[EEDUDE]

Based on my own experience and that of my friends I would say that he was telling you the truth.

The sad part of this is that American automobile manufacturers will acknowledge this and still tell you with a straight face that they don’t understand why Toyota and Honda are kicking their asses all over the world.

My last(and I do mean last) American vehicle was a new Ford Taurus that needed a new short block (threw a rod) and two transmissions before I hit 60k miles. When the warranty people bitched about having to fix these problems I was done with American vehicles.

All of this happened when “Quality is Job 1” at Ford.

You will never find anything but Toyotas and Hondas in my driveway.

[B-Chan]

I agree. Japan has a culture of craft excellence that shows in the quality of their manufactured products. American culture values flash, low prices, and perceived status over quality. Hence the typical American car: a bloated, cheap piece of obsolete junk, designed to appeal to the taste of the average trailer trash loser who thinks he can buy a race car, or a brain-dead suburbanite who thinks his family is safer because they're inside a fake military vehicle.

Add to the bad design the fact that American cars are put together by overpaid losers who couldn't care less if what they're making is actually any good or not and it's no wonder our cars suck, and have always sucked. (Yes, classic car fans, even those cool old rides with the tailfins and hood scoops sucked: they were kludged-together, inefficient deathtraps.)

For me, it's Toyota or nothing.