I should of kept up with this forum, but I hate asain cars. American cars are better built, plus there domestic. How can you justify living in the United States, and then buying a foriegn car? My dad works for the one of the big 3, so does most of my family. Have you watched the news? There cutting jobs all over the place, the economy where I live looks to worsen because you have to buy a foregin car, which basically cost the same as an american car. How can you compare a skyline to a mustang? So buy your jap car, IMO your a traitor to this country. IMO there is no way you can justify it.
Ok calm down. There is definately no arguement that the Big 3 are making major improvements to reliability, performance, appearance and efficiency. But historicaly Honda, Toyota, BMW and other foreign makes are better in terms of reliability, efficiency and retained market value for cars (family sedans, compacts, etc). Domestic corporations have only in recent years begun to approach the reliability of the Asian manufacturers.
Each manufacturer has its own strengths and its own weaknesses. I personally value very highly a small, highly-reliable, fuel-efficient car that also has some get-up and go. When we were shopping for my Integra, no domestic vehicle could compete on those terms. I've decided that for my next vehicle, I'm going to emphasize fuel-efficiency at the expense of sportiness. I'm also thinking that it might be a hybrid vehicle. At this moment in time, the only domestic make remotely competitive for my business is Saturn.
If I was wanting a powerful truck or a large SUV, I'd probably go domestic. Pontiac produces some of the most visually delightful vehicles on the market. But those aren't my interests as a consumer.
We live in a global economy. Period. There are currently 4
foreign automakers with factories in my state, Alabama. This number is likely to increase with time. This is a huge boost to our economy and has resulted in industry increases in connected areas such as OEM parts and manufacturing support. Buying a Honda helps support my local economy and is by no measure "unpatriotic".
The big reason that the Big 3 are currently suffering is that they have pursued inefficient engineering and design philosophies even after the flaws of these approaches were made evident. Engineering design approaches that maximize productivity while
simultaneously reducing manufacturing time and error rates have been in place in Japanese manufacturing since the end of WWII! Only in the last 20 years have the Big 3 even begun to show interest in changing their methods. If you want to blame someone, blame the Big 3 and not the consumer. The rapid failures, frequent recalls, inefficient product testing and just general unreliability of domestic vehicles due to refusual of innovation by the Big 3 corporate structure contributed
directly to the lower value of domestic vehicles and the resulting general consumer preference for foreign-made vehicles.
Er, sorry for the rant. I'm an engineer and the sort of rank inefficiency shown by these companies in the face of obviously better methods is just infuriating. The domestic automakers do some things well and some things very well. But what most people need is essentially just a car with a high value, which generally means a low cost/reliability ratio. And unless you're buying something made in the last year or so, a Honda or a Toyota is the way to go.
