What is the best American car make, in your opinion? (2010, auto)
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Just remember December 7 next time you drive your Toyota or Honda .
Just remember September 11 next time you fill up your gas tank.
And I never understood the "Buy American" mindset and how it seems to only apply to cars. How many people do you hear saying "Buy Xbox instead of PlayStation because Microsoft is American"?
Don't let facts get in the way of a good argument, eh? That Tundra that magically scores a 75% domestic content rating really only has 32% of their parts built in the US. (And half of that are parts built here by foreign suppliers.)
Welcome to globalization and why should the bolded even be a concern if it’s being built in America?
Again remember the Almo when you hop behind the wheel of your Mexican built Chevy. (Sarcasm) poking fun at the Pearl Harbor comment.
Pontiac vibe? Pontiac went out of business in 2012.
I would say none, until Ford can clean up their act. We were lifetime Ford owners, but have found that Quality of the ones we owned slip quickly once they are out of warranty.
Exception: the diesel truck
Had GMs in the 80s and had a nightmare/lemon - as did our relatives. never again.
Don't really care about percentage of parts/country of origin... I just liked the ford styling and performance and tried to support American industry. We are buying japanese for our next car. I am sad about it. We keep our cars too long to have cars that deteriorate quickly once they are out of warranty.
Ford and Chrysler have dismal reliability, second only to Fiat. GM is not much better. Honda Fit is super reliable, practical, safe, roomy, economical. What more do you need?
Do some objective research. Individuals experiences are meaningless.
Sounds like someone can't seem to forget and forgive the Japanese. I would imagine some if not most of the electronics items you use on a daily basis are from Japanese manufacturers
A 2014 Ford Fusion I rented for a week a year ago was a really nice car. Very smooth ride, and well built.It almost felt like a much more expensive car.
I've never been too keen on Fords engineering, so I am not sure how long those Fusions will last 10 years from now, and if they will hold up. At the moment, I think currently Ford and GM are doing about the same in quality, in some instances GM is better than Ford in initial quality.
But to me, initial quality doesn't mean crap, I want to know the stats on how well the car is doing in 3-5 years. The old GM D-B body cars were really well made and sturdy, as well as Fords Panther platform. But I always noticed during the 90's and 2000's how cheaply made the interiors on American cars were vs say Honda and Toyota or even Nissan. As time moves on, positive changes have occured, no longer are we seeing the ultra cheap dash plastics and armrest like we did in GM-Ford-Chrysler cars 10-20 years ago.
Every car maker at one point in time used to build crappy cars, some longer than others, but in general, the current crop of domestic automakers understand that they can't afford or risk building unreliable vehicles anymore, therefore are forced to make sure there product is as good as the imports.
I really can't tell anymore, stepping up into the luxury cars is where the differences are actually noticeable.
Unlike Cadillac and even Lincoln vehicles, a BMW or a Benz will wrap the entire door panels (even the lower trim which is usually hard plastic in a Cad or A Linc), the center consoles with soft materials like leather or another kind of padded vinyl. Plus the feeling of the materials is more substantial and less flimsy in a Benz vs a Caddy.
So American makes skimp on interior quality in the smallest of spots compared to the Germans which care a little more in this case, and it is noticeable. Until GM and Ford can get their asses out of the money bag and realize that if they truly want to compete with the top tier luxury makes, they can't cut corners to save a penny here and a penny there for customers to be lured away from there 5 Series or E-Class.
I don't really know too many people that own Dodge/Chrysler vehicles for many reasons people have pointed out already. They just aren't that reliable and people simply don't like them. They have bad history of building poor quality vehicles which goes back 40 years, the only real highlights of the brand are the current Charger, Challenger, 300, Ram pickups, and the Magnum when it first came out.
The old stuff GM, Ford, and Chrysler put out in the 50's-60's were awesome. GM being the leader in most cases for quality, reliability, and styling. Back when America was enthusiastic and had something to prove.
These reliability studies are a complete joke but I will say JD Power is at least impartial. (Unlike Consumer Reports who bribes companies to get better ratings. I was in the room when they bribed my boss when I was working at Ford Motor Co. They basically said if gave them more advertising money they would help us out with the ratings.)
Come again, Mr. Weasel? Are you really talking about Consumer Reports? CR doesn't accept advertising money from anyone, period. They have no advertisements other than for their own publications.
The old stuff GM, Ford, and Chrysler put out in the 50's-60's were awesome. GM being the leader in most cases for quality, reliability, and styling. Back when America was enthusiastic and had something to prove.
Well, not really. American cars were great in some ways, but the quality control was definitely lacking in the 1950s and 1960s. My father who's been buying cars since the 1940s describes how he used to bring home his shiny new Oldsmobile and keep a little notebook handy to write down all the defects so he could take the car back to the dealer a couple of weeks later to fix 10-15 things.
It got so bad they passed "lemon laws" in many states to protect the consumers who were stuck with literally a piece of junk.
Japanese cars in the 1960s were actually worse than American cars. It wasn't until the late 70s and early 80s that the Japanese had mastered the 1950s American-developed principles of total quality control and managed to ship cars that were 98% free of defects. Even then, Japanese cars would have the occasional fit-and-finish issue but were much better overall than their American counter-parts.
Gradually, though, the American manufacturers caught on and improved their own quality control but it came about two decades too late. Americans had acquired a taste for Japanese cars (and German cars) and there was no going back.
Until Tesla came along, anyway. OP, tell your girlfriend to buy a Tesla (if she has an extra $80K to spend, that is). Except for range, it's basically the best car on the road today. CR reports that it's the best car they've ever tested--very impressive for a U.S.-designed and U.S.-built vehicle!
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