I don’t blame the customer...I think people should buy what they want I give you your Sentra and raise you a Lumina which went over 300,000 miles until dear daughter put oil in the gas tank instead of where the oil goes and blew up the engine sigh.
I just don’t think foreign cars should be made cheaper than domestics because of unfair trade policies...fix trade so it’s fair to all and let the customer decide.
As for Toyota and even Honda quality, it’s slipping they are riding on their good reputation...this won’t last forever. My friend who works for Toyota said they are blaming it on the American workers;they have been lectured repeatedly about quality while the parts that come from overseas are crap. They have seriously weakened the quality departments in order to save money, and it shows. Also, American engineers warned Toyota about the Tundra issues and were told to shut up and sit down. The tailgate issue in particular is a truly rookie mistake. One would not expect Toyota to make such a mistake. In my favorite movie...the Patriot...there is a discussion of how to beat Cornwallis- a military genius...it comes down to arrogance. Toyota is arrogant. If you see how they are handling the transmission issues, this is clear. So while I would prefer stupidity in the Japanese, I’ll settle for arrogance. We will beat them at their own game eventually.
Too bad you can’t beat them without a bailout. Too bad it took the Detroit 3 decades to learn they actually needed to make products that don’t suck. Too bad they repeatedly bet the farm on gas hogs only to see gas prices go up and not have the vehicles people wanted.
The fact is the Detroit 3 screwed their own pooch, long, hard and repeatedly, they earned their bad reputation the old fashioned way, and this bailout is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of government.