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If you spend $25K on a new car, which is the minimum I'd consider, I want a car which will spend all of its time in my garage and an absolute minimum period of time in my mechanic's.
Resale value is important to me, which is another reason to stick with the imports, since rental car lots are flooded with Detroit 3 products, and nothing destroys resale value faster than that.
That's definitely the case out here in Los Angeles as well as the rest of California, where imports have dominated the sales charts for over three decades, with no end in sight.
Go review old Consumer Reports in the archives of your local library or at your local university/college library.
A library is this ancient building that served in pre-internet/personal computer times to archive information/books/research materials, etc.
Cars weren't so great in the old days. I got my drivers license when LBJ was in the White House. Very close relatives did own major new car dealerships going back years before I was born. Family members still own major new car stores today in major and medium sized metro areas.
One needs only to look at the large and medium cities in the Southeastern US and see that along with the Far West (from San Diego to Seattle ) that these were the huge early-adopters for Japanese cars.
Why did this occur? You had dealerships appear in these areas by the mid sixties and dealers were close enough by the late sixties in these areas for everyone there to really notice the offerings.
The first huge break through car for Japan that was world's ahead of anything that Detroit, Germany, England, Sweden, Italy offered in a basic affordable small car was the 1968 Datsun 510. It was boxy and plain but it's 1600 cc four cylinder was powerful for a small car engine of the era, producing close to about 95hp. It was one of the most reliable cars of its time. It was also one of the best roadhandling cars of its time. It was a rear wheel drive economy car but it featured independent rear suspension. The stationwagon 510 had a conventional rear suspension, but the little boxy four door had independent rear suspension which was something then seen only on E-type Jag, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, and only seen on the '63 and later Corvette and '65 and later Corvair in the US at that time.
That was the first great Japanese economy car that both families and young adults flocked to.
Datsun and Toyota had other offerings but neither the pickups, the really ugly in comparison to British roadsters, Datsun 1600 & 2000 roadster, or the "big" Toyota Crown, Corona or just introduced Corolla were anywhere on par to the durability/reliability of the 510 in early 1968.
The Corolla didn't become great until the 1971 model year when the new 2t powerplant was first offered.
Datsun followed the 510, with the smashing success of one of the first truly great sports cars ever when in 1969, the Datsun 240Z appeared as a '70 model. There was a huge waiting list for 240Z. Cars were pre-sold for several thousand dollars over sticker price. This was the first reliable sports car that handled great, looked great, had great brakes, and delivered good MPG in addition to looks on par with the best of Italy. The Z was no slouch. Though it didn't have the brute hp of a Mustang/Charger/Corvette/Camaro/Cuda, it had good hp for its size and the well engineered suspension design and its idependent rear suspension allowed it to leave the most powerful US, Italian and German competitors in the dust on a winding road course race track, or winding streets.
As the seventies began, Toyota had finally engineered an extremely reliable four cylinder powerplant for the Corolla that was every bit as good as that seen in the earlier ('68-'73) 510.
It took Toyota until 1974 with the powerplants in the '75 Celica to finally work the bugs out of the problems with earlier '71 to late '74 Celicas. Once Toyota had supreme reliability in this model, the sporty Celica, in addition to the Corolla, Corona, and small pick-ups, there was nothing stopping it.
Datsun made equally good cars at the time, but other than the Z and their small pick-ups, the seventies would see Datsun make cars less attractive than Toyota.....(remember the 200SX) The Datsuns were great like Toyota, they were just visually less appealing other than the Z or pick-ups.
BETWEEN 1971 and 1973, Toyota and Datsun had basically wiped out all other comers in the modern economy car segment as far as reliabilty was concerned from a Consumer Reports point of view. The antique VW still ruled with buyers as VW had about 14% of the US car market at the time. The best "American" small offerings were the English & German powered PINTOs and imported Ford (mercury) CAPRI powered by English & German ford powerplants and GM's imported German subsidiary OPEL . The Pinto was US built but its engines until the 1974 model year were either 1.6 liter British design or 2.0 liter German design. The Pinto was extremely crude from an interior and looks standpoint as well as a driver comfort standpoint compared with the last imported Ford Cortina which it replaced or the imported Capri.
