Every American vehicle I’ve ever owned was garbage. All the Jap cars I’ve owned have been great. We currently drive Nissan Xterra, Subaru WRX, and Mazda Miata. Love them all. Very solid, reliable vehicles. All fun to drive and good-looking. All get good gas mileage.
Very much the opposite here. We're a Ford household, and none of us have had any problems with our vehicles. I have a 6 year old Mercury Montego, my mother drives a Mercury Milan, my brother drives a Ford Ranger, and my fiancee drives a Nissan Altima.
Every part I've ever purchased, every filter I've changed, every spark plug, O2 sensor, TPS, EGR valve, and throttle body I've ever worked on in an American vehicle was easy to repair or replace and cheap. My fiancee's Nissan has cost our household more money since I've been with her than I've ever spent on my Merc.
Foreign parts and shop labor are much higher than domestic shops, and repairs and maintenance are cheaper on domestic brands even though parts are made in Mexico and Canada. Quizzically, many parts for foreign vehicles are made in the US, and there's a premium on the cost of the parts. Perhaps Union related?
Yup, same experience. No way I am buying American cars anymore as they have all been crap. We actually had 2 Honda Civics in the family for 10 years that required a grand total of 1 repair that went beyond upkeep. No such luck with American brands that seem to sit in the shop constantly. I've had Fords, GM's and Chryslers and all of them were shoddy products that required endless maintenance. I'm sticking with Japanese cars from now on.
I think a good rule of thumb is, if a product is made by union workers the best bet is to avoid it at all costs.
I just recently traded in my 1997 Olds Cutlass. Took care if it and it lasted 14 years and 175,000 miles. My only complaint about it was that it was hard on brakes. Other than that, it was very dependable.
Every other American made car we have owned was as you said: garbage.
We will never buy another "American" car. Who wants to buy a Chrysler product when two udercover reports filed at least 7 months apart had video of line workers, going ot to lunch, getting loaded, drunk and high in the Chrysler parking lot and then RETURNING TO THE LINE TO MAKE CARS FOR US TO BUY! Ok, they got caught so you know what they did? They went to lunch, dorve to the UNION PARKING LOT and proceeded to get stoned and loaded THERE before returning to work on the line making Chrysler crap for fools to buy. No wonder Chrysler's slogan is "Built in Detroit!" Have you seen what an abject DUMP and SLUM Detroit has become? The place is a cess pool!