Like the title says I am all for American auto makers but if their quality doesn't change I'm sticking with my Japan built cars (Both my current cars are built in Japan). Quality isn't going anywhere when the assembly workers are drunk or high.

Auto Workers Drinking, Getting High During Lunch

 

*cough* labor unions *cough*

 

This is obviously bad publicity for Chrysler. And if someone is assembling my future car, I'd rather believe they did not spend lunchtime drinking or getting high.

BUT...

I'm still going to take it as an individual incident and poor decisions made by individuals and not an indictment of the entire plant or American Automotive Industry.

There was a period in the 80's where I felt the quality gap between Japanese vehicles and American built products was huge. At that time I would of gone with a Toyota or Honda almost exclusively over a similar Chrysler, Dodge, Chevy or Ford.

But I think that gap has narrowed or is almost non-existent.

Unfortunately, I don't know if it's American standards improving or Japanese standards deteriating...but I don't perceive a huge difference.

Toyota has struggled with it's growth and experienced a lot of quality issues lately. All automakers have recalls.

Recent stories out of Japan talk of over worked employees, and suppliers being asked to provide more and more for less and less....all in an effort to compete with not only American produced products but now also Korean.

Anyway, it's my opinion (and I own a Japanese built Honda Fit) that the quality gap is near to gone. Industry standards are pretty uniform.

Now I have to finish my 6 pack, swig some Nyquil and get back to work.

 

The same crap goes on at the GM plant in Arlington, every postal facility I have worked at as well.... The worst drunks I have met that had jobs were prison guards and railroad employs.... All union members and virtually impossible to discipline or fire from their jobs.... Nepotism is rampant in labor unions.

 

What quality issues? I see nothing major popping up and would have no fear to own a Toyota once again, especially the Prius.

 

My brother in law in San Antonio has been working as a temporary employ at the Toyota plant there and loves the orderliness and structure of the place... He is very much troubled with OCD and this job is very good for him.

 

It's not so much that there is a real problem with Detroit's automakers from a quality standpoint; nobody makes truly awful cars any longer... however...



Honda and Toyota are simply head and shoulders above the others, and we get spoiled.

Depending on what type of vehicle you are looking for, Detroit makes sense.

Want a pickup customized with the exact features and layout you need? A heavy duty pickup? A big RWD sedan? A soft-top 4x4? A pony car? A major bang for the bucks sports car? F150/RAM/C/K, 300C, Wrangler, Mustang/Camaro, Corvette. Much like Honda, they are at their best building what they build best.

 

If you are able to swing that big Beemer (we called them BUMs in the old days) you will find they are far and again better than Japanese bikes.... To bad their cars aren't like their bikes.

 

I always hear good things about Honda bikes. But yeah, Suzuki isn't known for its fantastic cars, and Yamaha makes keyboards for Billy Joel's basement. But Hondas... how often do you see Nighthawks, Gold Wings, and VFRs that have been on the road for a decade or more, still happily tooling along?

I basically view my Kawasaki as a disposable...

 

Listen I agree I would have no "fear" in owning a Toyota, but I used past tense and this year they faced an record breaking automotive recall for sticking accelerator pedals.

Toyota's CEO himself stated that he thought Toyota in it's expansion had lost sight of some of the companies core values including commitment to quality. Toyota has re-examined it's own business practice.

I think it perfectly fair to say Toyota HAS experienced quality problems. My point not being to trash Toyota but just to illuminate that I think all car makers face challenges and occasionally have quality problems and recalls...including the Japanese car makers.

I never asked anyone to have any "fear" of owning a Toyota and I never mentioned Prius.

 

If you're basing Toyota's quality going down hill on that, then you have nothing to base Toyota's quality problems on. No mechanical defect has ever been proven in all of Toyota's unintended acceleration scares. The same thing happened to Audi too many years ago, just because drivers mistook the gas pedal for the brake pedal. Even the NHTSA agrees this problem was caused by driver's error. In fact I drove a Lexus ES last year and never had problems like this with it.

 

I see what you're saying and I agree. They all have recalls but I find it based on my experience (only my experience so take it as just that) that Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler still have long term reliability issues. My parents have a Ford Taurus. They have 50K on the clock and the water pump already went out twice. I use to have a 1999 Ford truck and the same problem happened. My coworker has a 2007 Chevy Avalanche. It's sitting here in our parking lot leaking oil and the motor is pretty much shot. It has 80K on it and the motor is shot. Chevy and the dealership had it over a month and couldn't figure out the problem. He has since bought a new vehicle to replace it (and it wasn't a Chevy). My roommate in college had a Chevy S10. The transmission needed replaced twice in the thing before it had 20K miles on it. These types of horror stories tell me American quality is not there. I had a 95 modified Integra LS 175,000 miles on it when I sold it and it ran perfectly fine. My 01 Acura CL type S had 90K miles on it when I sold it to downsize to the Fit and it never had any problems. The Fit now has 17K on it without any issues (knock on wood). Based on people I know and car's I've owned yes they all have recalls but American ( / Mexico) made cars seem to have bigger quality issues.

