It is beat up and ugly, I have been in a few accidents in it and the drivers side seat is broken, but my wife was so impressed with it’s reliability that when she got a new car recently, she got a 2001 Civic EX. I expect that car to still be running in 2020.
I admit, the Japanese manage to produce some very good cars, and they generally run to 100,000 miles with very few problems. The best japanese cars seem to be Honda and Toyota; however, they are not all good-Mitsubishi makes some fairly troublesome models-I had one! It was a Tredia (the model that preceded the Galant). It was a good car for 21/5 years, then it started to rust, and all sorts of little things started breaking. By the time it reached 112,000 miles, it was rusted out, the clutch was shot, and the wheel bearings ready to go.
European Cars: when was the last time you ever saw a Peugeot, or a Citroen, or a Renault? Utter crap, same goes for FIAT, Sterling, MG, Triumph, etc.
My American cars have mostly been good-oddly the cheapest to amintain was an AMC! Concord-I doubt if I spent $100.00 on repars to that car, in 6+ years! Of course, all cars today are much more complicated than they were 10 years ago-and they are consequently more expensive to fix.
mangeorge you just made my day! That is one hell of an upgrade going from a Ford Windstar to an Audi A6! Shoot, with the 4.2 liter V8 option that car is probably equal in price to two brand new Ford minivans! What can I say, you pay for what you get.
FWIW - I have heard that Audi is trying to build up their name recognition by letting their cars go cheaper than their rivals. In Europe Audi is a respected well known brand, right on par with BMW and Mercedes. Here in the US they are somewhat rare and just getting back to their sales #'s from before the whole 60 Minutes debacle. So for right now Audis go for about 10% off a comparably equipped german car!