Toyota has some problems

[carnageehw]

Originally Posted by why?

I believe American cars have a horrible reputation. All 3 long standing American brands have long histories of making cars that simply don't last, and have more repairs done than makes logical sense for any company that cares about quality.

I see that a good portion of Americans believe this as well. A reputation as thoroughly terrible as the American automobile industry cannot be healed with a few good cars. It takes a decade of great reliability for a reputation like that to even begin to change.

However that does not mean it cannot be done. Ford especially seems to be pressing the right buttons, especially when they start bringing their phenomenal European vehicles over to the US, finally, after decades of giving us crap. Allen Mulally seems to be a genius at the moment. Great cars, great ads, and great moves. It is a great beginning. Give it a decade with great reliability and Americans will start to really look at ford again.

Chrysler's new ads are great, but that is it. It is owned by a french company, the dealer network has a long history of incompetence, their products have been supremely subpar.

GM could go either way.

The most important thing to remember is people would rather buy American. If I could trust American cars, and if they even made cars that gave the great gas mileage the Yaris did when I bought mine, I would have looked at them instead of completely ignoring them.

The people did not move away from the American car manufacturers, the American car manufacturers repeatedly came out with supremely inferior products for decades on end.

I don't think I can say it enough though. Americans would rather buy American products. But both the manufacturers and the unions have failed miserably.

I agree with everything you are saying about public perception. However, that's just public perception. The fact that domestic companies made crappy cars years ago doesn't mean they are making crappy cars now.

I don't blame someone for not wanting to buy one, because, after all, a car purchase is a huge investment, but it doesn't mean that the cars are bad.

You can only buy a new car based on what you know about the car now. Going with a company with a good reputation will likely give you more piece of mind about your purchase, but (especially in the world of manufacturing, where there's always going to be defects in something) it doesn't REALLY matter.