Over the course of the last weekend, I read a bunch of articles online that talked about some of the different views on the current automaker crisis in America. Tom Baldwin from The Times of London wrote an op-ed entitled, “For too long the Big Three have produced the type of cars Americans do not want.” Baldwin concisely talks about some of the main points regarding the auto industry crisis, mainly that the “big three automakers” are making cars that nobody wants to buy! Or in his words:
This indicates that if the Big Three go bust it is their bosses, insular and stuck in their ways, who should be held most responsible. Put simply, for too long they had built bad cars, which were inefficient, unreliable and unattractive and Americans did not want to buy them.
The man makes a point. Everyone knows that foreign cars are much more fuel efficient, definitely more reliable, and usually more stylish than their American counterparts. Let’s put it this way, Ford didn’t earn the nickname of “Found On Road Dead” out of nowhere.
A few years ago (2002) I purchased a 1999 Chevy Blazer. The price was around $15,000 – give or take a few hundred bucks. First of all, the price was way too high for a three year old automobile. Second, since I purchased this machine, I’ve probably put an additional $15,000 into it in repairs. And of those repairs, about half of that expense was to pay for labor!
But the thing is, I’m one of many drivers who have had a financially negative experience with the American automakers. On the flip side, though, I’ve been borrowing my Mother’s spare 2000 Honda Civic for a few months now and not only does it get 31 – 33 miles to the gallon where the Blazer got 18 miles to the gallon, but I’ve not had one problem with it. I drive a lot for my job and since I borrowed the Civic I’ve put about 5,000 miles on it – no problems. With the Blazer, though, traveling that much almost certainly meant that I needed to stop at the shop one weekend for minor repairs.
American made cars are poor quality, energy inefficient, and cost way too much to manufacture. Unless these core problems change, they’ll never reclaim their former dominance in the market.
Joe,
I would remark that an American car of the eighties into early nineties were of bad quality. I have owned quite a few cars in my life. An Olds, two VW’s concurrently (Jetta died at 85k) in the early nineties, then a Camry (Died at 113K) and a Ford Taurus. Of all of these cars the Taurus went the furthest 186,000 (still running when I sold it) with the least problems. My wife’s next car was a new 2004 Forester and mine was a 2002 Taurus wagon. Guess what, mine has needed only maintenance and my maintenance is less than hers, no timing belt or transaxle fluid in mine. I also have 25,000 more miles than her. I would buy another Taurus in a heartbeat. I would like to change the acronym to mean “flies over road dutifully”.
Hey Metro – welcome back! I hope all is well for you and the family heading into the holidays!
I had a late 1990’s Ford Tempo that was garbage and then a Lincoln Towncar that actually broke down on me in the middle of the night in Plainfield – it was awesome. I’ve had very bad experiences with American cars, but I really do want to buy another Chevy. I just wish they would shift the focus on their hybrid technology away from their SUV line to their sedan line. Word going around is that the Volt is being put on hold…
Oh, and I should mention that I’m actually pulling for Detroit as I own stock in both GM and Ford. I just feel like they’re both engaged in a perpetual race to the bottom in terms of quality.
Same to you and yours. Sorry to hear you feel that way. Quality is in what is generally mass produced in large quantities. The Taurus and Camry are good examples. The 4 cylinder camry is a great car (at least used to be) the taurus in a duratec 6 was equivalent in both mileage, more or less and safer. I know people with the recent camry who are not as satisfied, looking to sell at 100,000. All I know is all car manufacturers make clunkers. Detroit used to be 100% in the 80’s. Imho much of the quality gap has been closed. As a matter of fact I heard on car talk o all places that you can expect 200k on an American car in general, while Japanese will go 250,000. We got rid of our 95″ taurus because it no longer had the safety features we wanted. it was still running fine and I hear 3 years later is still going.
But I seem to remember you looking to an HHR. What did you settle on?
Well, my car buying was impeded upon by my frugal shopping sense. I just couldn’t justify purchasing a new car costing $20,000 – $28,000 in this economy. I have such a gigantic student loan debt that I didn’t want to buy a new car and divert that extra income away from excess loan payments.
Then I started looking at used cars (mainly from Enterprise Rent-A-Car) and the deals were okay, but nothing to go crazy about. Again, something about spending $18,000 on a one-year-old car just didn’t seem right to me.
For now I’m borrowing my family’s extra car – a Honda Civic. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my truck which is sitting in my parking lot with a busted radiator. I might just donate it to Cars for Kids or something. I’ll likely buy a new car before the summer and it’ll probably be a hybrid or something like that. With the amount of driving that I do, I need something that has 30+ mpg.
Word is that the new Ford Fusion will beat the Prius in terms of fuel efficiency…
I bought a used Taurus wagon (3 Y.O.) with 37k on it 4 years ago and now have 107K. I paid $7,850 for it. All I have to say is when the bargains were Japanese in the 80’s people laughed at them but now the bargains in used cars are American cars. You just have to know the engines that are reliable. And by the way, new cars are for squares, buying used is “greener” and very much cheaper. Merry Christmas.
A good used hybrid is hard to come by.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, too!
Merry Christmas.