American or Foreign Cars! Which Do You Prefer?

Hi Lloyd I have been drive Foreign cars for as long as I can remember. I have had such good luck with them that that is what I have stuck with. I started out in 1989 with a Mazda RX7 I have been driving forign cars ever since.I am now hooped on Hyndai's. I have had very good luck with the last two I have owned. I first had a 1999accent, then traded it for a new 2003 Elantra because it was a bit larger.I just paid it off last month. I have almost 70,000 miles on it, I too change the oil regular. i have never had to have a tune-uop on it yet.It has never been in the shop, except for the 5 wrecks I have been it, that tore the other peoples cars up, but miner damage to mine.I sware by these cars.I always say, they are like a timex watch,"They take a licking & keep on ticking".I have hauled wood,etc in my car, it is very durable, practal, and dependable..

Back in the early eighties we bought a used Honda Civic; it was a 1980 model and I think we got it in 1983. It worked like a charm and got about 45 MPG. It had nearly 200,000 miles on it when I had an accident with it and our insurance company totaled it because it would have cost to much to fix for what it was worth, according to them at least. We then bought a new 1985 Civic and we had that for over 11 years and there was over 200,000 when someone went through a stop sign and hit me, pushing me into a brand new parked Cadillac. Again, the insurance company totaled it, if that wouldn't have happened I have no doubt in my mind we'd still have it. Meanwhile, we got a new Honda Accord in 1993 and over 300,000 miles later and not a single problem with it my husband was hit head-on by a truck as he sat waiting to pull into the parking lot where he works. Again, we got screwed by our insurance company! Now we have a Pontiac Montana minivan which we really like as far as how it rides and the gas mileage isn't that bad for a van but it's spent almost as much time at the garage as it has anywhere else! There was a leak around the windshield since we got it and they've "fixed" it repeatedly and finally said simply they didn't know what else to do about it so we're kind of stuck. They've even replaced the windshield twice, once because they broke it at the dealership.

I guess I'll sum it up by saying if and when I can find an American car that's as good as all the Hondas I've had I'll be more than happy to get one.
Annie

It is pretty much the same story in Australia... as the two Australians Motor companies... Ford and GM are American affiliates.

Ford and GM are old technology by world standard... and they have been very slow in upgrading. I don't really know the reason why. Their whole interest has always been to power big cars with big engines and lots of torque. And as long as there is a market for it... they will keep on doing it.

NASCAR plays a big role in the American motor industry to keep it alive.
And so does V8 Supercars in Australia... where only two manufacturers are allowed in the race... Ford and GM.

They build basic cars for ordinary people. They are not in the luxury business... and the attention to details has always been very poor. Everything is build cheaply. 35 years ago... they got away with it... because there was next to no luxuries in cars. You had a simple but strong car.

But even so... those Australian cars were rust bucket after 10 years. And it would be a lot worse in America... because they put salt on the roads in winter to get ride of the snow and ice... and it is that salt which cause the rust in your car.

When I was younger, I owned a Pontiac Firbird and a Ford Mustang. Both gave me severe headaches with mechanical problems and I had them only two years. I have owned a Mitsubishi Sapporo (similar to a Dodge Challenger) and a Toyota Pickup truck. I changed the oil regularly and never, ever had any problems with them. I had them both for a number of years. I did own a Ford Ranger for 10 years that was a great pickup. I didn't have any major problems with it until the last year and then it needed a new transmission. I own a Chevy malibu, 2002 now. I have had such problems with the theft alarm system preventing me fro starting my own car!! This has happened too many times to remember the count. I have been told the GM cars with this type of passive alarm are famous for this problem.
Other than major problems with American made cars, little, annoying things happen with them that I never had with my foreign made cars. Rearview mirror falling off, door handles breaking or seatbelts misfunctioning. I would say the best american made vehicle I owned was my Ranger. it was good to me!
PEACE

I will never buy a FORD car again, I will go with HONDA, or Nissan, I bought my Ford Winstar Used, but it didn't have an overly large amount of miles on it, but just after the warranty expired, the transmission dropped, and its dropped every 2 years on that van, we've had so many problems with that van that I don't even want to go there, we rarely drive the van anymore and I don't have 2,000 right now to fix the van either

After having had an American van several times because they were cheaper, and having nothing but problems with them I have to say right now that I will never own by choice another Ford or Cheverolet,

I'm with you on the American made cars, the car companies are in a world of financial trouble and not able to sell the cars, so there are corners being cut to compensate for money being lost, and I think what you are experiencing with your van is something we are going to see more and more in American made cars.