The Pinto was reliable though. The same could not be said for General Motors new for 1971 all domestic product, engineered to be the best economy car up to that time, Chevrolet Vega, in reality another POS from the mark of excrement. After all, the Vega did replace the engineering marvel called the Corvair, more appropriately engineered monstrosity called Corvair. GM seemed happiest building large cars and seemed to not care if their domestically built smaller offerings were decent. They likely assumed that since we are GM, that the public will buy them as they are from the mark of excellence and everybody loves GM. Well, by late 1973, people were getting tired of that same old GM tune when faced with rising gas costs for the first time. Do I stick with 10 or 11 MPG that is at least dependable or chance it with the doo-doo mobile GM economy car. Some did staying loyal and later jumped ship permanently due to the experience with such garbage.
By 1975 the Japanese (TOYOTA & DATSUN did build the world's best cars) were the best. By the end of the seventies and the start of the eighties, both HONDA and MAZDA were up high in quality too.
VW lost its way.
The Rabbit introduced as a '75 model in the US was the best designed packaging of a small car to that point in time. The front wheel drive package was more modern than anything that had been done in FWD to that point in time.
It was truly one of the world's best cars in design up to that point. The problem was that it did have nuisance problem areas that required frequent trips to the dealership. Dealer service on the Rabbits was a sour experience for previous VW owners accustomed to simple and fast service experience. Early Rabbits had carburetor problems and quality control problems that required parts that weren't carried in dealer inventory. Repair/service costs were costly and relatively frequent for Rabbit owners. When fuel injection replaced carburetion, the Rabbit did get better, but the Japanese makes were more reliable and less costly. Though it was somewhat of a marvel engineering design package, VW couldn't get up to speed quick enough in working the flaws out and the Japanese did what they do best and that is improve upon engineering design. VW lost market share rapidly to the Japanese after 1974. The Golf (rabbit) was introduced first in '74 but not until '75 model in USA. The larger upscale fwd Dasher and fwd vw powered Audi Fox were marketed here as 1974 models if memory serves. Both of those models also had serious quality control problems too. VW's water cooled quality control problems of the early seventies through the early eighties were not unlike GM's lack of quality control which persisted corporate wide from the start of the seventies until the teens.
Make no mistake, if an automaker doesn't keep up with the quality of its peers, market share takes a huge beating.
Sometimes makes head for the exits too in the US mktplace. Citroen, the British roadsters as British Leyland went extinct in '81, Fiat exiting in 1982, Pugeot, Renault, Sterling, Alfa-Romeo in '93. Fiat did recently come back. Technically its Alfa-Romeo subsidiary was here through '93 models. All of those makes mentioned are famous for horrible reliability, though they did make very nice looking fun cars, if you can call fun as meaning when the vehicles did funCTION and were roadworthy!
Volvo is on the ropes today as their year to date sales volume has been particularly low.
Cars of today are excellent when compared with those of long ago or twenty years ago. Even GM cars are decent enough.
I don't know about you but I prefer to spend my money on better quality cars.
We do have the means to purchase any new car that we would like.
Sometimes, when you can afford to , you just don't care so much to spend $100,000 + or $340,000+ on any automobile. It seems silly. Nobody is going to be impressed anyway.
A 2014 Kia Optima will get you from point A to point B in nice comfort and will be extremely reliable. You need not need a Bentley or a Rolls-Royce in your driveway. A Mercedes, BMW or Lexus won't do any better than the Kia Optima.
Asian producers still seem to make the best automobiles in the world. They produce reliability and quality in their lowest base model economy car right up through their top of the line flagship models. Hardly anyone else comes close to that quality comes first approach.
Once the Japanese and other Asian makers figured out how to build luxurious, comfortable interiors and stylish looking automobiles, there was no stopping them as there was no longer a reason for anyone not to seriously consider their offerings. Toyota's Lexus has ranked near the best in terms of quality since that brand was introduced almost 25 years ago.
Everybody has been playing catch-up to the Japanese, Asian makers since 1971 in my opinion.
They simply produce great cars that are worth every penny versus other makers' in brand new cars.
I am surprised by the sheer number of people who prefer foreign over domestic. I think Ford and GM especially have a very impressive lineup of cars for people of all tastes, they have a car for whatever your needs and desires are.
