Well that's great and all, but that doesn't mean all of the big 3 are going out of business anytime soon. Since you haven't bought a Big 3 Vehicle in nearly 20 years there is little chance you are going to change your mind.
However I'll take my Full Size Ford Conversion van over your Sienna any day of the week. Nothing against Toyota, but bang for the buck, there is no comparison.
I've owned a Corolla, they are nice reliable, if boring cars.... Toyota has one thing... reliability... but watch a stream of cars driving down a highway, and look for the most boring among the them.. nearly every time its got a Toyota badge. That doesn't mean Toyotas are bad vehicles... just that they aren't perfect.
I haven't bought a new vehicle in my life, and probably never will... taking that depreciation hit to me is just stupid. Buy my cars that are 4 years old or so, pay cash for them and drive them into the ground... I am not worrying about resale value, because there is no such thing as a good investment in an automobile in such terms, whether it be a Mercedes, BMW, Toyota or Chevy...
Wow, I didn't know people still drove full size conversion vans. Since I'm from a family that has sold GM cars and trucks since the 1930's, your not going to convert me into a Ford fan, which by the way is the most boring car or truck on the road. Someday if they ever learn to shape curves and angles into the lines of their vehicles, they might look like something other than another variation of an IH Travelall.
I agree with you on buying used. The 3 BMW's I owned were all used. The one rule I live by with buying used cars is to buy them from a dealer that sells the same car new. Only happy customers are return customers. You can take a chance buying a used car from others and get lucky, but why take the chance if you don't have to.
Since 2003, I have bought 3 new Toyotas. At the time, there was nothing in their used car lot I wanted, and with the incentives and low interest rates, the new ones were affordable. All three cars are top of their model lines. I think that might have something to do with the factory workers paying more attention to detail. The only investment you should consider a car to be in an investment in yourself. If your bored with it after a year, it was a bad investment.
It's been nearly 30 years since I bought my new 1978 El Camino w/ 200 V6 for good gas mileage. I think it got over 20 mpg once before it started having problems, lots of problems. I suffered with it for 8 years and sold it for $300. The floor shifter pulled out of the transmission mount as the guy I sold it to was driving it away. Since then I have rented several very unimpressive US cars, and have ridden in many more belonging to friends who have suffered for buying the wrong car.
I do not consider it patriotic to buy or own a US car and I don't consider it patriotic to treat the US consumer the way the big 3 have treated us for the last 30+ years. It's sad when Japanese and German billionaires consider the US a good enough investment to build manufacturing plants here when our own billionaires are moving the plants south of the border.