The US produces crappy cars

phipiper10

Some have said this place is boring so I figured I'd add excitement by bringing out the gun toting, America is the best, your with us or against us crew.

The US still produces crappy cars or at least not as good as the Japanese...but getting better.

I know you don't believe they hype and your dad has had a Ford for 29 years that runs like a champ and your uncle too but....

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/859/who-makes-the-best-cars

And yes Consumer Reports is the end all be all on this matter.

I'm just saying ...and I almost forgot ...tubes are lame!

audiobliss

Wow. Yeah, the gloves are totally off on this one! As for me and you, let's take this outside and settle it with a shoot out!

MacLeod

America doesnt produce crappy cars - Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas are all made in America.

Unions produce crappy cars.

phipiper10

Wait my Tylers up against...what speakers are you running?

phipiper10

MacLeod wrote: »

America doesnt produce crappy cars - Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas are all made in America.

Unions produce crappy cars.

Good one! I'm with you there.

audiobliss

phipiper10 wrote: »

Good one! I'm with you there.

Ok. So it's a two against one dual. Bring it!

VR3

All I received from that article was one word...

F-150, and it was mentioned as one of the top dogs from Ford. With good reason to, mine is a tank.

I'll help you Bliss!

phipiper10

If I got MacLeod.....He is in charge of the mobile assault team and can unleash high quality Thunderous attacks from a distance..of this I'm sure!

venomclan

MacLeod wrote: »

Unions produce crappy cars.

Are you nuts? The UAW is the most efficient and economical work force on the planet, who produces the best vehicles. If not for the UAW, we would all be making slave wages. Just ask them.

If you don't believe that, you must hate America...

phipiper10

The with us or against us argument has appeared!

exalted512

All I know is, if I'm not on MacLeod's side, I'm throwing a hamburger one way and running away the other!
-Cody

renowilliams

Its a shame really. There was a time when the big 3 made some good cars ( 1950's and 1960's and some in the 1970,s) but since then there has been a huge change. I think the management and Unions just got a little greedy and this has created the situation that we have today.

I predict that the big 3 will be out of business by the end of this year.

disneyjoe7

GM makes a car to sell you the part later, Honda makes a car and will fix the part so it doesn't fail again. I feel its less of an union issue, but more of the philosophy of design.

Lowell_M

venomclan wrote: »

Are you nuts? The UAW is the most efficient and economical work force on the planet, who produces the best vehicles. If not for the UAW, we would all be making slave wages. Just ask them.

If you don't believe that, you must hate America...

I must hate America. The UAW had it's time but now it creates a ton of waste.

cnh

UAW may be still getting paid a higher salary but THEY don't design the cars they assemble. They have nothing to do with the fact that the big three design their cars to fail in a certain number of years. I'm currently a member of a class action suit against GM concerning Engine gasket failures that they've known about for years and continued to use knowing full well that their antifreeze Dexcool eats away at them and will lead to an 800 to 1000 dollar repair in about 60-75000 miles?

Gaskets that don't disintegrate have been available for over a decade? They cost about 50-100 dollars to buy for us? In order to save 50 bucks a vehicle GM lost a 150 million dollar law suit on this? Now as I may recieve my 450 dollar refund will I be paying more than that to bail them out?

Look on the internet....recalls, failures, junk parts, etc., etc. are all over American makers. The fact that some foreign cars are made in the U.S is not relevant because they were engineered under a different model of what a car should be and how it should work, i.e., that it should be reliable and run without much repair for at least 100K miles, and actually much longer than that.

cnh

Systems

Hmmm, we're running an 08 Liberty and an 09 Colorado.

We both drive the **** out of them, in all kinds of weather, in all kinds of conditions. No problems at all.....

phipiper10

They are new. I hope they don't have any issues.

The manufacturers don't have more to spend on design and implementation and research it all goes to wasteful UAW. How bout that program where you could basically get 95% of your benefits even if you were out of work or laid off. There was not time cap on this program and people who were unemployed got those benefits for years.

Thank goodness they got rid of that program. It's probably too late though sadly.

I hope A scaled down GM and Ford can make it. Bye Bye Chrysler.

cnh

I have a Chevy Impala as soon as it hit 60K the repairs began. That vehicle is assembled at the premier GM plant in N.A. Which is in Canada? Law suit involved 150mil/450 that's about 330,000 vehicles and there are probably a lot more because a lot of people who own these vehicles were not aware of the suit and paid for the same repairs.

My mechanic told me that he personally predicted that this would happen years ago because he was repairing too many of these and asked a GM rep why they didn't fix this. He, himself, owned a vehicle with the same engine.

I think its great that your vehicles are holding up for a year or so. How about 10-15 years from now. I owned a Camry, I bought used drove it for 150,000 miles, had two repairs....brakes, and starter motor? Retired it due to rust--would have run another 50,000 easily. Don't know anyone who owns a big 3 with comparable stories.

Maybe there is someone out there.

Blaming Unions alone is a bit shortsighted too much history on bad engineering and designs. Sure bring down labor costs BUT LEAVE THEM WITH A live-able wage. Let's not make W-mart employees out of our auto-workers?

cnh

exalted512

cnh wrote: »

I think its great that your vehicles are holding up for a year or so. How about 10-15 years from now. I owned a Camry, I bought used drove it for 150,000 miles, had two repairs....brakes, and starter motor? Retired it due to rust--would have run another 50,000 easily. Don't know anyone who owns a big 3 with comparable stories.