For me it's simple (I've never owned a 70's vehicle). While quality and craftsmanshilp is up, my opinion is that it's still a design cycle away from what my 17 year old Toyota and 13 year old VW have Today. And those I've driven (my wife travels for work and I get to join her about half the time, so 8~10 rentals a year for business and another 2~3 for vacation) all seem to have annoying usability issues, like limited visibility for the sake of design. But the Biggest reason? There's not one Domestic vehicle that looks good to me, they are ugly as sin. While I'm not a particularly vain person, I wouldn't want to have to look at anything a Domestic makes every time I had to go outside.
Not saying I'll never own a Domestic, quality IS improving and fast so I expect that in ~4 years I'll have no qualms on that front. But the design influences *barf*, Ford's rip-off of the Aston grill is about as good as it gets and it's sorta like putting a pretty face on a dung heap.
Some of these replies crack me up. especially the ones that think the Asian OEM's are more advanced than the Domestics. They might be in smaller engine development but that is about it. And innovators in styling...now that is funny. Now i do have to give a nod to KIA, where they are now from the '90s is amazing. Their styling is not the typical bland "egg" mobile that the other big 3 imports are. Although the Optima stylng is a blatant ripoff of several other manufacturers lumped into one vehicle.
I will admit the late 70's, 80's and 90's where really bad times for the domestics. Once the bean counters took over they didn't stand a chance to the gov't subsidized imports that had been flooding the market. Now those subsidies don't matter since we eagerly invited them to start building in our country. By then it was too late the brainwashing was done and the domestics were tarnished for good. Sad really but they did it to themselves along with the help of our government. It doesn't matter though the people at the top got their pockets lined regardless.
I am shocked by the people that pick one side over another. A great car is a great car, what cares who made it
Every manufacturer has made good cars, every mnaufacturer has bad bad cars. Remember the toyotas that would sludge? Remember the Honda automatics of the early 00s that would fail prematurely? Remember the GM products whose interiors would fall apart as soon as they drove off the lot ...
Personally resale value means very little to me. If I buy a brand new car I want to get every penny out of it, so I plan on running it until it dies. The ONLY time resale value will be of any importance to me is if I wreck/total the car and the insurance company gives me what it's valued at in order to replace it, then I may be a little screwed. However, I don't see where modern day domestics have a lower resale value than modern day foreign cars? In fact, I know of a few domestics which actually hold onto their value better than their foreign counterparts.
This country is seized with a disdain of domestic cars based on nothing. I had a feeling a lot of people preferred foreign over domestic, but I didn't know it was this many.
Personally resale value means very little to me. If I buy a brand new car I want to get every penny out of it, so I plan on running it until it dies. The ONLY time resale value will be of any importance to me is if I wreck/total the car and the insurance company gives me what it's valued at in order to replace it, then I may be a little screwed. However, I don't see where modern day domestics have a lower resale value than modern day foreign cars? In fact, I know of a few domestics which actually hold onto their value better than their foreign counterparts.
This country is seized with a disdain of domestic cars based on nothing. I had a feeling a lot of people preferred foreign over domestic, but I didn't know it was this many.
It is particularly evident outside of the Midwest and parts of the rural South. I was surprised to see so many Pontiacs, Saturns, and Buicks on the roads in Wisconsin.
It is particularly evident outside of the Midwest and parts of the rural South. I was surprised to see so many Pontiacs, Saturns, and Buicks on the roads in Wisconsin.
Midwesterners tend to prefer domestics because they are the ones that provide the auto jobs there, understandably.
In the South, "import" brands are gaining numbers quickly because they are the ones that provide the auto jobs here. You'd be surprised to see the number of Elantras and Sonatas on the roads here in Alabama.
I will not buy European because the cost of maintenance and repair scares me away.
I will not buy a vehicle that supports the UAW.
I laugh when I see people refuse to support foreign brands because they say it keeps jobs here. What about all the "American" cars made in Mexico or Canada? "Oh but the profits go back to Japan/Korea..." argument doesn't sit well with me, either. I'd rather see non-UAW Americans at work for Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda than to cut my nose off and see American CEO's get fat off of Canadian and Mexican labor building "American" cars.
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