yup, all car companies have major failures but thats how we get ahead in technology. yea gm made some cruide cylinder deactivation in the late 70's and iit flopped but today we have it and it works great!

but yes i will say that toyota still hasnt figured out rust issues (frame wise) on thier trucks...

i can find the most rusted out 70-80's silverado/blazer but i can gurantee the frame will be solid and the engine will run.


btw they did figure out how to stop body rust- make the whole car of plastic!:D

dont wanna know what 20 years brings when most of todays cars are turning into antiques, how nice they will look body wise but subframe wise a total rusty mess:p

yea thats all good and nice, but a little rust down the road is better than having a big hole in your fender from someone opening their door into the side of your car...

My did just bought a new Focus sedan with the 5 speed about 2 months ago. Nice little car. Dad loves the Microsoft SYNC... He uses the car with the cell phone and his MP3 player.

yea or if it cracks the whole fender has to be fixed not like a dab of bondo...

i wonder whats going to happen to the plastic fenders and such in 30 years, cuz 30 years ago they had plastic/rubbery "bumper fillers" (went between steel bumper and car) and id say most of them that exist today are cracked/brittle as thin glass...

in 30 years when someone wants to restore a car of today, its not like you can find a fender or a door with some surface rust that can be cleaned primed and painted and look good as new again...(not to mention the billions of car specific engine parts/tranny parts, etc)

Yeah, those plastic filler panels are cracking, and large portions of them are missing on my Buick.

We've had this discussion before in another thread. I posted this picture of my Buick:
https://lh4.ggpht.com/ronanian/R-Vyc9...6/IMG_0476.jpg

Others pointed out that the plastic formula and/or paint technology has improved and modern automotive plastic may not be subject to the same issue.

That looks a lot like mine does...

-Jay

You already are:D

'Already are' what?

I think the americans make SEVERAL cars that can compare to Toyotas, Nissans, and Hondas.

I also think The japs have a few cars that are just as terrible as some American cars.

That being said, I think the japanese ON AVERAGE make better cars than the americans.

Ford's fleet vehicles have amazing engineering in them, and are extremely easy to work on and replace parts in a shop environment. Sure there's a few specialty tools involved, but every company has a few of those and it's all for the better in the long run.

The cummings diesels are amazing. Perdiod. As far as diesels go they're one of the best truck variety ever made.

The cobalt is a well made car and a worthy sucessor to the metro imo. If fuel prices start to rise, I expect to see a 50+mpg cobalt for sale for a very reasonable price.

The main issue with american cars, is where they choose to spend their money. Usually american car's interiors are utterly terrible. They make you feel like you're in a disposable vehicle.

Another thing to consider, is that we pay more for American cars than most other countries. In the UK, american cars are cheaper than any Japanese or European car. Why do you think the Focus is SO sucessful over there? It's very cheap, and it's a LOT of car for your money.

The only cheaper cars on a consistant basis around the world are the south american and korean vehicles. In the UK, a mustang (with a V8) is in a league of it's own for performance/price ratio.

And as for Japanese mistakes?

Toyota Echo anyone?
Origonal Honda CRV (americans were the only ones stupid enough to buy them)
Honda Passport
Nissan Pathfinder
Nearly ANY FWD Nissan of the 90's


There's more that I'm unaware of too I'm sure. All companies have their good and bad vehicles, only biased fanboys can't see that.

Oh, and as stated in this thread, the Aveo is FAR from american. It's as korean as korean comes. Don't blame American companies for buying bad products and trying to sell them to you. That's like blaming someone for infomercials. Someone is buying the product, someone is making money.

Buying a North american made car. At least my 97 was made in the USA. 96 was made in Canada though.

Why can't we blame GM for buying a crap car and trying to pawn it off as a competitor for cars like the Fit, Yaris and even the Focus. Who are we supposed to blame, because someone should be blamed for that sorry excuse for a vehicle. GM didn't have to sell the car, they are doing fine with Cobalt.

I know that the Aveo is Korean, most car people do, it's one of the first things mentioned in car magazine reviews. That doesn't give GM a pass for selling it. They are putting their name on the car and to the general public that means it's a GM.

By the way, GM never tried to sell ME an Aveo because I never gave them a chance. I can look past the 'lowest priced American car' rhetoric to see what it really is.

I was simply making a comment about one that we had as a rental when our Fit was in the bodyshop after an unfortunate encounter with a Coyote.

Speaking of rebadged cars, the Honda Passport is a rebadged Isuzu Rodeo, but according to your logic we can't blame Honda for selling it.

And I can't imagine many people agree with your inclusion of the CRV on your odd list of junk Japanese cars. Many of the first CRV's are still on the road, turning close to 200,000 miles and still going strong. There are a ton of them out there and they are still selling for a lot of money, even with high mileage. I don't see the same thing with '96-'98 Escapes (which notoriously fall apart at 100,000).

But I guess you can include me in the American's 'stupid enough' to buy one. My wife had a '00 CRV five speed that was a beast in the snow, got good gas mileage, carried everything we needed to carry and NEVER went to the shop except for routine maintenance. We sold it earlier this year for $8,000 to her Dad (read discounted family price), we could have probably sold it for $1,000 to $1,500 more if we listed on CL.

Also not sure of what you consider amazing engineering in Ford fleet cars. Maybe it's the fact that during a hard rain the passenger footwell in my brother's Taurus company car would fill with 2-3 inches of water. Or maybe it was the brilliant fix for the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis springs that would suddenly break and puncture the tire. My friend was a former mechanic at a Nissan-Volvo-Mercury dealership. Never mind Ford figuring out why the springs were breaking or offer to replace the springs, their answer was to ship a steel plate that needed to be attached to the spring assembly so that when it DID break it would just hit the plate and not the tire. Brilliant.

That's the best of both worlds to me. Proven Honda engineering and design assembled in American factories by American workers.

If you must blame someone, blame the consumers that make it profitable for GM...

...nuff said I believe.

lol any car will last a long time if you keep up maintenance, which most people dont so when ohh a ford gets a misfire after 100K miles of not changeing plugs or wires or anything its instantly a horrible car...

i know several people with over 300K on thier s-10's then i know some that managed to be on thier 3rd engine and 4th transmission in 150K miles...

i can find some problem free hondas then some that burn more oil than gas and sound like a popcorn maker...

Words to live by:thumbup: My 4cyl ranger was only getting 17mpg when I got it. But that's because it had 144k on it and never had a tune up not even a filter.


Gm and Unions and greed are all part of why they have outsourced.

The Aveo, while being an absolutely terrible car, still gets better mileage than the Smart For Two, no?

:D

That one would be a huge NO! :rolleyes: