Anyone noticed as of late that import makers are opening alot of plants in the US to build trucks.

Honda, Mercdes, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW all have opened (or plan to very soon) North American plants for making trucks to get around the 25% tariff on light truck imports. I am glad they are here....but I just wonder if they would be if there are was no tariff?

 

If there wasn't a tarrif we'd have an El Camino by now instead of waiting till 2008.

 

I would imagine so. No, not because they like us better. No, no, that would be kind. They WANT Americans to believe these IMPORTS are as American as a Chevy or a Buick. That way those who are on the fence for that reason can feel good about buying "American" imports. I know certain people would (will?) argue this, but the fact of the matter is that GM and Ford Motor Co. are USA based corporations with a ton of American workers. Yes, there are GM and Ford factories in Mexico and Canada, but the great majority of them are in the ol' US of A. I don't know about some of the people on this board, but I am proud to say that I buy American.

 

I am unsure of that...I think some import buyers do so because they question the craftsmanship of anything american made.

 

They may be built here, but as far as I'm concerned when the engineering is done somewhere else and the profits are going overseas, it isn't truly "American" in my book. Somewhat closed minded? I dunno, but that's just how I feel. In a few years I don't think I'll want to look at a Chrysler product anymore, the way things are going there....(not that I was considering one now anyway )

Did you ever consider the F-body to be a "Canadian" product?

 

Believe me, this is for real. Go into sales once, then you'll find out. Granted this isn't the case all (most) of the time, but don't think for one second that this doesn't happen beacause she sure does. Import mentality is the key here. Those who want an import because they think that they are better will think that no matter how much trouble they have with it. It truely is a sad day for domestic companies.

 

Z28Wilson, thats exactly how i feel. they can put up as many plants here as they want but like u said, all the engineering and thought is done overseas and thats where all the profit goes or they wouldnt be doing this in the first place. no thanks i think ill continue to support OUR economy and not theirs.

 

I try to buy American as much as I can. Especially on major purchases.

I will admit, though, that I do not look at the tag of every T-Shirt I buy to see where it is made...

If given the choice of two similar items of similar quality, I would be inclined to choose the American product over an Imported product in most cases.

 

This is kind of a silly analogy, but I see the same thing with beer at the events I've attended. What we Canadians may think of as "swampwater" here is lapped up by Americans whereas we get laughed at for drinking American "swampwater" when we visit. It's the old "grass is always greener..." perception.

How do we react when beer is brewed and bottled "under license"

 

Though much of the engineering of these cars is done elsewhere, a lot of engineering is done here. Many of the imports are specifically designed for the US market, and built in the US (Toyota and Honda cars in particular).

The lines start to blur when you have a domestic car based off of a foriegn platform (which is happening a lot these days - Consider the Focus, the next Neon, Crossfire, "Cobalt", etc.).

It's getting harder and harder to classify a car as "american" or "imported" and to say that the company is US or Japanese and that's where the money goes is very simplistic and ingnores a lot of other factors (such as the thousands of assembly plant workers, suppliers, etc.)

In the end, this blurring of origin will probably help the "imports" more than the "domestics" since "import" owners will think (true or not) that they bought the best car and they're helping americans.

Two other thoughts:

Other factors to consider when building a plant include the fact that cars are big, heavy and expensive to ship around the globe. This takes a lot of time and is against the ideas of lean manufacturing. Also, by building cars in the selling country, currency fluctuations are less important to profits.

If anyone hasn't noticed - Toyota is building it's new truck plant in Texas. They figure that if they can get Texans to buy their trucks, the rest of the US will follow. Not a bad idea...

 

Native Texan here, Toyota has a better chance of getting a pig to fly. Seriously, there are two trucks in Texas: GMC and FORD. O.K. two and a half GMC,FORD,and Chevrolet. I am serious, last time I visited my folks I counted 1 Tundra on the road that's it (and that was driven by a chick). It's gonna be a very very very hard sell for Toyota even if they market the fact that the truck is built in Texas.

 

"They may be built here, but as far as I'm concerned when the engineering is done somewhere else and the profits are going overseas, it isn't truly "American" in my book. Somewhat closed minded? I dunno, but that's just how I feel. In a few years I don't think I'll want to look at a Chrysler product anymore, the way things are going there....(not that I was considering one now anyway )

Did you ever consider the F-body to be a "Canadian" product? "



In a nutshell, that is what I have been preaching to friends and family for years...well said.

 

Again, I'm the exact same way...I wish there were more American choices for me to buy. I'm a stereo buff, and when was the last time you saw hardly ANYTHING from an American stereo manufacturer, for home or car? There isn't much, especially for car...

 

I agree that not nearly as many vehicles would be built in america if it wasn't for the terrif. That was the main purpose of the terrif in the first place. So really I wouldn't say that's the japanese company's hidden motive, I'd say it's our government's hidden motive with the terrifs in the first place.

And for what it's worth, I feel that on average, cars built in japan tend to be subject to more stringent quality control simply because over there your average worker puts their honor and reputation into their job, whereas here with labor unions and the large quantity of people who just do a job because it pays more and is easier than another job, you tend to get a little more relaxed with quality control.

I also believe that if the company that is making the move is **** enough about it, they can keep that from happening, but it costs them and isn't always 100% successful. I think a good example is Nissan, who had great quality with their lineup until they started doing their engineering in california and building them in Mississippi and Tennessee under American management with American labor unions. Whereas Toyota has done pretty well, and while some still say their quality control suffered a tiny bit (thus the reason they still built american lexus in japan even though lexus-branded vehicles have never been sold in japan (although they will be soon)). Honda/Acura is kind of an inbetween. They've suffered quite a bit with their assembly tolerance quality (rattles and such) compared to their previous japan-built generations, but they are working hard to bring their american plants under japanese management and quality standards, and it's starting to show. Also, the majority of their engineering is still done with japanese firms.

Let me qualify all of what I've said and say I don't believe that my japanese/american is necessarily true all the time... but rather that it's just the trend over the average. And I also believe the inherent lack of american quality is not due to the people of america itself, but rather due to the union/management hierarchy that we have commonly over here as opposed to japan.

 

One guy here at work bought a Toyota Tundra after he had problems w/ his Chevrolet 1/2 ton, and at least one other guy was mentioning them the other day.

I don't agree w/ that - as a child of the 80's, I firmly believe in buying "American" . However, as mentioned w/ the "F", it's only an American car in name. We'll compromise and call it a "North American" car by a global company.

The real trick is getting the general public to buy into the mentality that American autos are quality built . As mentioned before, there seems to be a general preconceived notion that Japanese products are superior - given the one Japanese vehicle that I have had real exposure to - a '90 Nissan Sentra - I can understand how that came to be. (It was a good, simple little car that served us well for 12 years.)

I do what I can to sing the praises of American vehicles by pointing out that I bought a '91 Suburban used w/ 105K on the clock w/o any worries due to past experiences w/ G.M. of my own and via friends, but ultimately whoever is plunking down the money is the one that decides what to buy.

So, we kinda put our money were our mouth was when we bought the Saturn. Roomy, powerful, an American car, and 0 percent financing made it the right choice for us.

An interesting point to note is that so far, the vast majority of people that I have spoken w/ have good things to say about Saturn - not even having owned one.

That's a great reputation to have - now, they just gotta capatilize on that and turn it into vehicle sales.

Anyway, that's a lotta "blah blah blah" for a response, so I'll cal it finished.

Later !


Britt