world's best auto manufacturer

According to Fortune magazine:

"Indeed, by nearly every measure, Toyota is the world's best auto manufacturer. It may be the world's best manufacturer, period. "

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Reply to
Daniel
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I don't know, Panasonic makes pretty decent products, too.

i have a number of 'Toys' nad they are all well made. Inexpensive perhaps, but well made. I had a '90 Nissan 240SX and could not believe how downright CHEAPLY BUILT it was. A blast to drive, a real headturner, but CHEAP!

On the contrary, my '88 Supra I got around Thanksgiving is about the BEST made car I have ever seen (Mind you, I have had about a dozen Toys, the Nissan, a VW Jetta and a Honda. I also currently own a '94 LHS that seems ok) It is SOLID! All the tricks I use in my other Toys don't work in this one, like adding lights, wiring the stereo, speakers, etc. It is a bit of a challenge to maintain the stock appearance and not drill or cut, and get around all the structures in the car. BTW, it is a Targa ("Sportroof") so it is probably braced a little bit more...

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Reply to
hachiroku

Best at what?

I have both an accord and a camry with high mileage on both. The accord has had much fewer problems. Also, servicability is much better on the accord. (Consider changing the transmission fluid - in a camry gobbs of it will never drain resulting in lots of dirty fluid still in the car after a fluid change).

Toyota has more techi / convenience features but honda is a better lasting car. Check out price depriation between the two manufactures

- honda's depreciate slower - indicating that the market place views older honda's superior to older toyota.

Most of these issues are inconsequential if you trade out your cars fairly often though.

Reply to
kiselink

Best at what?

----------- Fortune is a business magazine. They most likely mean best at market penetration and growth in business profitability. Toyota is actually a much larger company than Honda.

Reply to
Daniel

snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com wrote: || On 25 Jan 2005 15:27:18 -0800, "Daniel" || wrote: || ||| According to Fortune magazine: ||| ||| "Indeed, by nearly every measure, Toyota is the world's best auto ||| manufacturer. It may be the world's best manufacturer, period. " || || Best at what? || || I have both an accord and a camry with high mileage on both. The || accord has had much fewer problems. Also, servicability is much || better on the accord. (Consider changing the transmission fluid - || in a camry gobbs of it will never drain resulting in lots of dirty || fluid still in the car after a fluid change). || || Toyota has more techi / convenience features but honda is a better || lasting car. Check out price depriation between the two manufactures || - honda's depreciate slower - indicating that the market place views || older honda's superior to older toyota. || || Most of these issues are inconsequential if you trade out your cars || fairly often though.

Only whack jobs with more money than brains constantly trade in their vehicles.

Reply to
Liberalsareliars

Liberalsareliars" Only whack jobs with more money than brains constantly trade in their

Don't hold back, tell us what you really think. davidj92

Reply to
davidj92

Total company long-term reliability records don't support what you are saying. In your singular experience, your point-of-view is understandable. If you look at Consumer Reports and J.D. Power surverys, Toyotas have been the best.

Also consider, Honda parts prices are more expensive too. Take brake pads for example. A 2001 Prelude's front brake pads cost more than a

2001 Celica's yet the Celica outbrakes the Prelude. Call both dealers for the timing belt and water pump prices too. Toyota lists platinum plugs for $10. Honda lists them for $16. Toyota even lists their iridium plugs for $12. Two Honda wiper refills run for about $14. At Toyota, they cost about $9.

Serviceability isn't as good either. Take a 2004 RAV4 versus the 2004 CRV. In the RAV4, you can easily replace the A/C filter yourself. In the CRV, dash pieces have to be taken apart which results in people bringing them in to a service shop. On your Camry and Accord, try replacing the distributor rotor. In the Camry, you simply pull out the rotor and push the new one in. In the Accord, you'd have to remove the screw on the side which necessitates for you to keep cranking the engine until the screw is accessible from certain holes.

It's great that you've had good experiences with both brands. I believe when you say you've had less problems with your Accord. Just keep in mind, most people have experiences less problems overall with Toyota than Honda.

Reply to
Viperkiller

I'll vouch for that! As the other poster shold know, Honda's repair prices are horrible compared to Toyota. Thank God they don't break often! We had my Corolla and an Accord, and they both needed a similar service, eithr timing belt or brakes, and I almost hit the deck when the Honda dealer gave me an estimate! Holy Crap!

Accord. 2 fuel filters. Good idea, but the rear one was tucked where you had to remove the tire and something else to get to it!

They actuall ran neck-and-neck in my case; that is, not very much maintenance on *either* of them!

Reply to
hachiroku

I'm glad that you agreed with the other 2 points.

As for this last one, it's good that you've had just as good an experience with both brands. Long-term reliability records though don't agree. Even my personal experience has been different from yours. So if you had better experience with older Honda's, that's great. I need your luck with them. Not that my experience was negative by all means. I just have a few more little problems as they got close to 180k miles.

Reply to
Viperkiller

Funny how the public doesn't agree as demonstrated by the percentage price depreciation of used cars. Funny too is a quick visit at the JD Power site doesn't support your position when viewed under midterm and longterm ratings.

Gosh......yep.....I always buy my plugs and wipers at the dealers. Forget that its just a name stamped on the genuine Honda / Toyota part is actually just manufactured by leading parts manufactured which are widely available at significantly reduced prices. I am surprised you don't mention buying genuine Honda and Toyota motor oil too!

Neither the CRV and RAV4 are core products of Honda's and Toyota's. If you want to compare apples to apples, look at the heavy sellers which have sold year after year. Celica/Camry and Civic/Accord are examples of cars which are sold in numbers of much greater magnitude than CRV and RAV4 which are just market niche players.

The core products is where a corporation can afford the people and systems to detect problems, incorporate fixes into future vehicles, and develope new technology. This is consequential to the fact that auto manufacturing is a capital intensive business. Consider the engineering staff for a core product. The cost of the addition of one more engineer staff is averaged over the vehicles manufactured. The vehicle's profitablity is miniscully effected. Contrast that to a low manufactured vehicle - say by an order of 10. So now that engineer is eating into profitabilty by a factor of 10.

I suppose you might be suggesting that the average number of problems over makes of vehicles is superior in Toyota over Honda. Thats basically an arithemetic metric. But from that statistic, you cannot conclude that most people have had less problems. You need to perform a weighted average in which case you get a different result.

Its sort of like how the news services watch the Dow Jones average which is a garbage market indicator. Instead they should look at the S&P 500.

Reply to
kiselink

I believe they are both good cars, however I have noted the following regarding both Camrys and Accords. You probably won't have much in the way of warranty claims on either, but, in my experience, Honda will sometimes play hardball with you on a warranty claim. I've actually know of a case where two Honda dealers told a customer with a new car that she must have damaged it (not true) and they won't fix it under the warranty (a front end problem that cost about $950 to fix). They both offered to give her a letter saying it was damaged and suggested she claim it on her collesion insurance. (Seems a little sleazy to me.) My wife is on her second Camry. The first one was a 1990 and lasted all the way until the end of 2004. The brake and gas lines rusted out. The car was

Reply to
Al

I believe they are both good cars

---------- These topics may be more interesting to many than the original posting which ranked "best manufacturer" as one that is successful financially. A basic accounting priniciple is that more money is better than less money. Honda's stock price and market "cap" (capitalization - how investors value the total company) is $26 per share and $48 billion. For Toyota, the numbers are $78 per share and $127 billion.

Reply to
Daniel

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