That bad, over priced, greedy salesmen...take your pic. At least the UAW workers are well off.
OTOH, most of the foreign makes I've owned have been problem children.
But nothing's ever been as good as my old Plymouth Satellite.
LOL.
Domestic iron doesn't have to be awful to be passed over for really good to great imports.
Clearly, it's relative, and the American cars come up short compared to Japanese products. It's simple, really.
Beyond that, I'm not sure what's in it for CNN to prop up US carmakers...?
Oh, wait. Now I know.
LOL
You're right. A lot of the problem isn't the quality of the cars; it's the perception of quality. It's a lot easier to fix quality than it is to change perceptions.
That said, anyone still using the old line that 'American cars suck' is smoking crack.
Detroit still makes a lot of models that Americans don't want, but they sure as hell make some models that people really do.
If I had the gumption, I'd love to buy one of the new Shelby Cobra Mustangs or an '06 Z06 Corvette.
This is as stupid as the Chicago Tribune story "Does Patriotism Sell Cars?".
For the last 30 years, the media fawns over Toyota and Honda while ignoring their recalls and defects. The media does not investigate their tactic of "silent recalls" to avoid reporting dangerous defects.
Of course, if an American made car has a defective volume control on the radio, it is reported as if thousands will die as a result of their incompetence.
Finally, the media then starts asking people if American cars are all that bad. They are shocked that the PERCEPTION of quality is poor, even though the truth is that there is little difference between American and Japanese quality.
After owning several non-American cars the last few years, BMW, Nissan, Isuzu, we bought a 2005 Buick LeSabre in 2004 and have been very happy with it. It performs as advertised, the service is great (customer and maintenance) and best of all my wife loves it. The OnStar and XM radio are a huge plus.
Yes.
one they offer a comparable 100k mile standard warranty , I might be convinced.
It's all relative. Toyota and Honda make better, more reliable cars for less money.
And, yes, it does take a very long time to live down a bad reputation. For years, Detroit spent more money on advertising and imagery than they did on substance. You can get away with that for a long time, but when a PR empire collapses, it's not easy to rebuild.
I remember when anyone who was successful in life bought a Cadillac, because that was THE luxury car to own. Then Mercedes and others entered the market, and Cadillac got the reputation of being a pimpmobile. So, now they're fighting bad PR instead of riding the wave of good PR.
If you don't want to buy Japanese, that's your business. But nobody is going to bully me about how I spend twenty-five thousand of my hard-earned dollars.
When my wife and I were recently faced with the new car buying decision, it wasn't too hard to decide at all. Being the first time we were in a position to buy new, we were exhaustive in our field research, driving many cars both foreign and domestic. Detroit quality may be pretty good, but in that class of autos it is nowhere close to the Japanese. For that matter, interstingly enough, neither were the German products. We both thought that American cars were superior to the Audi's and VW's we looked at.
I had a Jeep Cherokee that lasted 232,000 miles and 10 years.
Still, most Fords I have rented and/or GMs I have ridden in were rattletraps.
I have a Toyota now and have to stifle a grin everytime I fire it up.
I agree it's a question of perception more than reality. Every time one of those union thugs starts bloviating on television about workers rights someone goes out and buys a new Japanese car. Detroit can't clean up its act until the unions clean up theirs. The unions will never go away, thus, US automakers are locked in a death tryst with the unions. Unions are dying and will take down the automakers with them. A classic case of the parasite killing its own host.
Detroit's cars aren't horrible. But compared side-by-side to the competing Toyota, Honda, etc. they often seem "cheap" in appearance.
Ford actually has a reputation for building extremely safe vehicles. I read somewhere (and it wasn't a Ford advertisement) that the 2006 fleet of Fords ranks at or near the top of the safety rankings in almost every vehicle class.
It's not that difficult. Detroit's problems are easy to list, much harder to fix, and lots of blame to go around:
UAW - Squeezing until they killed their own business. Putting unfair pressure on companies for unreasonable demands.
Government - Tax, tax, tax. Hostile business regulations.
Management - Uninspired designs. Not being ahead of the curve in product offerings, instead, lagging the market. Agreeing to unreasonable labor demands. And finally, although quality is better, it's not as good as Honda/Toyota/Nissan. In general, if you buy an American car, you'll have it back to "shake it out". There are annoyance problems. My Bonneville is pretty good, but there were more than a few problems. In general, the Japanese cars are buy and drive. I'm older and cranky. When I buy a new car, I don't want to shake it out. I want to buy and drive.