On Mon, 30 May 2011 19:14:52 -0400, Kurt Ullman wrote:

In article ,
"Ralph Mowery" wrote:

"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...

"harry" wrote in message
...
Heh Heh. Finally catches up with where Europe and Japan were fifty
years ago.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/bu...l?_r=1&src=un&
feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fb usiness%2Findex.jsonp

.

The car makers are not catching up, the consumer is. Detroit built small
car back in the 60's. I liked my '62 Corvair. Then the Pinto, Chevette,
Horizon, Vega, etc, but they just never sold many of them.

The American cars did have the small cars as far back as the 60's. Just
none of them were any good. The larger ones were not any better. I had a
Ford , 3 Chrysler products , and 2 GM products. None of them made it to
80,000 miles. The last one was a 74 GM product and I had to put two timing
gears in it and the transmission went out at 75,000. I have only bought
Toyotas for the last several cars. One went 100,000 with only standard
maint. Traded it off for a Camry and put 190,000 on it and only changed one
sensor. Just put tires on a Tacoma truck at 45,000 and no unscheduled
maint.

My Chevette lasted for over 20 years. It was the only car my
brother-in-law has ever had that he wasn't able to completely destroy
within 2 years. Took him 6 after I had already had it for 14. Except for
the hole in the floor board where I keep my heal when I am driving, it
was in great shape.

The brakes weren't so good, eh? ;-)