How good are American Vehicles?

My only American vehicles I ever drove was my 95 Grand Caravan LE and my 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan Sport. The 95 one lasted from 99 to 05 with the A/C breaking down [ never did the $1000+ repair], a starter replacement, and failed emission needing an O2 sensor change but it froze to the exhaust header which was a $1000 replacement. My 99 one is a lemon, used dealer fixed the bad brakes but the brakes went bad after a year [poor braking action]. Then it broke down on the road after my belt slipped of in rainy weather. They said the splash shield fell off. Brake + Belt repair $1200. Then in Dec 07 my water pump breaks going to work and I nurse it to the Dodge Dealer. They suggest some other repairs like hoses, oil sender unit, oil gasket, and something. I said repair it without a quote first, my biggest mistake as they ripped me off - a $1200 bill, like changing 2 coolant hoses is $150? I'm never gonna go back to them! And my recirculation is broke; they quoted a $860 repair for it.

My impression is if you drive American you get a lot of repair bills. But I've had Hondas and they broke down too. My 90 Civic Si stranded me by braking a timing belt - from 10 years of driving. The tranny on my 88 Prelude Si 4ws broke and got stuck in gear. My 1993 Mazda Mx6ls V6 stranded me twice; clutch line leaked preventing me from shifting, oil seeped past the seals and fried my distributor through my spark plugs or something - a $1600 Mazda Dealer repair. Had the MX6 from 97 to now.

If you drive American, what do you drive and how has the repairs and maintenance costs been? What broke down, how much did it cost to repair, and how often did your car break down!

The 6 speed 4 cyl Malibu looks better than an Accord or Camry. The new 09 Aveo is styled very nice. The Solstice and 5 dr Saturn Astra are sexy too. And GM SUVS have nicer styling than the Toyota Sequoia or those ugly Honda SUVs. But in the end, imports have better resale value.

Maybe for foreign countries an American Car is a status symbol! Like a Corvette in Paris!

1971 Chevy Nova:Owned it from 1975 - 1978...Replaced one distributor.
1975 Toyota Corolla: Owned it from 1978 - 1984...Replaced battery and alternator.
1984 Datsun 200SX: Owned it from 1984 - 1991...Replaced alternator bracket.
1984 Ford E150 Conversion Van: Owned it 1991 - 1997...Replaced Battery, Starter, EGR Valve, Water Pump, Hoses.
1993 Ford Probe GT: Owned it from 1997 - 2003...Replaced water pump, battery, Harmonic Balancer-Pully Assembly, Hoses, Timing Belt, Idle Air Control Valve, exhaust system, and three front drive half shafts with CV Joints.
2002 F150 Pick-up: Owned it from 2003 - present...No repairs

The list above does not include preventative maintenance such as oil changes, tires, filter replacements, and brake pad replacements. I performed all of the maintenance procedures and repairs my self on all of these vehicles except for the 1993 Ford Probe. It was a fun car but parts were extremely expensive and repairs were extremely difficult because there was no room to work on the engine. The 1975 Toyota Corolla was probably the best car that I owned. It had a 1600cc engine and a 4-speed manual transmission in it. It also had 275,000 miles on it when it was hit from behind by a Camaro. It did get excellent fuel mileage, 35 miles per gallon city and nearly 40 MPG on the highway.

The 1984 Ford E-150 Conversion Van was hit three times, first by a Grand Am that lost its fender, scratched the van and flattened a tire. The second time was by a Chevy Van that dented its fender and put a mark on the Ford's bumper, and the last time it was parked in my parents driveway when a Camaro jumped the curb, hit the back of my father's truck pushing it into the van, and then buried itself up to the windshield under the van. When the tow truck drug the Camaro out from under the van, there was a small dent and hole behind the bumper but no other damage. I finally had to sell it because the engine had started to use a lot of oil after 210,000 miles. There is no way that I could afford to drive these days as it had two 40 gallon fuel tanks and got around 12 miles per gallon on the highway.

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Best car I have owned is my 2000 Honda Civic four door. 1.4 liter engine, SOHC. Very good mileage, I drive it to work every day, currently 125,000 km. Have replaced the car battery, the normal city light front light bulb, and one set of windsheild wipers.

Tied for first is my 2002 Fiat Panda (old model). Bare bones car, two door, no optionals, so nothing to break. Never any trouble. Did great until I rear-ended a Volkswagen Golf. 1400 Euro of damage (most of the front end was gone), sold it same day to a car repair shop for 1500.

Family car is a Toyota Corolla Verso (minivan-ish)... 1.8 liter. Full optional. Only 60,000 km but nothing to say about the car or service...

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This is a graph of GM's market share decline. It tells you all you need to know about how good american vehicles are. I think GM's share is under 22% today. With gas heading to $5.00/gal this summer, their truck/SUV sales will fall off a cliff. If you were to subtract out the fleet sales to get the autos bought by real customers then the situation looks even worse. It's not impossible that GM will go bankrupt in two years.



