Ford/GM/Chrysler can't make cars.

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is the common sentiment I often hear as American auto manufacturers drop the prices of cars (yet again).

Now I’m not a fan of most American made cars and have gone on record as being a big fan of german sport sedans, but there are some that I find attractive and would not mind owning for various reasons. Corvette for under-rated performance is a great value. Mercury Maurauder for the sinister dark horse image. Hummer H2 for the pure novelty. Chrysler… umm… well, nothing by Chrysler at the moment.

Still, American auto builders have a long and respected heritage, a wide selection of models, reasonable build quality and reliability. What is it about these cars that always gets “also ran” reviews in the media.

Are they truly inferior? I think so because I don’t see the refinements that I find in my prefered line of cars. However, not everyone looks for that kind of thing because most people just want to get from A to B without much consideration to whether their ass is cradled in hand stitched leather bucket seats. And I don’t see anything wrong with that sort of pragmatic approach to automobiles.

Still, there is plenty of industry examples for many years from asian and european car makers about what’s considered a finer type of automobile. Most of these cars are not significantly more expensive than their American cousins (ex. VW, Renault, Volvo, Honda, Toyota, etc…).

So are American manufacturers intentionally maintaining that American pragmatic appeal for the market segment that likes American style cars? Or are they continually misreading the market and are forced to drop prices to maintain turnover?

2

I think that American interior styling is pretty pathetic. I haven’t been in a entry level American passenger car yet (think the Cobalt, PT Cruiser, Focus, Neon, those types) that hasn’t had a cheap looking, vapid, creaky squeaky, formless dash. The dash is there, and its perfectly functional and has all the tools you’d expect and everything works fine, but it doesn’t have any style, any personality. In many cases, it’s fugly. It looks cheap.

I know there’s ways to give a dash styling that is also inexpensive to produce, but they don’t do it. Why? Perhaps because we don’t demand it, I don’t know. They don’t get my dollars, that’s for certain.

3

I think that the origin of this attitude goes back to the oil embargo of the 1970’s when gas prices suddenly shot up to (gasp) nearly a dollar per gallon. The Japanese had lots of small fuel efficient cars, while Detroit continued to crank out big cars with V8 engines. The sentiment at the time was that they “just didn’t get it.” Eventually Detroit got on the bandwagon, but it seems like they keep playing catch-up with the foreign automakers.

4

i drive an '02 Neon base model, yes it’s plastic-y, yes there’s a buzz somewhere deep in the dash i can’t localize, yes it has rather bland interior styling, yet i love this little car…

why? it’s a cheap crap neon, it must suck, right?

well, if like the OP, you’re looking for a comfy, cushy car that’s made out of all sorts of fine fabrics, wood and other materials, you’ll never be happy with the Neon, it’s NOT a high end car, but then again, it doesn’t pretend to be

my criteria for a car is very simple, 4 wheels, an engine, a MANUAL transmission, no useless cosmetic crap, no fancy-schmanzy interior materials, if it doesn’t increase the car’s handling ability, or make it faster off the line, it has no place on my car, i’m looking for a functional vehicle, luxury items are useless and do nothing but add more weight to the car, so, bearing that in mind, the Neon fits my needs perfectly

it handles incredibly well, handles like it’s on rails, precise steering, decent amount of power for it’s size (it’s no Viper, heck it’s not even an SRT-4, but it doesn’t pretend to be) and has been utterly reliable (so far), i’ve put almost 80,000 original miles on it and it has never given me one nanosecond of problems (well, aside from the buzzy dashboard, but that gives it character :wink: )

It’s never left me stranded, it’s been a good, solid car that i plan to drive the wheels off of, partially due to it’s nonexistent resale value, but the Neon has never been known for it’s resale value, i knew that when i bought it, and wasn’t an issue, as i wasn’t planning on trading it in until i’ve driven the wheels off it, knowing full well i’ll be lucky to get anything for it in trade

i wanted a good, basic, fun to drive car, and judged by those criteria, it’s been a remarkable success

5

In the past 10 years or so, Chrysler’s designs have gone from butt-fugly to downright ugly-ugly. The gunsight grill treatment works for their trucks, but not on everything else.

The new Charger should be taken out and shot.

6

oh, and one other thing about the car…

it was the most bang-for-the-buck i had found in the econocar line, 132 HP, 130 Ft/Lb TQ, 5 speed manual, if i drive boringly (conservatively) i can get 35MPG city, 38-40 Highway

one of my Cow-orkers just got a Toyota Prius, 76 HP, 82 TQ (gasoline) 67 HP, 295(!)TQ (electric), CVT automatic transmission, he gets 40-45 MPG highway, not sure city…

transmission losses aside (sludgeboxes lose more power to the transmission than manuals) my car puts more usable horsepower to the pavement, clearly the Prius has me beat in torque numbers, and in fuel mileage…

now, lets bring retail cost of the vehicle into the picture…
the Prius cost him around $23,000
My Neon cost me $11,000

who got the better return-on-investment here? :wink:

7

I used to work at a Chevrolet dealer in the service department, first as a service writer and later as the warranty administrator. The dealership not only sold Chevys but they also sold Subaru’s. Subaru’s rarely (at that time anyway) had any problems, either warranty or customer pay, other than the usual maintenance items. In fact, as I recall, the only major problem Subaru had back then was premature timing belt breakage and that was covered by a special policy until 100,000 miles.

