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Re: U.S. car companies do poorly in survey

I work on cars a fair amount, and I really don't consider U.S. made cars to be as poor as portrayed in this newsgroup. Yes, European cars are great, but that doesn't mean U.S. cars are total junk. You can't throw a rock without hitting a 20+ year old American car with well over 200K miles on it, still running and driving perfectly, full size cars getting close to 30 mpg, body and interior holding up well, A/C still working, etc. Also, I'll go out on a limb here and submit that people who buy American cars don't tend to really take meticulous care of them, versus the Jap-car-buying nerds.

Reply to
Gomer Einstein
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We have cheap skate consumers that are enamored with Rice Steel found in "Jap-car"s.

Reply to
Charge

Now you are out in left field...The Japanese are some of the best steelmakers in the world now. The US steelmakers went stale on technology and manufacturing methods, and lost much of the competitive edge we had years ago.

I believe they largely did this because (1) the Japanese have a goal of controlling certain markets, and (2) the Japanese banking system has the leeway to bankroll industrial investment in research and technology. It doesn't seem to have to pay off in the short term for the Japanese banks to get behind it. The US is short term profit driven, and some of the apparent losses we have sustained are directly related to short term managerial thinking.

We are fighting a mindset, as surely as we fought the Axis powers in WWII.

The Consumer Report information that has just come out shows American cars to lag the Japanese in terms of quality, measured as the number of failures per 100 cars over a year's period.

The European cars didn't do so well either.

This data may or may not be relevant. You can take it or leave it.

I will have to say that, although I am not a Ford fan, they have done more about standing behind their products than GM has. Both Ford and GM are in desperate financial condition.

Reply to
<HLS

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