perfidy

Well you know it *is* confusing about what it means to be "American-made".

Pieces that were manufactured in Mexico or South Asia after being designed in Japan from raw materials that came from North America, South America, or Europe and finally assembled by Korean-made robots in Tennessee...

Maybe another way to come at it is not from cars that are "Amercian made", whatever that might mean, vs. "America-branded" cars, or those that the buying public is allowed to believe are designed and built solely by God fearing Amurrican Union tradespeople in respectable blue collar Amurrican towns.

And as you well know, I put my $$ where my mouth is; my warwagon is a Nissan. My back-up is a Saturn, which recently had an electrical problem so fubar-ed that the dealer had it for almost 2 weeks trying to track down what, exactly, was making it not work.

Most of the Toyotas are made in the non-union southern U.S.

I worked for GM for 3 summers in the 1980's. My only surprise is that it took Toyota so long to pass GM. It was a great experience on how not to run a company.

Coincidence">http://issuesblog.com/2007/04/24/uh-oh-bad-news/]Coincidence? You decide.

I prefer to think of it as serendipity. Doo dah.

Don't worry, guys. We'll still get to support GM and Ford. We'll have the distinct privilege of taking on their retirees, via the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Now, I drive a used Oldsmobile, mainly because back when I was in the market for a car me and the wife couldn't afford even a well-used Toyota. I like GM fine, Olds and Pontiac have treated me well.

But if money were no object, I'd drop them like they was hot in a second for a sweetass new Nippon special.

I inherited a 1996 Ford Taurus from my father. The sticker on it says it was assembled with pride in Georgia.

The pros: It hasn't had any terribly serious problems not covered by warranty to this date. It has required some maintenance, but is running pretty well for a 10 year old car. The interior quality is pretty good. The seats are nice. The dash is not perfect, but quite good. It has plenty of power and handles reasonably well. It has a decent amount of rear seat leg room, and an OK boot. Nothing has rusted yet. Highway fuel economy is good. It's quite fun to drive, although it wallows a little when it isn't on the highway, due to the soft suspension.

The cons: City fuel economy sucks. It's started making annoying noises when turning the steering wheel, although they don't seem to have affected the way it drives, it's just annoying. I'm going to have that looked into tomorrow when they replace a faulty Ford shock absorber I had installed a few months ago. Grrr. Exterior fit & finish is not perfect, but good enough.

Overall - it's a decent car. I'd give it a B, B+ if you do a lot of freeway driving. I plan to buy Honda next, mainly because I don't need such a big car, and want one with better fuel economy, without spending much money.

Nicholas:

Until I saw your comment, it hadn't dawned on me, but the problem isn't that American made cars suck, or even that they haven't improved over the years.

My wife, for instance, drives a 1998 Jeep that's had its "issues", but those issues have all been quite garden variety and don't change the fact that it's been a good car.

The problem, I think, is that Japanese, in particular if not alone, have made improvements at a faster rate, and have done so without seemingly outsized price increases. This appears to be due both to better control of processes and better control of costs. Only a gut-wrenching realignment of Detroit's model seems likely to reverse years of decline.

My friend (who's currently studying and working in Japan) says that he thinks part of the reason Japanese manufacturing is better is that they use a lot more computer modeling for stress and failure analysis. Same with the Germans. This allows them to design parts that won't fail unexpectedly due to unexpected stresses etc. meaning, in the long run, higher reliability.

Hmmm. That would explain the 12 year old car I'm driving that's still just about as good as it was the day I bought it new.

First brake job? @92,000 miles.

Our Nissan is due for its first new clutch, at 128,000 miles. It also needs new shocks and tires, but that's standard wear and tear that any car would need. Once all that gets fixed, it will be tip-top.

If a little dusty from all the dirt roads around Festung Buckethead.

This I will say: My 2000 Chevy Cavalier is going to turn over 135,000 miles today or tomorrow and is still going fine on the original clutch, exhaust system (apart from a couple of brackets I had replaced), and battery. The only non-scheduled-maintenance or expected-wear (brakes, etc.) sort of repairs I've had to make are:

1. Brake light switch (warranty)
2. Idler pulley
3. Front wheel bearing.

It's due for tires again, and I need to have the front end looked at, but it's running fine, getting 30+/-2 mpg.

It looks like it was rode hard and put away wet, but that's because it generally was (Lube Stop guy: "Man, you beat on this car, don't you?").

The best car I ever owned from an engineering standpoint (by which I mean little touches that made it a pleasure to work on), though, was a '79 Accord LX I had back in '87-'88.