Mooch

It used to be that Ford and Chevrolet were the great American cars. Now we have foreign cars overtaking the old guard sort of. My parents had chevys, fords, pontiacs and even a volkswagon. They were all good vehicles. I have had over the years a 65 mustang (I can't believe I got rid of it) 69 Nova which was one of my best, a dodge dart, 77 thunderbird (like to have that back, too) a minivan, a stationwagon and a pontiac trans am. Over the years I have seen quality of things change. Plus I thought I was buying American. No Honda, Toyota, etc, Foreign cars, I didn't want. Then I discovered that many of my "American" cars were only assembled in the US and most of the parts were made elsewhere like Mexico, Canada, C

Well I haven't owned a lot of cars, but my experiences have been mixed. My first car was a '65 Barracuda that had over 192,000 miles on it. It had a lot of problems but it was 30 years old so I can't hold that against it. In 1996 I got a 1988 Ford Tempo with 78,000 miles on it for $1300. It lasted for 3 years with numerous problems. When it reached about 111,000 miles the transmission went and it was clearly not worth the money to fix it.
That was when I bought my first foreign car, a 99' Mazda Protege, my sister got the exact same car a month earlier. It ran flawlessly for 6 years without a single engine problem. At 86,000 miles, the transmission died. Since the car had been so good, I made the mistake of having it fixed. Then everything started going wrong. Mechanics couldn't figure out why it wasn't shifting properly or where most of the problems were coming from. Fortunately, when I sold it to Carmax they couldn't see anything wrong with it either so I got a few thousand for it. My sister was about to trade in her protege to buy a van since she has 5 kids and I just bought it from her. Oddly enough, that one has done much better than my first and now has 137,000 miles on it and is still running strong. It's had a few problems here and there, but it's definitely been good to me.
So that's my experience. My next car will most likely be either a Mazda3 or Toyota Prius. I haven't test driven a Prius yet so I can't say it'll be a sure thing. Physical comfort means a lot to me and my wife's Toyota Yaris is extremely uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure it was designed only for short people. I won't really consider buying an American car until they can make one with a decent reputation for reliability. I hate bringing a car in for repairs.

Well, we have a Subaru Forrester. Ours is a 2006, and we really like ours. We have had no real major issues with our car, and overall we now will always prefer a Foreign made car over American. Yeah, they might be a little more pricier if something needs fixed on it, but they seem to hold up better in the end as well.

My whole family has been involved in the car industry at least at one point in their lives. They have been engineers, mechanics, worked in leasing and rental companies, or worked on the assembly line. So, I feel like I owe a little loyalty to American cars. But, this last time that I went to buy a car, I was this close to buying a Toyota or Volkswagon. I used to own a Geo Metro, which is really a Japanese car with an American brand name. All I wanted was another very small car with good gas mileage and reliable. I really didn't get what I wanted 100% because they just don't make cars like that with an American brand name anymore. Volkswagon had fantastic deals on the type of cars that I want and Toyota had exactly what I wanted. All the foreign car companies had a variety of small vehicles with great gas mileage and were very reliable. American car companies seem to have the idea that everyone wants a gigantic SUV.

Well, American cars are foreign cars to me. This is my impression of the cars of various countries.

American, overweight, underpowered, ugly, garish, fuel guzzlers.
German, well engineered, sometimes over-engineered ugly cars, they need to learn that the Panzer tank is not the epitome of automotive style.
French, well made but ugly, a few Peugeots aren't too ugly and their diesel engines are superb.
Italian, unreliable but beautiful
Japanese, reliable but terminally bland
Swedish, ugly but reliable
British, very variable, some beautiful and iconic, some brilliant engineering some dire.

My vehicle is a Land Rover Defender, amazingly reliable even when driven over terrain that would destroy most vehicles. Beautiful, agile, reliable, robust and the most environmentally friendly production vehicle in the world.

all the best urban