Chevrolet’s on the other hand, were pitiful. There were always cars in the shop for one problem or another, ranging from “Check Engine Light on” to squeeking door panels to dashes that rattle. You name it.

Unless things have changed drastically in the last 5 years, there probably hasn’t been that much improvement. It always seemed that “imports” were built to last and American cars were built as “throw aways”. It used to be, and probably still is, that the only “American” cars that were relatively problem free were the ones that were made by non American makers – IE: the Pontiac Vibe is really a Toyota Matrix.

As I said, I haven’t been in the car “business” for about 5 years, so I can only hope that in that time American car quality has improved. But I’m not holding my breath.

8

No American cars don’t suck. But foreign car drivers will not believe this no matter how many times they are told differently. JD Powers rates Lincoln, Buick, and Cadillac above Toyota in dependability and the above along with Mercury rated higher than Honda. The only auto makes ranking higher than American cars are Lexus, and Porsche. In addition, if you look at the top three vehicles in any segment (very bottom of the above cite), you’ll see that 12 of 19 segments are led by American cars.

I personally think that every Japanese car I’ve ever sat in has the crappiest, cheapest, most uncomfortable seats possible. The material is simply craptastic, and the cushions are super hard. It’s like sitting on a carpeted picnic table bench purchased at Wal*Mart.

Mr. Blue Sky you are crazy; I love the new Charger!

9

Detroit lost the battle for making cars (i.e., sedans and coupes) decades ago, and never got it together to build a good one. Back when the Japanese came in, Detoit made some interesting cars, but they didn’t hold up very well, they didn’t handle well, and they used a ton of gas. The Japanese offered cars that weren’t always in the shop, used a lot less gas, and could take a corner. Detroit could not get it’s act together to meet the Japanese on their own turf, so they ceded the low-end market to the Japanese, the high-end to the Europeans (and later, again, the Japanese), and then developed the minivan and the sport-ute, and various configurations of pickup truck. These have kept the big three in business for ages.

Most American sedans and coupes are boring and not very well made. The interiors seem to have been designed by someone on their bathroom break. I wouldn’t say they’re total junk; at least they’ve come a long way since the Chevette and the K-Car, but there’s no compelling reason to buy a domestic car over the foreign competition.

Imported does not necessarily equal quality. Between us, my wife and I have owned a Saab, a Datsun, and a Volkswagen, all of which should have been used for target practice on a missile range. But I wouldn’t trade my Volvo or her BMW for anything I’ve ever seen come out of Detroit.

I don’t take any delight in all this, BTW. I spent a couple of years in Michigan, and I can tell you that the people there take cars very seriously. The small shops I visited do good work, and really work hard to make good products. But somehow inside the big three it all ends up coming to naught.

10

Does any US firm make a “starter” car?

Or a good compact?

11

Cadillac and Lincoln aren’t competing with Toyota (neither is Buick, really, but it’s much closer), they’re competing with Lexus, which comes out ahead. Toyota and Honda are competing with Ford, Chevy, etc., and they beat them handily.

I also notice that it doesn’t have a category for entry-small which is where Toyota and Honda hold a major advantage since the Civic and Corolla reign. If you go to that site and compare the Civic, Corolla, Focus, Neon and Mazda 3, you find that the Civic and Corolla are ranked 1, 2 over their American counterparts in just about every category.

The bigger picture is that the Japanese cars do a better job of blending performance and dependability. Going back to the JD Powers comparison, if you rank the midsize cars in terms of dependability the list goes Malibu, Century, Camry then Accord. But when you rank them in terms of performance you get Maxima, Monte Carlo, Accord, Camry. Malibu doesn’t show up until #9 and Century until #17. And so on and so forth down the categories. Accord and Camry are top 5 in pretty much every category, but there isn’t any American cars that are consistently ranked that high across the board.

And I, too, like the new Charger.

12

Yes. GM’s new Cobalt SS / Ion Redline is as good a sports compact as you can find nowadays. The plain Cobalt is a match for the new Civic in every way. IIRC the 205-horsepower supercharged Cobalt and Redline get 36 MPG on the highway, and the naturally aspirated get 40 MPG which puts them in the top 5 conventional gasoline cars made today.

The Malibu V6 got the best mileage Consumer Reports ever got out of a conventional midsize sedan.

Aside from alternators, GM cars are as reliable as the Japanese cars and have been for a couple years. On the road, the chassis development matches everyone but Mazda’s if you throw the OEM tires in the garbage and actually put something better than “black, round, rubber, check” on them.

13

To each his own, I guess. I think it’s butt-ugly and that’s an insult to most butts.

