If all parts were made to the exacting standards you support, a basic automobile would cost over $35,000! Most of the cost of a modern American car is made up of things such as taxes(huge, and mostly hidden), regulatory costs, legal costs(ALWAYS transferred directly to the consumer), mandatory safety and environmental features, and union labor costs. In other words, things almost completely unrelated to the cost of actually building the car.
Since these factors(especially the government-related ones) tend to inexorably rise year after year, the automakers have to save money somewhere, or no one will buy their cars (note: many of these same factors DO NOT affect foreign manufacturers to the same degree they do to American-based companies).
My own personal suggestions for getting quality, affordable U.S.-made autos? Simple.
1. Tort Reform.
2. Repeal of CAFE standards.
3. Reduction of "corporate" taxes.
4. Reduction or repeal of onerous regulations.
5. Somehow reduce union influence on corporate practices.
6. Tort Reform.
Doing these and some other things would help immeasurably, in auto manufacturing and many other industries as well. Not that I think the "Big Three" are all Saints, but it is useful to realize that not ALL our complaints are their direct fault. Every class-action lawsuit, every new tax on "those evil corporate barons", every wrongheaded environmental regulation and nanny-state safety requirement serves to increase the prices we pay, and reduce the overall quality in an attempt to hold the price line.
Happily, We The People do have some say in those outside costs.
