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“I strongly dislike sending my dollars to a foreign country to support the Yen”

I believe its Ford who has the most foreign made parts to its cars. Ford also owns part of Mazda. GM has its own skeletons. I strongly support the buy American movement but its impossible with cars.

“The jap cars have throwaway engines.”

Throwaway after 200k miles perhaps.

“A stinkin fuel pump or tail light costs a fortune!”

I owned a Mercury and the alternator went out. The Ford dealer wanted $1000 for a new one.

“I owned a Mercury and the alternator went out. The Ford dealer wanted $1000 for a new one.”

The dealer replaced the starter on my 04 Taurus last month for $375 (parts and labor)in the Knoxville, Tenn. area. You need to move south. It was a rebuilt starter, but I expect it to be better than the original.

Did an American made starter fail after 34K miles? Nope, it was made in Japan!!!!!

This is my 1990 Nissan Pathfinder SE 4x4. Eighteen years old, still on engine #1 at 245,000 miles, burns no oil, compression still well within allowable spec, gets *better* mileage than the EPA new rating, rides and handles better than any of the competition at the time (it was called "the driver's SUV" when it was new). Parts are *cheaper* than for the equivalent S-Blazer and far more plentifully available. What's that about Japanese vehicles using "throwaway engines" and "costing a lot to fix", again?

I'm in the middle of a transmission swap on another car; I'm putting a GM TH700R4 transmission behind a Jaguar I6 engine. Turns out I needed to get a new stub harness to connect the transmission's locking torque converter wiring to the car and I didn't want to wait the two weeks to get the Weatherpak connector from DelCity, so I went to the nearby GM dealer and bought one. What costs $10 from the suppliers via mail, the GM dealer sold me "below list" for $40!!!!!! WTF?

This is a commonly replaced part on 80s and 90s GM RWD cars, and they've got a 300%-plus markup on this commonly replaced item, just because they KNOW you have to replace it often. Yeah. Thanks. NO.