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America's love affair with the automobile has a new spark — a renewed affection for U.S.-made cars after a long dalliance with foreign automakers.
Slightly more Americans now say the United States makes better-quality vehicles than Asia does, with 38 percent saying U.S. cars are best and 33 percent naming autos made by Asian countries, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll.
But honestly, origin of manufacture is last on my list of priorities when I go car shopping. It's all about finding the best car for the money, no excuses. I am glad, though, that American carmakers are stepping up their quality recently; they've always had a likable sort of "character" to them, and now they can be the sound practical choice as well.
Lets take a poll during the time a large foreign manufacturer is making recalls left and right and see how meaningful those numbers are. Although domestic manufacturers are certainly improving, the others aren't going anywhere. If anything, this will be a great benefit to the consumer because stiff competition tends to produce superior products on both ends.
The domestic brands are improving greatly and listening to their consumers. Look at any number of new vehicles produced by the big 3 particularly Ford and GM.
I definitely do agree that the Big 3 have come a long way in what they are offering in the past few years - especially Ford and GM. Aesthetically at least, there are some really nice looking cars from these manufacturers available today, the only things that really worked for them were trucks and SUVs. I think it's yet to be determined how much the reliability has also improved with these new models, but I believe there will be improvements in this area too.
But I think this article is kind of misleading talking about US-made cars and gives the impression that if it's not made by the Big3, it's imported. The majority of the non-US brands on the road in the US are made right here too - most Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Subarus, Hyundais, Kias as well as the SUVs from BMW and Mercedes are made here, providing American jobs and giving tons of work for suppliers located in the US as well. For the most part, the only cars that aren't made here and imported are some of the luxury and sports cars (i.e. Lexus / Infiniti sedans, Toyota Supras, Nissan Skyline, etc.) as well as the non-SUV vehicles from the German automakers.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Ford is really helping to spearhead this. I'm absolutely impressed with the Ford Fusion and Taurus. I'm glad they took their focus of the SUVs while making their trucks with great quality like always.
with the new fors line up they are on par with japan and german cars for fit and finish GM is still behind on interior finish and dodge really has some of the worst fit and finish but has the best styling with the ram and the challenger and they have the 390HP 5.7 hemi that is standard on most models is amazing for a truck the supercharged lighting trucks of the 00's were running the same numbers
with the new fors line up they are on par with japan and german cars for fit and finish GM is still behind on interior finish and dodge really has some of the worst fit and finish but has the best styling with the ram and the challenger and they have the 390HP 5.7 hemi that is standard on most models is amazing for a truck the supercharged lighting trucks of the 00's were running the same numbers
I'd check out the new Lacrosse and CTS if you don't believe the fit-and-finish is that of any Japanese/German counterpart. I think the Lacrosse has one of the nicest interiors on the market bar none, full of soft-touch materials and very nicely stitched leather! It blows away the Lexus ES350 in my opinion. Read some of the reviews, they praise it!
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