Too many forget that car sales have three facets, not one.
1. Reliability
2. Quality
3. Car dealer experience
and lest we fall into the trap that so many before us have encountered... Reliability IS NOT QUALITY and quality IS NOT RELIABILITY!
Reliability - that is finding that your car works the way it's supposed to without breaking. American car makers are now on par with the best of Japanese in this respect.
Quality - that is the fit and finish of the car, the gloss of the paint, the interior design, ergonomics, styling, richness of the materials used in making the car. American car makers are dead last compared to Japanese, Korean, and European car makers.
Dealership experience - just as it implies, the experience a buyer find at the dealer. I've found that European car dealers have the best salespeople. They're not rude, pushy, or aggressive. If you want to just look, that's fine. Whereas American, Japanese, and Korean dealerships are a mixed bag, some good, some bad.
And if you graph a chart with these properties...
..................................Reliability..Quality..Dealership experience
American car makers.........+...........-..........0
European car makers.........-...........+..........+
Japanese car makers.........+...........+..........0
You can see that:
Japanese cars get: 2 pluses and 1 neutral
European cars get: 2 pluses and 1 negative
American cars get: 1 plus, 1 negative and 1 neutral
Which mirrors current opinions. That Japanese cars are the best, European cars are almost as good, and American cars are in last place.
So the upshot is that if US car makers want to improve sales... they need to maintain reliability in comparison to Japanese cars AND significantly improve their quality.
You have to be kidding. Since I bought my first car (Ford) in 1956 I owned mostly American cars and NO Japanese cars until 2001 when I bought a USED Nissan Altima.
The Nissan has been virtually trouble free for 5 years and 164K miles. See my previous post #182 for the most "reliable" American car I ever owned. It was still running at 172K, but a large percentage of the original parts had been replaced several times by then.
OK, you can say that my experience was not the norm and not typical of most American cars. I have to disagree again. Every one of my family members has had bad "luck" with their American cars and now own Japanese cars which they love. In my immediate family there are 2 Nissans, 3 Toyotas, 2 Hondas, 1 Mitsubishi, 1 Chevy truck, and 1 Ford truck. As far as comfort, driveablility, appearance, fuel mileage, etc, all are about equal. The big difference is long term reliability, and in that respect there is simply no comparison.