1985 was when everyone still thought domestics were superior... Get it straight.

It wasn't until after 90 that GM realized they'd better start actually trying to not make crappy cars, because they saw that the Japanese automakers were going to mop the floor with them. Until that point they had lulled themselves into figuring people would gladly buy their throwaway cars just because they were stupid. (Or liked to support Mexicans and Canadians with jobs)

Of course making crappy cars would never turn some of you away. LOL

 

This entire thread is retarded. I don't know why it got moved to the 5th gen forum, since it has nothing to do with future production, but it did. Anyway, each of the companies have thier advantages and disadvantages, and everyone wants a certain car for a certain reason. I have owned both GM and Toyota, and they each have their advantages.

Toyota: My Tacoma was nearly bullet proof...and thats a lot less than I can say for my S-10.
GM: Find Toyota with the kind of power that my T/A puts down stock.

Again, this is only what I have experienced, which is not every case out there. I CAN say that I have had my complaints with both manufacturers though. In the end, people buy the car they want and the car the they think will be the best choice for them...people also make mistakes, but we live and learn from those mistakes. Whether GM or Toyota is actually better, no one can determine, because we each have different goals from our automobiles. My grandma wouldn't know what to do with 350HP, and I wouldn't know what to do with a Toyota Corolla either, but thats exactly what I mean. Everyone has different goals and expectations from an automobile. BTW name calling is for 2nd graders on the playground. Grow up a little guys.

 

The previous generation Prizm and Corolla were very closely related- some small differences in dimensions, suspension setup, and interior details, but all in all kinda like the Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe venture today, except much less differentiation between the two with the Prizm and Corolla.

Anyhow.. 2002 was the last shared model year when the Corolla was ground-up redesigned and the Prizm was discontinued.

Anyhow.. the Corolla is a Toyota design from which GM tried rebranding and marketing. It is not a GM design that Toyota rebranded and remarketed. Thus, a used Prizm still has crappy resale value, but actually allows for pretty good reliability. Probably one of the better used car values out there if you're in the market for a small car.

 

I don't have to tell my Prizm/Corolla story again do I? I really am too lazy to type it....

 

Don't even bother.

It's like arguing with the Germans in 1941 and trying to tell them Hitler was a doofus. You can yell and scream and use logic and point out facts but it ain't making a dent.

They are going to remain with their ignorance for as long as they live and objective facts will just get in the way.

BTW - note to all:

Resale, in practical terms, should be calculated off of actual transaction prices and not MSRP.

 

I'll type it for you (shortened):
There was a defect complaint or two that the Prizm commonly had complaints of that nobody complained about with the Corolla, and thus this is proof that people ignore defects in Toyotas because they are Toyotas, and complain about them in Chevys because they are Chevys.

Fact 1: Only about half the Corollas sold were built alongside the Prizm. The other half were built in a Toyota-only plant in Canada (where they are all made today).

Fact 2: It's very common for two nearly identical cars that are even made in the same plant to have different problems. Why? Different workers manning the line and different machines that may have different calibration issues or slightly different methods of assembly. Our Toyota 4Runner was made side by side in the same plant that makes the GX470. The GX470 still has its own unique list of common complaints compared to the 4Runner. They share some, but they have their own unique ones as well, despite the fact that the unique ones are regarding equipment that is, or is close to identical between the two models.

Fact 3: Many of their interior and exterior parts were unique to each vehicle as is evident by any close visual inspection as well as analyzing the fact that the Corolla has about 1.5cubic square feet greater interior volume or the fact that the Prizm is about an inch longer while the Corolla sits about half an inch taller, and the Corolla, option for option is 50 to 100 pounds heavier depending on the year/generationin in question.

Observation 1: Typically from what I've seen, people who buy their cars for reliability and quality are MORE likely to complain than if they just buy a car because they are a 'fan' of the brand and/or wanted to buy domestic (like more people probably did for the Prizm). I sure as hell know that's true when it comes to luxury cars. The things I've seen/heard of people complaining about at my Lexus dealership would make any Toyota or Chevy dealership in the country break out into laughter and then shortly after tell you to go home.

OK well the soon to be wife just called and apparently I need to actually get some stuff around the house - so I gotta cut this short, but the point is that there were differences between the two, and many times those 'small' differences are enough to make objective differences in complaint surveys and such. If it's any consolation, the consumer reviews of the Corolla and Prizm (both generations) on Edmunds and carpoint where I was checking were just about the same (Prizm led by a tenth on carpoint, Corolla led by a tenth on edmunds)

 

First of all, nobody's arguing in Mitsubishi's favor. Mazda, Mitsubishi and in some cases Nissan, are not up to par to Toyota. Remember nobody's saying "OMG iMpOrTz = teh R0zorz!!!"
Toyota is a hard-working company, hands down. Their success has nothing to do with the fact that their Japanese. Other Japanese cars have a high reputation because Honda and Toyota worked hard to make quality products, and the other companies milk that reputation. So not ALL Japanese cars are good, but Toyota is. It has nothing to do with them being Japanese, it has something to do with them being good.

Also when referring to the Tundra recall...Toyota turned to GM to ask them for help to build a full-sized pickup. You can attribute some of the Tundra's success to GM, but share some of the recalls too.

As for somebody mentioning complains on a Lexus...
Keep in mind when people buy high-price, luxury vehicles, they're expectations are through the f*cking roof. A lot of rich people complain about a lot.

Bottom line: A company called Toyota builds quality products that will last a long time with minimal work. It has nothing to do with them being Japanese. If Toyota was exactly the same, churned out the SAME cars yet was started by an American, then nobody here would have a hard time defending its success.
My 2 cents...

 

When did GM do that? Are we all hypnotized through their commercials? What a moronic statement.



I congratulate you for making a practical and well thought out decision. You must be a very responsible young man to buy such a fantastic car as a COROLLA ........boring and lame as hell but very responsible!

I know this whole board is very jealous of your corolla and most of us will be trading in our cool cars for one very soon because in 5 years you'll have saved a whole $1000 or $2000 in resale value. I for one am not too worried about a few dollars over such a long period. I'd rather have a hot car than a Toyota.

Best statement you've made in this whole thread!

 

You'd rather own a hot car rather than a Toyota? That's a pretty ignorant statement. Have you forgotten the MK4 Supra, MkII MR2 turbo, etc.? Associating every Toyota with a beige base-model Corolla is like thinking about the Pontiac Sunfire and it's 80's Sci-Fi design any time your Trans Am drives by.
Right now there's nothing to compare the f-body to in the Toyota lineup so I can't go into the performance aspect - then again, the F-body itself is gone too. Had there been something more "sporty" avaialble I would have picked it up, but I did need something practicle and that's what I got.
I'm not trying to compare my Corolla to an F-body, nor am I trying to compare Japanese to American, I'm trying to compare Toyota to GM. GM still kicks Mitsubishi's, Mazda's, and apparently Nissan's *** in quality but that's not saying a lot. Though they've moved up the ladder that they should have never been down in the first place, their less expensive model lineup is sub par in every concernable catigory.

Think about what I need the car for; reliable and practical transportation to and from work/school. While I was looking I found this one, with four wheel discs, ABS, a sunroof and will run very low 15s. It's not a race car, it's a sporty daily driver.
The only thing GM seemed to offer was the J-body. On my friend's rental with only 30,000 clicks (maybe 18,000 miles?) the turn signal was already broken, the interior was falling apart and the seat rails were already loose.

I would love to buy a GM and support the American economy, but like Threxx said, I'm not going to do it because I feel sorry for them, I'm only going to do it when I feel they deserve to make profit. And How is buying an American company so patriotic over an "import" ?
Doesn't GM make a lot of its small cars in Korea and bring them over as rebaged Daewoos?
But for every Civic or Camry you see and yell "ricer" to, Americans are given jobs to assemble those cars, which are built here. Think about the Camry being the best selling American car. That means a LOT of Americans benefit from having jobs building them. Same with every civic you see, or whatever is out there. The Camry, Tacoma, Tundra, Avalon, etc. they all seem like cars designed FOR Americans, unless you can see middle-class Japanese really finding much use for a big V8 Tundra in rush hour traffic.

It seems to be catistrophical when a GM car makes it 200,000+ miles along with most of its original parts. Try bragging about a Toyota like that and nobody will care, they're all like that. Even when I was so set on buying an F-body and got a ride in somebody's beater Tercel, I was looking at the interior like "Pfff I bet this POS is a rattle trap" and turned out to be astonished by how well and tight everything on a 12 year old car with countless mileage turned out!

And KillerTA, I'm not talking about "saving a thousand" over a long term. I'm talking about owning a car that if I financed, at any time I could sell it and AT LEAST break even. I don't want to be buying a car that will lose money faster than the payments could be made on it.

Remember resale value is set for a reason.

 

Just so you know....the complaint was an itermitant whine/resonance at certain RPM's from the powertrain (a Toyota design flaw). I would imagine the powertrains for all Corrolas/Camry's were made in the same factory.
GM had hundreds of complaints on this...Toyota had none.

Matter of fact, GM has many more complaints on the Prizm than Toyota did on the Corolla even thoughh GM actually made improvments to the car such as upgraded padding.

There have been books like "Car" that touch on this.

A Malibu has something BS like a radio issue, and some assclown is in the dealership crying about how his daddy's Vega was a POS, but despite this, he thought he would GM a try, and now he will never buy GM again because his radio don't work. And GM better pay for it, because it is not his fault their car is a POS.

However an Accord buyer can nuke his trans, and bring it in smiling while he signs the $2K repair bill because "no one else I know has problems with their Honda....so I must have done something wrong". He is also thinking "I sure can't tell anyone about this because I would look really stupid if they knew I was hamfisted enough to break a Honda!".

Don't even get me started about how you see new American car's at Wal Mart getting oil changes all the time, but no imports because they all "need the dealership maintenance".

 

THAT is what GM has to fight....ignorance among the general public.

 

okay.. i just read some more about this..

So if I understand correctly, Toyota may want to raises prices, so they could just make more money off cars... vs having the price of their cars raised by GM getting the Japanese gov to remove the threat of intervention that would raise the yen's value, causing the prices of Japanese cars to rise because of currency rates (in which Toyota doesn't really make any more money than its now)


taken from carconnection

 

Thank you Pace, this is the only quote that matters in this entire thread in terms of resale. It's so obvious, yet these people just don't get it. Geese.

As it goes for the quality issue, look at the facts, as so many have pointed out already, and you will find that GM quality is no worse (but IS better) than the imports they are being compared to. End of story.