My last truck had about 160,000 miles on it when I bought it with no repairs done on it. It had been an old work truck for a brush company...im sure it got treated excellent:rolleyes:

Anyway, i had it for the next 50k miles. That truck had been buried to the axle, air born, water up to the bumper...you name it.

The brake booster started slowly going out, we replaced it, I also replaced a power steering hose...also had the ac compressor go out...but you dont need an ac compressor to drive...you do need it to survive though when youre in south texas in 115* heat.

210k miles, been through more crap than i can probably thing of, and had maybe $500 in repairs to it over 9 years and 210k miles. My g/f has already paid more than that in the 'scheduled honda tune ups' so they can turn her damn "maint reqd' light off on her 04 civic.

I know my trucks had never had a damn light come on because it hit a certain amount of miles like her honda does.
-Cody

mhardy6647

I continue to be happy with my 2000 Ford Focus ZX-3: cheap (to buy), economical, and fun to drive. Approximately 156,000 miles on it. The worst thing I can say about it is that it eats tires (of course, this is my foolishness for sticking with the original-equipment Goodyear Eagle tires; next time gonna try something different).

Best of all, the Ford dealer is 5 minutes from my house (virtually the only business that close to us).

Shizelbs

MacLeod wrote: »

America doesnt produce crappy cars - Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas are all made in America.

Unions produce crappy cars.

Kablow! THAT JUST HAPPENED!

timlitton

I've had good experiences with both American and Japanese cars.

My 87 Honda Prelude in college had almost 200,000 on it when it got TOWED for having a low tire. It happened to be towed the day I left to go home for spring break and when I came back, the impound fees were worth more than the car. If not for losing it to the impound lot, who knows how much longer I could have driven that thing?

I had a 91 Ford Probe with over 125,000 miles on it. I bought a brand new BMW and parked the Probe for well over a year. It never got started, charged, or moved. The day I sold it, I put the key in and it started up exactly like it had the day I parked it.

Jstas

Keiko wrote: »

And the Yugoslavians. :rolleyes:

Unions produce Yugoslavians? :eek:

Well hey, the more you know, ya know? :cool:

Serendipity

Corvettes Rock!

So do Mustangs...

audiobliss

Welcome back, Jstas. Missed seeing you around.

noscivic

exalted512 wrote: »

.

210k miles, been through more crap than i can probably thing of, and had maybe $500 in repairs to it over 9 years and 210k miles. My g/f has already paid more than that in the 'scheduled honda tune ups' so they can turn her damn "maint reqd' light off on her 04 civic.

I know my trucks had never had a damn light come on because it hit a certain amount of miles like her honda does.
-Cody

The light comes on at 7500 miles to remind you to change the oil and filter. There should be a section in the owner's manual that will tell you how to turn the light off. What kind of scheduled tune ups is she needing? THe only thing that is a major scheduled repair is the timing belt.
I have been building, drag racing and auto-Xing hondas since 1990 and they are some of the best engineered vehicles I have ever worked on.

Gary

Airplay355

My subaru has a made in indiana sticker on it...maybe you mean american companies make poor cars?

sucks2beme

Tubes are lame.... Why them's fightin' words!

mrbigbluelight

Jstas wrote: »

Unions produce Yugoslavians? :eek:

Well hey, the more you know, ya know? :cool:

No, Keiko was referring to the Yugo. A car.


It was in all the papers. :rolleyes:


The Zastava Koral (known simply as the Yugo) iwas a subcompact vehicle built by Zastava corporation. The first Yugo 45 was handmade on 2 October, 1978.

The car design is based on the mechanics of the Fiat 128, under license from Fiat, with a modified body style. The Yugo entered the United States by means of Malcolm Bricklin, who wanted to introduce a simple, low cost car to that market. In total 141,511 cars were sold in the US from 1985 to 1991, with the most American units sold in a year peaking at 48,500 in 1987. 1991 sales were only 3,981 cars.[1] The Zastava Koral was sold with an updated design, priced at about 350,000 dinar (3,500 euro, 4,300 USD), until 11 November 2008, when production stopped with a final number of 794,428 cars.


It was built with non-union labor. It was a miserable failure.

Why ? Because it was a terrible, white-collar design.



Welcome to the planet Earth.

MacLeod

cnh wrote: »

UAW may be still getting paid a higher salary but THEY don't design the cars they assemble. They have nothing to do with the fact that the big three design their cars to fail in a certain number of years.

True. The unions dont design the cars. However, they suffocate the automakers with bloated workforces, sky high wages, benefits and pensions that the market wont bear and all but refuse to ever take any cuts so the automakers have to make cuts in their build quality to remain competitive. Either that or price their cars higher than the Japanese brands.

Its a pretty sad state when GM has more resources tied up in managing a pension plan than they do in building cars!

ohskigod

appadv wrote: »

Corvettes Rock!

So do Mustangs...

ya damn right son!!!!!


my 1991 GMC short bed pick up is still my daily driver (while a 2007 Ford Mustang slumbers in the Garage for the winter)

107000 miles on the truck and still going strong.

also my wife's Ford Fusion AWD is really starting to grow on me, great car