I've been stating my damn case for the past 10 posts... It's useless argueing with someone who has no idea of business or economics...

 

True, but there's more than just the money returned to stockholders to consider, especially since GM hasn't exactly been making its shareholders rich over the last few decades. You should also factor in the money paid to white collar staff, which is predominantly US. Taxes of all kinds (payroll, income, property, etc.) that go to various levels of US government. Payments on various debt instruments (GM, when combined with GMAC, had over $200 billion of outstanding debt to pay interest on). The ~2.5 US retirees for every active employee that GM supports. And of course all the spin-off jobs and communities supported by GM. I don't have any concrete numbers, but I think it's safe to say the vast majority of the money flowing through GM's NAO benefits the US. I don't think the ratio would be close for any import brand.

 

zing!

 

I've had plenty of my sare of high mileage US cars. Some that had the snot beat out of them and not taken care of and lasted 175,000 miles, and others that were pampered and babied since day one and had major repairs needed before 100,000 miles. The fact of the matter is, if you have a Chevy or a Ford, you probably won't go to 200,000 miles without some significant maintenance issue that will need to be repaired (even if you take care of it). True, there are some lucky ones out there that may not fit into this majority, but with those even included, US cars still won't last like most Honda's.

BTW, I bought my 2005 Honda Civic HX back in January of 05 with 19 miles on it (new). I had 2 options with it, AC and power mirrors, and it cost me $14,600 right from the Honda dealership. The HX model was only made during 05 and was difficult to get (I believe they only made a few hundred of them). But sure enough, it gets 38 in town, and 48 on the highway. Best I have gotten was 49 one time on a highway trip to Ohio and back. It now has 78,000 miles on it, and the only thing I have had to do was change the oil and put gas in it (I did replace the tires after 65,000 though). I love my Honda, not so much because its Japanese, but because it saves me a crap load on gas, and was very cheep. Heck, I almost spent that much on my Camaro when I bought it used.

 

 

It's not a matter of pride. American cars simply aren't sold in Japan. Some of them import them, though. A buddy of mine came back from Japan recently with a bunch of car pictures, including one of a Dodge Ram, which looked absolutely enormous compared to 99% of the cars over there.

 

What major maintenance item would you foresee on a similarly uncomplicated domestic make (5 speed manual, few options, etc.)? Maybe an alternator or water pump (not considered to be major in most cases)?

Does your Civic have a schedule timing belt replacement ($600-$900)? Scheduled water pump replacement? Engines, manual transmissions, even clutches can easily last 200k miles when properly cared for and driven.

 

Alternators, water pumps, are not really major, and I would consider them to be wear items such as a clutch and tires that would go out on most anything after the common mileage. What I would consider to be major would be things more in the engine and sometimes transmission itself, such as head gasket, rear main seal, major compression loss or things of that nature.

Honda engines and cars in general will last commonly much longer than any domestic will before major repairs are needed. Go look at used car dealerships and look at the mileage on some of the foreign cars. Hondas, Toyota's and especially German made cars are commonly found to still be going at 300,000+ miles. Some of the top end German made cars like Mercedes and BMW commonly go 500,000+ and still run great.

Now, I am sure there are some people out there that have Ford Escorts, and Chevy Caveliers that may possibly make it past 300,000 miles, but if you look at the percentage of the ones out there with that mileage compared to the percentage of the foreign cars with even more mileage you will see that the US just doesn't make cars to hold up and last the way a lot of foreign cars do.

A lot of it is a trend we as Americans have set for society. Here, if your car is 10+ years old, you are out of style, and your car is looked down on. Everybody wants a new car, and most people in the US own a 1998 or newer vehicle. With that trend going on, I think it doesn't really matter to a lot of engineers to spend the extra money and quality needed to make US cars last longer. Go to Europe, or Asia and you will see them driving 20 year old cars everywhere, because they don't have the "new car trend" that we do.

 

Mercedes? Give me a break they are a huge POS. Maybe the diesels from the 80's will go that long but nothing else.

 

Wow Call911, you make some pretty sweeping generalizations there.

Please tell me that you are going to plan on that timing belt replacement. Your engine is an interference engine, and if the belt snaps............ you might as well buy a new engine.

However, what do I know........... we only had an auto repair and towing business for 9 years.

Most any newer car, from any manufacturer, will last into the hundreds of thousands of miles. They are tested to last a minimum of 150K to 200K. When you generalize that Domestics suck, and Honda is God, you lose alot of credibility. Frankly, you sound brainwashed. What you stated was probably true as recently as 2000-2002 model years. Newer than that............. well............. how long it lasts is pretty much up to you.

BTW, a properly driven manual trans, with a 4-cyl engine, should have no problems reaching 200k miles. Hell, my best friends '86 Ranger was able to do that.......... certainly your almighty Honda can.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh. When you have actually worked on cars for a living............. in a general shop............ you know that cars is cars and trucks is trucks. The only main difference is where you go to get parts. They will all break down, and they all need maintenance. You will be lucky with some............ and not so lucky with others. Thats about it. Your "facts" about legendary Honda reliability are you "opinion." It is no more, or less, valid than anyone else here.

