im wondering ...how come american cars are not as good as the imports? i went looking at saturns the other day and they looked so cheaply made . the L300 was just awful...the front of the car was just so damn ugly!

surely it's not that difficult to mAke a reliable and a good handling car?
gm and ford has been in the business for a long time and you would think they can produce better cars.
every time i go and look at some domestic i come back v.dissapointed
i wonder whats their agenda....will these companies address these issues and improve their cars?

 

My sister drove a L300 (with 4 cyl L200???) two summers ago when her car was getting body work done to it after some lady rear ended her. She had the car for almost 6 weeks and it sucked. Drove terrible, the transmission sucked and the interior was cheap-looking. The exterior was that plastic-cheap looking material and not that stylish.

Sorry I am not going to address your thread, just wanted to mention how much the L series suck for saturn and basically how much saturns suck in general.

-R

 

...and the l300 costs more then the protege5 .

 

M O N E Y.

 

It's a philosophy difference, from what I've heard. US carmakers are concerned with profits first, and quality second. In Japan, people are much more closely tied to their jobs, so doing a good job becomes a moral imperative, not just a means to a paycheck. They don't like to let something out the door until they "feel right" about it. The American makers would rather make it look cool, go fast, and sell a bunch of 'em, then fix the problems when they come up.

 

go look at a brand new Evo VIII, talk about a cheaply made car and for 30,000 US dollars its all yours! You can't say Domestic < Imports or vice versa. That is one of the simple most retarded statements that ANYONE can make. It all comes down to what YOU the consumer wants/needs. Every American made car you name that looks cheap etc I can name an Import, I can almost garuntee. (Wish I could spell) This debate has lasted forever and will last forever, there isn't a true answer for it.

 

which car can beat the focus in reliability issues? huh?
lets see lexus,bmw,mazda honda....yeah right.
before you go and open your mouth check out some cars...
how about the new saturn ion? the cavalier?
honda and toyota are certainly of much higher quality...duh

im not bashing all domestic cars but if you go and look at them you realize they are below the imports.
gm and ford need to improve...and once they do i'll gladly buy domestic

 

Ditto that. You CAN say with supreme confidence that domestics ARE worse than imports. There is no domestic that can come close to the the quality of a BMW, Benz, Toyota, Honda, or Mazda. It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

 

I guess it also depends on what you mean by "quality." Are you talking build quality, reliability, longevity, or "perceived quality?"

I mean, I had a K-car once with 226,000 miles on it, mostly original, and it ran fine and didn't break down too often, but it was still a piece of crap compared to the rusty old Accord that replaced it. The Honda LOOKED like hell, but it lasted me 2 trouble-free years and "felt" a whole lot better than the Dodge ever did.

 

PseudoRealityX - good to see that MR2 pic in your signature!

Don't know how long that pic has been there - but for some reason it makes me happy that you're thrashing that MR2 all over an auto-x somehwere........I've never even auto-x'ed myself. It's a real mystery as to why this gives me joy . But I see that car with all the decals runnin' the cones and I'm like "hell yeah!"



~HH

 

lmao... you can go ahead and think what you want. This debate has gone on for YEARS. Longer than most of us on this board are old. Like I said in my previous post, you show me a lemon domestic I can show you a lemon import.

You said a Focus, I bring into play a WRX. Ask those guys about their transmissions and how well they perform even with upgrades (clutch flywheel etc). Again the interior of the car is cheap AND its priced at a nice 25k+(new).

Please don't get me wrong. I LOVE my mazda and wouldn't get rid of it for almost anything including a domestic. You CANNOT make a blanked statement about domestics being worse than imports it just DOESN'T work and never will.

Everything comes with a price as Psuedo stated, you brought up Lexus and BMW, I don't know about you but I really don't have the money to shell out for those cars. If you want to state something like "Domestics suck when it comes to compact cars" then I would probably agree.

Maybe you are looking for options with your cars, I dunno. We can go on forever about this AWD turbo, FWD turbo, RWD turbo, NA FWD, NA AWD etc etc etc etc. My point is you cannot make a blanket statement like that.

Edit: And I do look at cars, almost every waking moment I can thanks.

 

Especially since in the global economy, there really is no such thing as a "domestic" or "import" anymore.

Yes - the Protege is all Japanese built. It's in the minority. Even other Mazda vehicles share "American" parts and platforms and are built in other countries.

What do we consider the Toyota Camry? Japanese, because it's a Toyota? Or American - because it is built and assembled in THE US? It's neither. And to exclusively buy a nameplate based on country of origin no longer has relevance in today's world.

People who "only buy American cars" are ignorant fools. Same for someone who will only buy an "import". Car companies are huge, international conglomerate companies - and can no longer be though of in terms of "us" and "them".

~HH

 

Good Point

 

At last the long awaited return of the Yugo!!!

 

I dunno about the whole domestic automakers, but as far as GM goes, their cars suck so much(not including the trucks, just the cars). They have the cheesyest, cheapest, uglyest interiors around, most of the cars are FUGLY exterior wise, who the hell buys this things? (besides car rental companies) and before you start flaming me, the corvette is not included in this opinion, well.....except for the interior that looks like it came out of an 10k econobox at best.

I´m still trying to figure out how cars like the monte carlo, cavalier, malibu, etc... wind up on the road, how can someone manage to sell one of this POS and who is stupid enough to buy one? it´s not a money issue, they could get a protege or a corolla or a sentra, heck, I´d take a Hyundai over any of those cars without even thinking about it.

My dad rented a car yesterday and he got a malibu, needless to say it sucks as bad as a car can suck in every single way, I think I´d rather drive an old 82' malibu over this modern POS.