no wonder the US auto industry is dying

That's good that you've had a good experience with them. But I don't think resale value is meaningless. It may be a lagging indicator if recent US quality has improved, but it's still what the market says. Why would people assume Japanese is better quality if it isn't so? How could they all be wrong?

Same is true when one goes to an old car show. Lots of domestic and European sedans from the sixties seventies and eighties, when Japanese cars sold well in the US, but one never if ever sees a Japanese car from that era except a 'Z' car or RX7 on occasion. The so called superiority of Japanese vehicles in more myth than fact. In the fleet service that I once owned we serviced thousands of vehicles monthly, from just about any brand you can name, for fleets that generally kept their vehicle in service for five years or 300K WOF. Japanese vehicles in general did no better on average that any others. The biggest problem with Japanese cars is the extraordinarily higher repair costs vs. domestic, when they need to repaired. They all will need to be repaired over the long term at which corporate fleets keep their vehicles. Whenever one hears somebody comparing their newer Toyota to the pieced of crap brand 'X' they used to own, it is generally one that was built 15 years ago or so. Japanese car of 15 years ago were not as good as what is sold today either. If one looks at the way CR and Powers rates vehicles the do so as a list from best to worse. In reality, if you look at the same list in percentages, EVERY manufacture making some that have a failure rate between 2% and 2 1/2%. What they are really saying is every manufacture builds vehicles, that the consumer can buy, that has a 97 1/2% to 98% chance of being a great reliable vehicle. The only real difference among vehicles today is style and price

mike hunt

"C. E. White" wrote in message news:4356a1ef snipped-for-privacy@news1.prserv.net...

Another Japanese car myth but a common misconception that one hears all the time. As a percentage of the actual drive home price Japanese vehicles are no better than domestics in retained value. In many cases not as good when one considers the percentage retained of the original drive home price. A two year old V6 Camry is indeed worth $4,000 more than a V6 Taurus according to NADA, but the Camry cost at least $5,000 more to drive home when new. In that example the Taurus returns a higher percentage of the origin price than does the V6 Camry. If one compares wholesale prices of used domestic vs. Japanese cars you will see it is the car dealers that are making a greater mark up on Japanese higher retail prices but not offering a proportionally higher trade price, even on the same brand.

mike hunt

I'll bet you paid a lot more money to drive home that Toyota van than a comparable Dodge van as well ;)

mike hunt

Hate to ask a question of a questioner but if what you say were actually true, why does everybody not believe that and buy Toyotas? GM, Ford and even Chrysler outsell Toyota and Honda. The market say THOSE buyers must not believe what you believe. ;)

mike hunt

Maybe it's because they have been influenced by the exorbitant amount of advertising by the Big Three.

You make lots of good points, but every Toyota and Honda owner I have met has not gone back to American cars. One example is the fellow at church last week. I saw him get into his 4Runner and asked him when is he going to get one like the newer one parked next to him. He said he'd like to but there's no reason to buy a new one yet. He said he has had less problems with his 4Runner in five years than he had with his Cherokee in one year.

Did you speak to any of the many former Japanese buyers, that have traded all those Japanese cars at GM, Ford or Chrysler dealers, to get their opinion as well? ;)

mike hunt

Like I said in my previous post, "every Toyota and Honda owner I have met." I haven't actually gone to the dealers and interviewed anyone who was trading in their Toyota. Besides if they actually were doing that then I suspect they either got an incredible deal that they couldn't turn down or they had a lemon.

I'm not going to argue too much with you about the value and the quality of new cars today. But I will contend that those of us who buy used cars will almost always get a more reliable and solid car when we buy a Toyota or Honda rather than Chevy, Ford, or Dodge.

In fact only a couple thousand more than a 94 Caravan and I got more stuff and bells and whistles on the Toyota plus I got a non-rattle smooth ride with better gas milage plus more room. The Toyota was a far better value for me, but to be fair the Sienna was not available in

1994. As far as a 2004, perhaps yes a little more, but it was as I said worth it. Having said that, if I were using it for a business then I would go the cheap route and buy a Caravan or whatever I could get for the least money, in fact I'd try for a two year old something, then drive the hell out of it and then junk it. All depends on what you want. You drive a Lexus I seem to recall, then why couldn't you drive a Focus or something similar, a throw away so to speak. We all have our pleasures and fun money to spend on cars. I hate rattle traps.

As a % of original price, the Japanese have the US carmakers beaten by quite a lot. That's how you should look at resale value.

Maybe they want to buy American. Maybe they are cheaper up front. Maybe they buy out of habit. The trend has been going Japanese, that's for sure. They started from nothing.

If GM after 3 years is worth 1/2 original value and Toyota is worth

70%, that's saying something. That says that GM's car is half way done or will need alot of maintenance...alot more than the Toyota. The difference is stark. It isn't all hype.

"Maybe it's because they have been influenced by the exorbitant amount of advertising by the Big Three"

I don't know where you live, but around here nobody runs more ads than Toyota. The Toyota truck ads (particualrly Tacoma ads) are just plain stupid. And the car ads are mystifying (what does "moving forward" mean). And I swear Toyotathon is a year round event. In addition to the national ads, we have three local dealers that seem to run commercials continuously - each spewing more BS than the lat. After listening to the truck ads last year, I took a run at buying a Tundra. The ads were pure lies. They may have had one somewhere at the price they claimed, but they never seemed to be able to find it.

Ed

You are seeing the power of advertisement. If you have more Toyota commercials than anything else now them maybe that is why Toyotas are starting to sell better. It probably won't be long before Honda gets into the marketing business also.

I don't believe that one bit. If this would be true, why are the resale values so much higher for Toyotas and Hondas? Market dictates a lot. A Toyota will be trouble free much longer than comparable GM or Ford. Also - let's not forget the most obvious. When you compare two similar cars from GM and Toyota, the GM has more overhead that is amortized in each car. This means cheaper parts, which means worse reliability.

Japanese cars look newer longer, so you may have missed them. My friends 93 Lexus looks like its brand new, and feels like it too. If you saw it on the street, you would think its maybe 2-3 years old.

You forgot yo say in my opioion ;)

mike hunt

You forgot to say in my opinion ;)

mike hunt

You forgot to say in my opinion. ;)

mike hunt

You probably will. I looked at a 2001 RAV4 with 44K miles. It was going

for only $3,000 less than a new 2005 RAV4 with 2 miles. They hold their values!