 

thank you Gloria

 

Like I said, there will be those with different opinions. I also worked in the car industry, so I have some inside knowledge as well. I worked for a used top end car lot (Mercedes, BMW, Corvette ect.) and 90% of the BMW's and Mercedes they had at the lot had 300,000-500,000 miles and still were in great shape (and not many were diesels either). They had one Mercedes 190E that was previously owned from a guy in CA that commuted hours every day for years, and he actually rolled the odometer over 1,000,000 miles still on the original engine! I currently am in the military and see the other parts of the world on a regular basis, and lots of these older cars can be found still running strong in much larger numbers than older cars can be found in the US.

Like I said, there will be some that see this as slander for the US cars, but the truth is your average Ford Escort will not last like your average Honda Civic.

 

15 years ago, I might have agreed. Today, simply not true.

I have my own lot full of used domestic cars, almost all are well over 100k miles, and many over 200k miles. I have 2 over 300k miles. My most-aged has 368k miles and is still going - I bought it new and drove almost every mile of it.

Honda had a great business model from the mid-70's up through the late 1990s. They never would "Redo" a platform. They would make small changes continuously to keep the platform fresh, current, and always improving. In Japanese culture this is known as "kaizen". This means that they tried a platform, saw what worked good (and kept it) and learned what the shortcomings were (and fixed them).

During the same years, the American companies were catering to the American market which was demanding something "new" each year. The Americans were changing things just for the sake of changing them, not because they were "improving" the design or performance, but just to make it look different than the year before. As an example, the Mustang had distinct body and interior changes every single year from it's debut in 1965 until 1976 - with the 1976, 77, and 78 models being the first ones to be almost identical to the eye while on the road. This "change" mentality created a situation in which they could not respond to poorly performing parts/systems because as soon as they learned about the problems, they were already discontinued - replaced with a newer model that was equally untested by mass consumers. Throw in the disaster of planned obsolescence and the early years of plastic parts development, and it was a truly poor period in the history of domestic vehicles - no doubt.

However, from the late 1980's, the American companies began (even if not fully committed) to start designing and engineering for quality and dependability AS WELL as for looks. The results were car lines that were modeled much like those of the Japs, where change was small and incremental between model years, lots of carry-over when a design was proven to be effective, and a much more robust overall platform. We didn't see the body changes every year, revamped interiors every year, etc, but we DID see great improvements in quality, durability, and longevity. To keep with the same example, the Fox Mustang built from 1987-1993 is almost indiscernable to the average buyer - only the astute know the subtle changes to look for, like rolled fenders, the airbag in the wheel, the highback seats v. lowbacks, the size of the headrest, the A/C switch moving from the left to the right side of the cluster, rims, etc. Yet the 91-93 cars were actually much better units than the 87-88's were - I can assure you. Ditto the Taurus, Escort, and other Ford cars that I am familiar with... it was a paradigm shift that became real for the consumer.

So I stand firm that there was a day that you could claim a Toyota or Honda would outlast a domestic, and there was even a solid argument to support that claim. However, since the late 1980's, there has been a huge shift in management of the design and engineering of domestic vehicles, and I am convinced that they are now just as durable and have equal quality to the Japanese vehicles, if not even a little better due to the lessons learned.

I can tell you for sure, if you have not driven a stripped-down Corolla from a rental company lately, you simply don't know how bad some imports can be. I had a Corolla rental in Pittsburgh not long ago that was utterly terrible. Materials were crude, seams in the dash were horrible, the passenger's side airbag cover had a gap at least 3/8"-1/2" between it and the dash pad above it, the seat was hard as a brick, and the gages were angled up so that when the sun was directly overhead, the lens reflected the sun right into your eyes - VERY irritating. I was not happy at all with that rental. Maybe it will last 500,000 miles, but I pity the idiot that would have to endure the poor conditions of it for that long.

In the most polite way possible, I have to suggest that you are the classic victim of folklore - still thinking that was was true 20 years ago is still the case today. I recommend highly that you reconsider your historical evidence as just that - historical - and give the domestics products of today a revisit.


BTW - you do know Ford doesn't offer the Escort in the States anymore, right? They stopped in 2003 when the Focus replaced it. So the newest Escort we could examine against a Civic is already 5yrs old. And, the Escort became the best-selling car in the US for many years - just for clarification.

 

I am confident the US cars are better than they were as well ProudPony. The older ones were much worse and usually would go out (or break something major) after 100,000. Thats why today most will last 50% longer. But I still disagree, as the Japaneese have made better products today than they did ten years ago as well.

I feel this thread is getting far escew from its original path. I apologize to the OP for that. I will start a new thread elsewhere to discuss this topic for those interested. It will be in form of a poll to see how many people believe which is the better quality car.

 

Unfortunately, those 2 GM cars were designed and engineered by hundreds of American employees, not your 2 hondas, only a small handful of non-union laborers built your honda, apart from the thousands of Japanese people you paid the salary of...The cars life doesnt begin and end on the assembly line. thats only about a 3 hour period in the 5 years it takes to get it to that point