Camry is the car most frequently traded in for Malibu

The fact that they are buying an American car is evidence that they aren't better educated.

What about the Pinto and Pacer? Two of the best cars America ever made! ;-)

And Toyota left in 1958 and didn't return until 1960 or so.

I think the person that suggested selling the Toyopet in the US committed Hari Kari...

I second that. Been burned by the big three too many times (new 'big three' purchases: six). Got three Toyota's in the driveway now. Never ever going back to ripoff city...

>

Glad you like the brand you buy but have you priced new cars lately? One of my sons recently priced '08 models of the Fusion, Milan, Malibu, Accord and a Camry. All were V6 models similarly well equipped.

Approximate MSRP Fusion 26K, Milan 27K, Malibu 26K, Accord 29K and a Camry

32K. Drive home price with his Rav4 trade Fusion 9K, Milan 9.5K, Malibu 10.6K, Accord 14K and a Camry 16K.

Guess which dealer offered the lowest price for his Rav4? Guess which two dealerships have the highest shop rates. He loves his Milan ;)

>>

I'm sure he does for now, most troll relatives do.

>>>

Thank g-d no one pays MSRP. Also thankfully you got the Camry MSRP out of thin air. The Camry LE V6 has an MSRP of $24,450, with a street price of well under $22K.

Also, unless you are doing almost exclusively mountain driving, the I4 Camry is more powerful than you'd need.

Where the Camry really makes sense is in the longevity. Buying one car in ten years versus two in ten years is a huge savings.

In this case, I think you have the answer to that question! ;P

I can't imagine a company admitting that they were matching a quality level that mediocre. I think it is a very poor claim. Sort of like claiming your hamburger is just as good as the Big Mac.

Ed

Why do people assume that Toyotas last so much longer than domestic cars? I'll admit I rarely keep a car for 10 years, but in the two cases recently where I did, I had no significant problems (F150 - 14 years, 1986 Mercury Sable -10 years). My SO's old Camry was a smoking, oil dripping, heap of crap in less than 10 years. Not that either case proves anything. How and where the vehicle is driven and how it is maintained probably have a lot more to do with how long it lasts than who built it. Right how we have a 9 year old Ranger on my farm - the worst thing that happened to it in 9 years was my son - he managed to rip off the front air deflector and rear mud flap driving it around in fields. Otherwise it runs fine. I think the only non-teenager related repair needed in the last nine years was an IAC ($55). I can point out plenty of 10 to 15 year old F150s running around with no serious problems. The world is full of 20 year old Tarui. The taxi fleet in Raleigh, NC is mostly made up of 10 year old or older Ford Crown Victorias that were purchased from the state surplus lot (old highway patrol cars). Unless you can factor out the who, where, how driven, and how maintained for different vehicles, I don't think you can support a claim that Toyotas will last twice as long as domestic cars.

Ed

I am not so sure this is true. I fact the cars I have kept the longest were 1 or 2 year old models:

1986 Mercury Sable - 10 years, 147,000 miles - great car 1997 Expedition - only kept 5 years, but 150,000 miles, really happy with the vehicle, bought another 2003 Expedition (new model) - only kept 5 years, but 100k miles (happy with it except for the 14 mpg) 2007 Fusion - currently has 30K miles, never been back to the dealer 2001 Escape (my Sisters vehicle - nice vehicle, minimal problems (brake booster was only significant repair) 2005 Freestyle (my Mother's car) - only repair was broken third seat cover (jammed the cover and broke a clip) 2007 RAV4 (SO's car) - two minor problems - wacky cruise control and rear seat latches not connected, otherwise perfect

In fact I can only think of one "new" model I ever was sorry I bought - a 1981 Plymouth Reliant K. It definitely needed the bugs worked out. I think I visited the dealer at least once a month for the

10 months I owned the car. On the other hand, because of the runaway inflation of the early 1980's I got a great deal when I traded it in on an Audi.

Ed

"Jeff" wrote in message news:AOtQj.1879$Zs1.1212@trndny07...

