" wrote in
:

On Mon, 30 May 2011 18:06:28 -0400, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
om...

"harry" wrote in message

m...
Heh Heh. Finally catches up with where Europe and Japan were fifty
years ago.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/bu...uto.html?_r=1&
src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpa ges%2Fbusiness%2Fi
ndex.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.

American cars are getting much better. Well, Chrysler still makes
junk (and you couldn't give me a GM). I've had one AMC (Gremlin),
four Fords, and four Chryslers. All have made it to 80K, except the
Gremlin (no need to explain) and the '74 Rustang II that followed it
(no need to explain there, either). The '78 Granada made 140K and 14
years before I gave the rusted hulk away. That was followed by two
Chrysler minivans, both made 80K, but not much longer, and two
Intrepid class cars, also junk. I now have two Fords, a '00 Sable
(100K) and an '01 Ranger (90K). Both will easily go another three or
four years. I'll replace the Sable as soon as we get the house paid
off, but not because it'll need it - SHMBO wants a Mustang
Convertible. ;-)

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.

Your experience is just with the '70s and '80s cars, then.

Glad RonB's wife has a better memory as to why not to go American than
he seemed to.

I hate to buy from another country,but if the American stuff is junk,
I am not about to help the big wheels in the US make the 100 million
plus dollars a year for doing it

It's not junk, though. It certainly *was*, but that was more than 20
years back.

don't forget that many "American" autos are made in Mexico or Canada,and
have LESS US domestic content than Hondas,Toyotas,or Nissans.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com