The American car industry DESERVES to die

My '97 Cavalier is still going strong.
Click to expand...

Did you buy it back in the Cavalier and Sunfire craze of the late 90's?

I worked at a gas station during high school and every second car was either a Cavalier or Sunfire.
 
Mustangs are nice if you like sagging doors, under/overlapping windows on a soft-top, stiff ride (not as in proper feedback) and an interior that self-destructs precisely at day one of year three or 24,000 miles... whichever comes first. I did drive one of the Roush cars during the filming of Driver X and it is a ****ing wild ride to be sure.

Corvettes are in our family blood and I would like to own one of those. Great Uncle Bill...

Bill-Mitchell.gif


makosharki.jpg


e
 
wait till you see the new malibu... its really nice.... Though my 89' toyota corrola held more equipment than it had a right to... and still made it to 60 a decent time....

We just need to wait until gas costs 12$ a gallon like in england......

There will be more Civic hybrids and and Priuses than you can shake a stick at.
 
Erik Olson said:
Mustangs are nice if you like sagging doors, under/overlapping windows on a soft-top, stiff ride (not as in proper feedback) and an interior that self-destructs precisely at day one of year three or 24,000 miles... whichever comes first.
Click to expand...

Just where are you getting this from? I have 3 Mustangs right now, a '67, an '87, and an '03. None of the doors sag, no under or overlapping windows (the 87 and 03 are both convertibles), stiff ride because they're sports cars, not Plymouth Reliants, and no interior issues other than a cracked dash on the 87 due to sun damage. I would recommend a Mustang to anyone, honestly. They've done well for the past 40+ years for a reason, you know...
 
DivotDan said:
The only comment I made regarding price was that as long as American's are willing to pay through the nose for any car, auto makers will only make cars/trucks Americans are willing to buy.
Click to expand...

Maybe we are talking about 2 different things... but as it relates to American car makers... my point is that American cars are cheap... so bashing them for not measuring up to the cars that are unfairly put in the same class doesn't make sense to me.

People aren't willing to pay through the nose... and the proof of that statement is the 0% financing that's been around for nearly 4 years now.

It's the opposite for the Sebring and down categories that we started talking about... what I'm saying is that you get what you pay for... and generally, within a model category... the American car is less money.

My point all along was that people shouldn't bash the point of getting what they pay for... there is no truer fact of life. You get what you pay for. People buy cheaper cars for less money and then complain that they got a worse car. I'm saying that while it may be true... it's stupid to complain about it.

If you look at the vehicles on paper... like this:

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/compare/293328/

It will be a totally different thing then checking them out on the lot, in person... the Honda will be AT LEAST $3K more in the final sale... and probably more like $5K more... or 20% higher price. They just don't STOCK stripped down models.
 
I've owned two. The first was a '67, then there was the '99 GT. The doors sag and thousands of owners report it. This is well documented. Look, some HVXs have an audible beep in the P2 cards and no denying it changes the fact.

I drive Land Rovers, so believe me, I know what car problems are. They have their weaknesses. I also defend the marquee because I've literally driven them to the ends of the earth. You don't see any Ford Excursions or Explorers in Borneo or Central America or Africa. You do see Toyota, Nissan and Land Rover.

Each vehicle has its idiosyncrasies. It isn't a bad thing that you're a Mustang enthusiast, but they aren't without their issues. Google it, and you'll see that I'm not close to alone in my first-person observations.

e
 
DivotDan said:
And as a side note, I am one of the American's that I'm talking about. I have a 4.6 ltr V8 Explorer, a 3.8 ltr V6 van, and a 4 ltr V6 small truck. The smallest gas tank I have is 20 gallons and I drive 100 miles round trip to work 5 days a week. My point is I'm not calling people like me bad. I'm saying that American cars getting poor gas mileage has nothing to do with quality. It is the auto makers pandering to the the wants of it's market. Which is exactly what they have to do in order to make sales.
Click to expand...

I don't want to start a fight here, but what do you think about what you and others are doing? I am just curious. I mean, as an european I think it is quite bad. I don't think you are a bad person, I've got high respect for you, but I do think it is a bad habit. One you could easily change and even safe a lot of money. I know it is the american mentality and I don't want to condemn that, but I think it is about time to change things. If people change their habits, the system changes.

Like somebody mentioned, we've got high taxes on gasoline over here. Gasoline is really expensive. Right now it is 1,41€ (2.17$) per litre! Thats about 5.4$ per gallon! That would definately change some minds in the US too. And our planet would thank us for that. It is an unnecessary waste of resources and a huge pollution factor.

OldCorpse said:
And as I said before, I respect American workers and think highly of our engineers (best talent in the world, I think). I have contempt for those I consider responsible for taking the U.S. auto industry from #1 down to present state of disaster and life-support - our vastly overpaid incompetent executives.
Click to expand...
Not sure about the best talent here. I don't know who has got the best talent at all, probably nobody. I think you can't determine that. Germany also got some fine engineers. I mean, small germany is the biggest exporter in the world. We export more than the US, which has about 4 times the population of germany. We must engineer some good products to do so. But I don't think we've got the best talent. I think every country has some specialties in engineering or another enconomyfield.