 

My dad has always been a ford/mopar man and he decided to try a chevy truck once a few years back. It always ran rough and three times in six months it sheared all its motor mounts. He gave it back. The dealer found the problem - someone at the factory never bothered to balance the crankshaft.

Then the box literally rusted off our F150 while he was driving it down the road, and the dodge van my stepbrother drove required wheel bearings with every oil change...

He switched to honda until he couldn't take the road noise anymore and now drives toyotas.

Many of my family have worked in the GM plants of Michigan. The only one that I know of from passed stories that actually gives a hoot for quality control is the lansing cadillac plant. Some of the other ones... well there was that story years back where an employee I talked to found once or twice a week a car warming up its engine at the end of the line (they all did at this particular plant) making lots of racket - no oil. Add oil, noise goes away, but it's ran dry for 10 minutes already, and quote "That's what the warranty is for."

I like what the big 3 have been doing in the past couple years, it really looks like for the first time in forever that they care about the products leaving their buildings, but they still have a way to go.

Toyotas and Hondas are not perfect, but it's better than the alternative. Just look at the first-gen tacoma (95-04). Every one of those trucks falls under the frame rust recall. Some of these trucks have split in half, so it's pretty serious. Toyota's reaction? Test the truck with every service of any kind, and if it's found, offer 150% of Kelley Blue Book value assuming excellent condition, no matter what the actual resale value or condition of the truck is, or what vehicle or brand is purchased to replace it. I'd bet money that a domestic company would say just buy more rustoleum.

And accelerators sticking... LOL! That's happened since the advent of the automobile. Engineering Rule #156 - if it slides, and you can't grease it, it's gonna stick, and throttle cables fit this (I made up that rule ;p). Now that people are becoming so mechanically stupid to not even know how to put the car in neutral and shut it off that toyota is getting blamed left and right in a giant smear campaign just because they switched to DBW.

OK I'm starting to rant. signing off

 

Ugh...listen...I like Toyota...but when Toyota's CEO HIMSELF is forced to come out and publicly appologize for recalls and consumer confidence being shaken...then I think it's perfectly fair to say they have faced issues recently.

Do I think those issues make Toyotas dangerous? Do I think that means they are suddenly of poor quality? NO. I NEVER said that...just using them as a comparison and valid proof that Japanese Automakers are just as vulnerable to manufacturing defects and challenges as anyone. They have no magic cloak of manufacturing perfection.

And as originally stated...Not that Hondas and Toyotas aren't great...but I think the gap in quality or the competition has narrowed. My advice to anyone would be buy the car you want. But if there was a time when I wouldn't of considered an Japanese Car over a American? Based solely on projected build quality? That time has passed.

If you have issue with criticism of Toyota, take it up with a bowing and apologizing Akio Toyoda who himself has implemented changes in evaluation and production at Toyota based on REAL UNDENIABLE events such as the HUGE recall of sticking accelerator pedals.

You can love Toyota, but you cannot deny reality.

Plus a defect WAS found...it was minor but under some conditions the accelerator pedals manufactured and installed in many Toyotas could stick. Do you think Toyota would of recalled the HUGE amount of automobiles they DID recall and voluntarily halt production on many of there models if there wasn't REALLY a problem.

Again, I don't mean to Trash Toyota...I do think they are one of the best manufacturers on the planet. But they aren't magic.

 

The realty is you just don't listen to the news such as this

 

it's my EXPERIENCE that american-built japanese cars are not at the same quality standards as japan-built japanese cars. ive had bad luck over and over again with Honda's that were made either in Canada or Ohio, and Subaru made in Indiana...

so there is still a big gap between these two manufacturing locations japan and america.

 

+1 I agree completely!

Sorry to say it..but the Japanese are more organized and hold themselves to very strict guidelines. Something American assembly plants need to learn still. I hear this very often from someone in my family that works in the automotive industry here in the U.S. and in Japan.

 

After witnessing the Chrysler footage of employees getting wasted during their lunch break, there is some proof there of why that can be. That's not to say every employee in Japan is an angel too, none the less our cultures differ.

 

Honda's Japanese labor force is unionized.

 

I really like this chart, it basically verifies on paper what we all pretty much know from experience. American automakers are just not making appealing cars, even their premium cars are cheap. Take for example a Corvette, you're still getting the same stupid cheap plastic dashboard and console that you get on any POS Chevy. If fit and finish, build quality, and design stepped up a few notches, domestic cars would not be so bad.