Do you believe that Japanese car companies lack R&D facilities in the US, or that they should reduce their US R&D presence? If Japanese, German, or Korean car companies are on-shoring their research departments to the US, while US car companies off-shore to other nations, which should be encouraged or discouraged?
This is why I say it is a highly complicated issue, and one that really can’t be summed up in a glib or simplisitc statement about what “should” be done to support American industry. If someone thinks the answer is simple and obvious, they are only revealing their ignorance.
Nice, but tell me about how that car held up after 150,000 miles of typical driving in all seasons. Did it still seem like a reliable car that you’d trust for another 30,000 or more miles? Or did it seem like it was on its last legs? Did it even make it to the 150K mark?
My 1986 Honda Accord was our primary car up to about 210,000 miles, when we bought our 2000 Accord. I drove the '86 for another 44,000 miles.
The 2000 Accord was our primary car for 180,000 miles, when we bought our 2009 Accord. It’s still basically reliable at the 200,000 mark.
At this point, I just kind of assume that I can drive an Accord for somewhere between 200K and 250K miles without massive repair bills, as long as I do the regular maintenance. If that assumption ever proves false, I’ll stop buying Accords. When I hear that one can make similar assumptions about American cars, I’ll give them another look.
I used to buy american, but got so burned out by the time the 80’s were over that they lost my loyalty. GM, Ford, Chrysler, I owned vehicles made by them all. But not anymore. My Toyotas have served me far, far better than any car made in america ever did. I’m talking cars that go for 300 and 400 K miles, reliably.
I owned a 2000 Chevy Blazer that was full of issues at 85k miles. We bought it at 60k and it had zero problems. Over the next two years, it developed all sorts of fun things. Squeaked every time it sat overnight, water pump went out, air conditioner was going out, tensioner broke once.
Bought a new 2008 Scion xB in August of 2007 and have put 86k miles on it without a single problem. Not one. Unless Scion does something really dumb, I don’t see buying a car from another brand.
I own a Nissan Altima coupe which was made in either Mississippi or Tennesee, and a Toyota Sienna which was built in Indiana. Assembly location was a minor factor in deciding what we bought.
If we’d have gone with the “American” made alternatives that most appealed to us at the time (both Chrysler models - the Charger and the Town & Country), we’d have bought Canadian-made cars.
Slight hijack - it really burns me up that Chrysler is hyping the “Born in Detroit” slogan for that piece of crap 200 (which is really just a recycled Sebring, which was ugly to begin with), when both other Chrysler models (and several other Dodge and Jeep models) are built in Canada or Mexico. Once I saw that ad last year, I resolved I’d never buy a Chrysler product.
I suppose many people would be surprised to know the country of origin of their car. Those cars with 17 digit VIN numbers show the country of origin in the first digit of the code.
1 = USA
2 = Canada
3 = Mexico
4 = USA
5 = USA
6 = Australia
9 = Mexico
J = Japan
K = Korea
S = England
T = Germany
V = France
W = Germany
Y = Finland, Sweden
Z = Italy
This is the kind of shit I’m talking about. A new FWD compact car you bought new ends up needing fewer repairs at 60k miles than a 10 year old used truck you bought with 60k miles already on the clock? Outrageous! :eek:
People who watch garbage like Top Gear are convinced that cars are some kind of anthropomorphic distillation of the national character of the country they were made in, instead of just a bucket of bolts and pipes. As if the Japanese as a race are just well disposed towards automobile assembly.
The Japanese companies made better cars in the past because they could afford to. This isn’t the case anymore. In 1980 a dollar was worth Y225, and the Japanese workforce was just as skilled and educated as the American workforce. Today the dollar is worth Y80, and Japan hasn’t gotten significantly more efficient than the US, so how many Yen worth of car are you buying today with your dollar vs 30 years ago? They’ve mitigated some of this by sourcing more widely (both labour and parts) from the US and converting their input cost to dollars instead of yen, but that can only even the playing field, not tilt it their way. Today we are at the end of a wider macroeconomic sweep that began 40 years ago with Japan rising as an exporter and then painfully transitioning from an export led economy where consumers subsidized exports towards a consumption led one. The Japanese haven’t gotten any worse at building cars relative to anyone else, or the Americans better, it’s just that Americans can now actually afford to make cars, even small cars, in America. it’s all just fairly simple economics.
Spouse and I have owned:
FIAT
AMC Hornet
Dodge Omni
Mazda 626
Honda Civic
Saturn
Dodge Caravan
Another Honda Civic
Honda CRV
The FIAT was a gift from my parents for my senior year in college - they bought it used from friends. It was a few years before I forgave them.
