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Old 11-13-2008, 12:04 PM   #71
jeffk
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1998 Toyota Sienna 185,000 miles
2000 Volvo C70 75,000 miles

I usually hang on to my cars until they are unreliable, need major expensive repair, or they rust out.

As to the question of why not American cars; I bought a Chevy Citation back in 1980. It was supposed to be the American answer to foreign competition and I was happy to "buy American". The car was junk. Transmission failed at 30,000 and 80,000 miles. Lots of pollution control device problems EVERY YEAR ($$$). Cam shaft wore out. Coil spring snapped. Finally the floor rusted out and I had a Flintstone mobile which I had towed to the junk yard. All this under 100,000 miles. BTW, I was in school at the time and could ill afford an unreliable car or could afford to replace it. The Detroit companies didn't care about providing me a good product. I came to realize that the American solution to quality was to advertise that their cars had quality, not to actually build it in. Maybe it's actually more cost efficient that way?

And it's NOT an American workforce problem either. Toyota has high quality in their cars built in the US. The US companies have had over 30 years to fix these problems and the have made a conscious choice NOT to. Their workforce is more interested in excessive wages and benefits than building a quality product. They deserve what happens to them.
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