Here is Ford's market share.


I won't mention Chrysler since they were bought by a private equity fund and they will definitely cease to exist in the near future. Chrysler will be sold off in pieces.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

Bro Deal, do you think companies like GM will begin to import and rebadge some of their European models (they have a rather large line-up of quite decent cars with Opel here in the Old World - small cars with very good mileage and the like.

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The biggest problem with importing and rebadgeing their cars would be safety and environmental related. US safety standards tend to be a little tighter than their European counterparts and there are also differing anti-pollution concerns. Retrofitting these cars to bring them into compliance could add too much to the price of the car to be feasible.

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Saturn is already made up of rebadged Opels. I am not familiar with Opel's lineup, but anything fuel efficient is likely they will end up in the U.S., probably as a Saturn.

Detroit does so much rebadging and badge engineering that it is hard to keep track of everything. It seems they have mostly given up making their own small car platforms; they find it easier to slap a new name on Daewoos and such.

I wonder when Toyota will bring the Aygo over here. Although those are so small they might not meet U.S. crash standards. They are rather cute. With 50+ mpg and the right marketting campaign...

I think Fiat is planning on reentering the U.S. market. It would be freakin' hilarious to see americans driving around in Pandas and 500s. Americans trading in their land yaughts to drive itty bitty cars. Oh, the humanity.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

GM has been realistically bankrupt for over 20 years IMO (more like 30). Only financial accounting smoke and mirrors have kept them afloat. If plant and machinery were depreciated realistically to reflect replacement costs (a more realistic picture) and the true future cost of pension plans were factored into today's earnings.... kapoof... company is an UN-going concern.

Negative net cash flows propped up by new debt issuance based on false earnings.

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American engineering - WW 2 stuff like airplanes - beat the Japanese good time. I wish they could do it with cars and great fuel economy! I'm kinda glad they suffer now when they laughed at Toyota and Honda for coming out with hybrids. They were given money and a big US Gov program to make hybrid in the 90's, but they did nothing!

Powerful Pete - I drive a 1999 Honda Civic HX! It's modded, and it gets me 44 mpg weekly tanks on 80% hwy miles. Did a long road trip, first 143 miles at 65 mph A/C on and off every 5 miles - 46.3 mpg! I save so much on gas with this car! When it's fully hooked up I'll show it off in a thread! Mine has a 1.6L engine. What kind of mpg do you get on your 1.4L?

I've owned 15 domestics, NO MORE. I now have a 05 Honda Odyssey, an 04 Nissan Titan (work truck), and a 95 Accord - 160K miles and a right front wheel bearing and an AC recharge are the only repairs, still has the original tranny fluid. All are far superior in quality and reliablity over any of the domestics I've owned. The Titan is by far the best truck I've owned, tremendous power increase over the Silverados and F150s I've had, not to mention much better handling and comfort. Nissan and Dodge have a deal going on now that will rebadge Rams as Titans and Dodge will get the Versa to rebadge. I'll buy a new Titan before the switch and that will probably be my last Nissan truck. It sucks when they screw up a great thing. I'll never own another domestic vehicle. Even my lawn mower and tractor are Honda. All of my gas powered equipment (I'm a contractor) are Honda powered. My street bike is a Honda and my Quad is a Suzuki. The quality just can't be beat.

Whoa stlblues. How many internal combustion machines do you own?

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Being a contractor, a bunch. Lawn tractor (just over an acre yard to take care of), lawn mower for those places the tractor won't fit, string trimmer, 3 chain saws, auger, power washer, generator, tiller, motorcycle, ATV, car, minivan, truck. Most including the truck and ATV are for business purposes.

And you wonder why gas is $4.00 a gallon.

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Most are for business use, you can't build and remodel without those tools. The truck only gets driven when I have to haul larger tools or the trailer. The motorcycle gets 52mpg, the car 32 mpg, and the van 27mpg. Overall, I use less gas then most people. I can cut the yard, rather large and very hilly, 8 times on one gallon of gas. We combine trips, my wife works 5 miles from the house, but we live off a narrow rural hwy with NO shoulder and its extremely hilly, and with her being a medical proffessional, she can't show up a sweaty mess. She uses a tank of gas in the car every 4 to 5 weeks, the van gets gas every 3 weeks, and depending on the project the truck from 1 to 3 weeks. I've had several projects lately where my drive is 1 to 2 miles. I'm far from the reason for $4 gas. Assholes driving SUVs and Pickups because they want to , not for work or they have 12 kids, and Hummer driving soccer skanks are the reason. I spend as little as I possibly can on gas, but I have to work.

I feel your pain. That work thing really does get in the way of my riding time...

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De Rosa Planet
Campagnolo Per Sempre!
PAOLO BETTINI CAMPIONE DEL MONDO x 2!