The Hornet belonged to Typo Knig - similarly purchased for his last year in college. It too was not a good car.
The Omni was an improvement… which shows how bad those first two cars really work.
The Mazda was fine - we drove it for over 100,000 miles then gave it to my in-laws, who put another 25,000 or so before it finally died.
Civic 1 kept us alive through one major wreck, then gave its life for Typo Knig in another one a few years later. Largely trouble-free in the interim. Replace with another Civic which has also been mostly OK.
Saturn: was fine. Traded it for a minivan when Moon Unit was under construction.
Caravan… tried to leave us stranded in Canada (interestingly, the CAA truck that helped us out had already been called… by the owners of ANOTHER Caravan… also from the US… in the same parking lot in the same evening). Cost us a fortune in A/C repairs. Strangely, did NOT have transmission problems unlike most of their minivans of that era.
Honda CRV: Boring but has been very reliable so far (65ish miles in 5 years).
So the tally: American (Hornet, Omni, Caravan, Saturn): 1 OK, 2 not-great, 1 horrible
Non-American (well, Japanese) (Mazda, 3 Hondas): 4 OK.
I’d consider a US-made car, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
The Chevy Blazer we bought was from a mechanic we had known for over a decade at that point. We bought it when it was six years old. It is not a truck, it is a small SUV.
I have put more miles on the xB than there ever was on the Blazer with no problems. None. No leaking oil, no squeaks, no repairs. I think that’s somewhat comparable.
My dad has always thought American cars were pieces of crap, and I inherited that belief i guess. I’ve only had Japanese cars my whole life and I don’t see that changing.
I care about two things, and two things only, when purchasing a car: reliability and fuel economy.
The Japanese are killing us in those two categories (IMHO), and as it turns out my car is Japanese (Toyota Yaris). I’ve owned American cars before, but for the foreseeable future my car purchases will be Toyotas.
For me that comes down to reliability and serviceability. I want a vehicle that has many thousands of similar ones on the road and is easily serviced everywhere. I want reasonably priced parts to be available for now and future years as I tend to keep vehicles a long time.
Currently driving a 2000 GMC Sierra. Mileage is 17MPG, which is not bad for all that it does for me.
me count good :smack:
In the above tally, I completely omitted the Fiat, which is not an American car. Arguably, the damn thing wasn’t any kind of a car at all… but my updated tally is:
So the tally: American (Hornet, Omni, Caravan, Saturn): 1 OK, 2 not-great, 1 horrible
Non-American (Mazda, 3 Hondas, one Fiat): 4 OK. One beyond awful.
Needless to say, when they started trying to market the Yugo in the US (a Yugoslavian-made car, manufactured using facilities sold to them by the Fiat company)… I wasn’t especially tempted.
The American automakers have a big public perception hill to climb before Americans start buying American cars again. Ford in particular is starting to make very competitive vehicles that might go a long way toward repairing the absolutely deserved lousy reputation they built in the 80s and 90s, but judging by some of the responses here, they still have a long way to go before people are convinced.
I live in Michigan currently (not “from” here though) and I feel no obligation whatsoever to buy American. Your “American” car may have been built in Mexico, Canada, China, Korea…in fact the Chevrolet Equinox had a Chinese-manufactured engine, a Japanese transmission and was built in Canada. 2013 Malibus are being built in Korea. Etc, and as others above had noted.
I have had much better luck with Nissan and Toyota than with domestic brands, although I understand that’s changing how, reliability-wise. I owned one Volvo and it was a money pit. I’ve owned several Saabs, before GM ruined them.
I now have a Nissan truck and a Mercury minivan. The Nissan has many more miles than the van, and is definitely a better-built and more reliable vehicle.
I don’t like letting patriotism make my decisions for me, and I honestly have not had enough experience to have known all this stuff about Asian cars. I’ve always been stuck getting what I can afford, which is never much.
Disclaimer: I bought a Chrysler product earlier this year, due to extremely specific towing/hitch/cargobox-shape requirements to fit pre-existing equipment. I would’ve bought the Toyota, but it required too much expensive modification. Easier to just get the truck that fit.
Saying that we will buy imports unless there is no import available in what we’re looking for isn’t exactly the same as that. “American” doesn’t enter into it at all for us, but it occurred to me after I posted that this poll is more US-centric than usual, and the OP wasn’t really looking for opinions of people who live outside of the US.
