Should I buy a GM? or should I jump ship?

The simple answer is the early japanese cars were pretty pedestrian, on the whole. Early ones also suffered from body rot (although so did early seventies Fords, and early fifities Mopars, and late 90's GMs ). At local car shows the last few years we've been seeing some early Corollas, the odd Crown, Datsun 510s, the odd early BLuebird, Datsun

110 and 210 sedans, Zs, Celicas, Supras, the odd RX2 or RX3.Even a Toyota 7UP (UP7 - more or less the fore-runner of the Starlet (KP17) At truck shows we'vwe been seeing the odd early Hilux (RN series), and Land Cruisers (FJ and BJ) are common at any 4 wheeler meet.

The old ones were INFERIOR. But what's happened over the last 25 years or so....pretty much starting with the 1977 Honda Accord...is that they leapfrogged the US makers and quality has remained better ever since. It's not merely a myth as you proclaim. Just because you correctly don't have any

30+ year old Hon/Toys as examples of quality doesn't mean that TODAY they are not the leader in quality. They are. And this is coming from someone who almost always drove Fords and occasionally GM. Moving to Japanese made my life MUCH less stressful.

You are entitled to your opinion but that is not what we see in our service business. The failure rate among brands today is constant the only real difference we see is style and price.

Your personal experience with vehicles you have owned may be different but I personally have owned many foreign cars, including Honda and several Lexus' and they were no better than any domestics I have owned.

I see lots of domestics from the sixties seventies and eighties, but not any japanese cars from that same time period at car shows, and that is a fact. I know the reason, it is that they cost too much to keep in repair over time.

mike hunt

"D.D. Palmer" wrote:

Show me an american car with over 600,000 km on it with NO mechanical breakdowns - had one axle joint replaced, one clutch and one timing belt. Several sets of brakes. 1980 Tercel I sold about 12 years ago.When the guy I sold it to finally scrapped it 4 years later it had something like 725000 on the clock, and the speedo had not worked for

2 years. No repairs in those 4 years, other than replacing the points that I had put in the glove-box when I sold it to him. Or 500,000Km with one wheel bearing and one distributor. Still has original rad, AC still works. 3rd set of brakes. 1992 Honda Civic VX my buddy just drove from KitchenerOntario to east of Montreal this weekend. It has had one cat converter and one O2 sensor replaced to meet emmission specs.The only repair that ever stopped it was the distributor. Not too many Taurus (or other Fords) sunfires, grand ams, tempests, etc have done that.

Guys - just an FYI on the cost of repairs American vs Japanese - and an explanation of WHY I stated, and still maintain, that American cars are no less expensive to repair than Japanese cars. Let me preface this with "IN CANADA"

Here in Canada, on a US dollar cost basis, we pay ALMOST TWICE what you in the US do for American car parts.

I'll give you a couple examples from the job I did on my wife's Mystique last week.

I replaced intake manifold gaskets. The upper manifold gaskets, F5RZ 9H486BA cost out, at garage price, at $25.87 Canadian EACH. At today's exchange rate, roughly $20.95 US. American price, quoted to me by an east coast dealer, is $12.09 each - $24.18 for the pair.

Injector nose "O" rings (cm4717) $11.04 Canadian ($8.94 US)for 6 - US price $7.82 for a set of 10. Injextor body "O" rings (cm5009) $7.04 Canadian vs $3.40 US

Lower intake gaskets, (F5RZ9439B) Canadian cost$20.66 each. US cost $9.65 each

Fuel rail seals( F5RZ9P867A) $10.82 each, US cost $5.05

IRC linkage bushings (F5RZ9F955AB) $9.52 each Canadian, $4.45 each, US.

IAC gasket E83Z 9F670A - Canadian $1.10, US $0.51

Toyota parts prices are virtually dollar for dollar, US to Canada - which would make prices in Canada up to 20% lower than in the US of A. Even if they cost the same as in the US, American cars are no less expensive to fix here.

So go buy Canadian cars and leave us alone!

Chronic quality problems seem to be happening with many of the major brands these days. Honda has put zillions of marginal automatic transmissions on the road and is only marginally better than GM is about taking responsibility.

Nope! Can't be true! We've already heard that Japanese manufacturers have no major component replacement problems. You must have dreamed this... ;)

Just read this:

or this:

or this:

and so on.

Unfortunately, GM isn't the only company which puts marginal product in the field and then attempts to avoid responsibility.

Lucky me, I have a GM van which has already needed the intake manifold gasket replace AND a Honda Accord with a chronic leaking transmission.

Must all be User Error, eh?

John