And china and india are going to be huge competition in the future. That's for sure.

I can't say much about american cars though. Ford is the only brand that is really popular in germany. They build quite solid cars for the middle class.

Germany's Audi, BMW, Merzedes and Porsche are definately damn good quality cars, but also quite expensive. I'm sure there are also some very good american high class cars.

Edited to add: I just wanted to say that I also understand why you drive big cars with lots of power. It does feel great. Can't deny that. There should also be cars with more power, but at better efficiency.
 
Last edited:
Erik Olson said:
I've owned two. The first was a '67, then there was the '99 GT. The doors sag and thousands of owners report it. This is well documented. Look, some HVXs have an audible beep in the P2 cards and no denying it changes the fact.

I drive Land Rovers, so believe me, I know what car problems are. They have their weaknesses. I also defend the marquee because I've literally driven them to the ends of the earth. You don't see any Ford Excursions or Explorers in Borneo or Central America or Africa. You do see Toyota, Nissan and Land Rover.

Each vehicle has its idiosyncrasies. It isn't a bad thing that you're a Mustang enthusiast, but they aren't without their issues. Google it, and you'll see that I'm not close to alone in my first-person observations.

e
Click to expand...

I'm not saying it's not an issue, but with close to a dozen Mustangs that I've owned, I've never seen it being an issue. The doors on my 67 are flawless and that car hasn't really been babied at all... When I think of sagging doors, I usually think of old Chevy's and Pontiacs.
 
OldCorpse said:
As to Barry's point re: foreign vs domestic. Yes, the Sebring was designed during formal ownership by Daimler, but all the execs in charge of design/production/marketing were the same crew that ran Chrysler before the acquisition (and that ran it into the ground) - only a few top guys were from Daimler. In fact, Daimler did little with Chrysler and didn't hand over any Mercedes technology as was hoped. So it was the same sorry executive crew as with the other losers GM and Ford.
Click to expand...

Not completely true.

I've have a Daimler version ('02) and I had a US version ('96).

The minite Daimler took over, the quality went to crap. The design went to crap. Corners were cut all over the place, some visible (like eliminating the lock on the glove box. In a convertible.) and some not immediately visible, like cheap glass you could practically scratch with your fingernail.

Not all that surprising, since Mercedes are pretty crappily built, too, lately.
 
GenJerDan said:
Not completely true.

I've have a Daimler version ('02) and I had a US version ('96).

The minite Daimler took over, the quality went to crap. The design went to crap. Corners were cut all over the place, some visible (like eliminating the lock on the glove box. In a convertible.) and some not immediately visible, like cheap glass you could practically scratch with your fingernail.

Not all that surprising, since Mercedes are pretty crappily built, too, lately.
Click to expand...

I understand your personal experience, but if you look over the stats, Chrysler cars were usually found at the bottom of even domestic brands when it came to quality long, long, long before Daimler got involved. I don't think Daimler helped, but there wasn't much left for Daimler to spoil. Chrysler was a crap brand for a very long time (allowing for exceptions, of course).

And by the way, I'd never bring up ALL foreign cars as examples of superior engineering or quality... need I mention YUGO :) 'nuff said. What I do find somewhat interesting is that Japanese brands were cheap crappy boxes when the first were exported to the U.S. Since then, they kept improving, while Detroit kept getting worse. Koreans are another interesting case. Absolute crap to start with. Slowly, some brands have become actually decent recently (Hyundai), while others are still struggling, but the overall movement is UP while Detroit's overall movement continues down.

The Europeans are all over the place. British cars were always crap quality. French not much better, though they had some really good brands (Citroen), just never could figure out how to market them in the U.S. Italians, love some of their performance vehicles, but quality... oh boy. Swedes (Volvo, Saab) - very good quality, then not so good (in the early 80's), then good again until taken over by the Americans.

The German brands are very mixed. Reasonable quality in Audi, some BMW (though almost always had serious electrical problems). And then disastrous quality from VW, and for the past 15-20 years, Mercedes is total garbage quality- wherever those supposed good German engineers are, they are not working for Mercedes.
 
My all time favorite car that I owned was a '69 Mach 1 Mustang. Also owned a'72 and '73 but nothing compared to the '69 Mach.

My second favorite car was a '84 Z28

I drove a Jaguar for a bit an it was a piece of junk. Constantly falling apart and needed costly repairs.
My wife currently drives a BMW. She loves it but this will be the third time it will be in the shop.

I'm looking at picking up a Toyota Tundra for trips and running around for filming.
Currently drive a '02 Toyota Sequoia and really like it as well.

One day I'll pick up another '69 Mach 1 though! :)

My cousin had a '69 Boss 302 that was incredible!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top