My family owned two Pinto. I personally considered them two of the best vehicles we ever owned. I purchased a new 1972 hatchback in August of 1972 and drove it until I completed college in 1975. While in college I autocrossed the Pinto at least twice a month. When I graduated from college I sold the Pinto to my Sister who drove it to college for 3 more years. When she graduated, I bought it back and autocrossed if for a few more months, but decided I really did not want a 7 year old car without A/C. I sold it for $600. In the 7 or so years "we" owned it, it had two failures - I burned up the starter because I bought a tank of gas that was 25% water, and a broken throttle cable which broke because I had shortened it to raise the gas pedal for autocrossing. The car was basically indestructible. My older Sister also had a Pinto - a 1973 hatchback. She drove it for 7 years. It did have a transmission problem (probably because she never had the fluid changed or the bands adjusted). When she got a new car, I purchase her old Pinto to use temporarily while my car was undergoing repairs because of an accident. When I got my "regular" car back, I sold that Pinto to a co-worker. His children used it while they were in college. He never had any problems with it, and although he was definitely not a Ford person, he would tell you it was one of the toughest cars ever made. After all his kids were through college, he sold the car for as much as he gave me for it.

Most people who say bad things about Pintos, never owned one, or if they did, it was used one that had been beat to death and/or poorly maintained.

Ed

And now they sold the plastics division to the Chinese....

Ed

Long Term Dependability studies that are based on large samples.

Personally I think one of the issues is that Toyotas seem very tolerant of owner abuse, in terms of neglecting routine maintenance. Go way over the scheduled maintenance, and neglect to check the oil, on some GM cars and you'll literally destroy them. This usually isn't the case with Toyotas, though there are exceptions (i.e. the sludge problem).

I think another big issue in the reputation of Toyota is that they tend to not fight the government or consumer groups over recalls and special repair campaigns, like the domestic manufacturers tend to do.

You did notice who was essentially the same as Ford...Scion? I suspect Ford is talking about initial quality and not long term quality. You can get the actual JD Power Press Release (with more explanation) at

The 2007 JD Powers Initial Quality Study is at . This still shows Toyota ahead of Ford (112 problems per 100 vehicles for Toyota and 120 problems per 100 vehicles for Ford). Consumer Reports has lately been showing Ford roughly equal to Toyota, depending on the vehicle.

The real question is what is the accuracy of these surveys. The dependability study is saying the average three year old Ford has 2.21 problems. The average three year old Toyota has 1.78 problems. Do you really think this sort of survey is accurate to 3 significant figures? I suspect the error is more like +/- 20%

Do you really think Buicks are inherently 10% more reliable than Cadillacs, or 26% more reliable than Oldsmobiles, or 34% more reliable than Pontiacs, or 36% more reliable than Chevrolets? I know I don't.

Or do you think that Mercurys are 11% MORE reliable than Toyotas and

29% more reliable than Fords? There are no unique Mercury models these days. They are all just rebadged Fords, so how can they be that much more reliable?

When you try to make fine distinctions, I think the numbers have a lot more to do with who you asked than what they are driving.

Ed

I think Toyota owners are more tolerant of problems than people who purchase domestic cars. I can only go by the people I know who own Toyotas and it seems to me that they tend to either ignore problems or claim things would be so much worse if they had a Chevrolet. My SO is a good example. She has a 2007 RAV4. Generally it is a good vehicle. However, it has two problems I would never accept - the rear seat releases in the back of the vehicle don't work and the cruise control goes crazy if you try to drive it at 60 mph with the A/C on (constantly downshifts and upshifts with the RPMs going all over the place). She doesn't care enough to take it back to get these problems fixed. If I had a Ford that had those sort of problems, I would have been at the dealer the next day. My older Sister is like my SO. She just got a new RAV4 (2008). Nothing wrong with it, but the car she traded in was horrid. It was a 1997 Civic. She wanted me to sell it for her. I drove it to work one days and told her I didn't want anything to do with the car. She gave me the blank :why" look. I told her the car needed to go straight to the junk yard. The only good thing I could say is that it still moved.

In my opinion, the exact opposite is true. Toyota has one of the worst records when it comes to doing recalls in a timely manner. Go research how Toyota handled the truck ball joint recall. Good PR and aggressively hiding problems is not the same as fixing problems.

Ed

I thought it was to someone in the Middle East!

Whoops, you are right. They sold it to Saudi Basic Industries Corporation.

Ed

The ad campaign has 2 meanings,

1. Fords quality is now the same as Toyota.
2. Toyota's quality dropped down and is now equal to Ford.