>>
formatting link
>
>> Okay, first I'm going to say that SOME of the foreign branded cars
>> make an excellent car and that SOME of the American named cars need a
>> little improvement in quality. Does everybody understand that first
>> sentence? Good. Now bear with me.
>>
>> About 20 years ago I was reading about the initial overall quality of
>> two cars. One was a Japanese car and the other was an American car,
>> both of these compared side by side. The Japanese car got rave reviews
>> for initial quality and component fit and the American car had a lot
>> of initial problems and a lot of new car complaints. Now this wasn't
>> just one car verses one car, it was thousands of reviews from both
>> models of cars. Even the owners quotes summed it up real well. "I
>> bought a Japanese car because of the quality that I wanted and I'm
>> glad of my purchase". For the American buyers, a lot of quotes were
>> "As usual, the American car had a lot more problems than if I'd
>> purchased a Japanese car". This article stated that even Lee Iacoca
>> (spelling?), had problems with this statement, because the American
>> car that they were bashing was the Plymouth Laser. Now what was the
>> car that thousands of buyers were praising??
>> It was the Mitsubishi Eclipse..........
>>
>> The real irony is that these cars were identical in about every way
>> and even produced in the same factory and they were probably made one
>> car in front of each other. The only difference between the two were
>> the make/model badges on the dash and on the bumper. THAT'S what
>> Iacoca was peeved about, the perception of difference.
>>
>> Once again, is there a difference? Probably.
>> There certainly is in people's minds.
>
> I read the same type of thing when the Pontiac Vibe / Toyota Matrix came
> out. According to the article, the Matrix was gold, and yet the Vibe was
> trash. I guess no one bothered to tell them they were the same cars. Now,
> if I could only find that damned article.
Well, the obvious problem with the Vibe is that you had to go to a Pontiac dealer to get one. That could easily account for the difference in perception.
By the way, Consumer reports shows the reliability history for those two cars to be nearly identical.