14

You see this is exactly what I’m talking about. When challenged head-to-head (you have to fill them in, because it won’t let me save selections- I used the 2005 models) Mailbu was ranked while the Camery and Corolla and Civic were not. This didn’t mean they weren’t considered, it just means they didn’t win. They were all in the entry level mid-size. The Lincoln Town Car beat the Lexus, Chevy beats Toyota, Buick beats Toyota, etc.

But you keep your belief that American cars suck while I tool around in my new Malibu Maxx, or pick up messy stuff in my 1995 Chevy with 150,000 miles.

15

I remember Detroit earning a reputation for crappy cars. The oil embargo was the start, but it was more than that. When the first emissions standards came out, Detroit’s first response was to lower the operating temperature of their engines. Hence, to pick a family car example with which I am familar, the 67 Dodge Dart was pretty fast. The 72 Dodge Dart couldn’t accelerate out of the way of rampaging turtle. I even remember a news report in that time period in which a blindfolded man predicted country of origin by the sounds cars made hitting a pot hole.

To me that is ancient history. I’ve bought a Civic, a Taurus SW, a (Ford) Clubwagon, an Expedition (yes, I use the 4WD, with the vehicle filled), and a Suburu. Individual tastes aside, he worst interior design easily belongs to the Suburu. You can’t use most of the controls if you have a cup in the cupholder, which crap anyway, only even speeds are marked on the speedometer, etc. When I bought the Expedition, the only competitor vehicle that met my needs was the brand spanking new Sequoia. If the total cost had been close, I probably would have gone with the Sequoia, but a vehicle has to be an awful lot better to make $9K price difference worthwhile. The Civic was the most reliable, but it was exceptional even for a Civic, and all of them have been pretty good. The only thing we replaced in 140,000 miles was either a water pump or a fuel pump, I’ve forgotten. But the seats didn’t last, and my head hit the roof. My wife’s favorite two vehicles in the group would be the Civic and the Clubwagon, believe it or not.

My conclusion? I think most people assume American cars are lower quality, because perception based on reality, even if that reality is getting long in the tooth, is hard to change. Few realize analyze their needs and what they want. (BTW, just a couple of days ago I read a link, from MSN I believe, that had a Coralla on the 5 most dangerous vehicles list.)

16

No, actually, that’s incorrect. I don’t believe they judged the Corolla or the Civic at all, simply because if you go to JD Power’s new vehicle buying guide, the Civic and the Corolla are not listed in the same category as any of the cars that won. Both of them are in the compact car category, but you can’t find either the Toyota Echo or the Chevy Prizm in that category with them on JD Power’s website. See for yourself: go to the new vehicle advisor, click that you don’t know what you want, then go to the compact category. It’ll list all 32 models for you to look at, including the Corolla and Civic - but no Prizm or Echo.

And if you want to go head to head, you have to compare cars in the same category. For instance, a Chevy Cobalt vs a Dodge Neon vs a Civic vs. a Corolla. If you do that, both the Civic and the Corolla finish better than the Cobalt and the Neon in overall quality. They both also beat both of the American cars in performance and overall appeal.

17

My family owned and drove a 1980 Dodge Omni. We were the original owners of the vehicle. When I got my liscense I was given custody of the car, and the use of it. For a month.

At which point the right transaxle seperated on a back road in New England.

After the accident we got a nice letter from Chrysler. Telling us, in legalese, that we couldn’t sue them for faulty equipment because they’d recalled a nominal number of those cars for the defect that caused the accident. Considering that, as the original owners of the vehicle we’d never heard of the recall - I was, and still am, pissed by the CYA attitude. Because of that, I am pretty determined to avoid purchasing any other Chrysler vehicle.

It’s not a matter of American vs. foreign, just a company that annoyed me beyond where I want to support them.

18

Since when were Civics and a Corollas compacts? I was fucked up because who knew they were compacts? The Prizm isn’t in the consumer page at all. I don’t know what’s up with that. But American cars beat both the Accord and Camry for midsize cars in all categories except the retained value.

There is no freakin’ way that they didn’t judge the Civic and the Corolla. The way the cars are judged is that they send out questionnaires and ask new owners what the liked and what they didn’t. They then do follow-up. There is no way they would lock out those two models when they do all of the other Toyota models.

19

I think there is general agreement that American cars are not as nicely appointed as their asian or german counterparts. Also, I think it’s fair to ask: even if they are at least as functional and reliable, why do prices keep dropping? Perhaps because they are not selling as well? Asking why they are not selling as well is probably begging the question posed in the first place.

20

Here’s a thought…Japanese manufacturers, as soon as they started to target export markets, were working on a global scale. Throughout, they’ve needed to have the knowledge of a huge variety of markets, and to have the ability to adapt to them. This agility has enabled them to (a) better judge public mood and identify weaknesses in the current offering in America, and (b) more able to provide something people want in a shorter time-span.

The little experience I’ve had of all-American cars (as opposed to something like the Focus which is an international car following the Japanese trend) is that they’re built only for America, only for one type of driving (i.e. mainly urban or highway), and with very crude assumptions about what people want.