Guest BackInDaDay Posted February 11, 2005 Posted February 11, 2005 In '91 I bought a new Dodge Caravan with the 6-cylinder Mitsubishi engine. Within 2 years I spent $1100 to rebuild the transmission. Within 3 years I spent $1300 repainting it because the began flaking off. Within 4 years I spent about $250 having clips installed in the heads to keep the valves from dropping. I did the labor on that one. Dodge never owned up to a thing. I realise there are tens of thousands of satisfied Dodge customers ( I loved my '72 Demon ), but because of their refusal to backup their product, I'll never buy another vehicle from them.
dundy249 Posted February 11, 2005 Posted February 11, 2005 Advice..>DONT Just traded in the MiniVan after 3 GLORIOUS years. Got the wife a SUV and myself a BMW 330I Funny thing is my payments for Both cars are not much higher than the 1 MINIVAN payment.
KnightRider Posted February 11, 2005 Posted February 11, 2005 First of, I work for a American defense contractor. You go right ahead to a foreign competitor... Second, no, Americans are not incompetent, but they are too expensive and generally overregulated. I once thought I'd buy an Explorer. After the tire fiasco, I am not sure I trust Ford. Have you ever heard of something like that in a Japanese vehicle? Third, a Chrysler is no more American than a Toyota. It is a German company that builds some of it's cars in America. BTW, the Dodge I owned was built in Canada - it was a lemon... In my opinion, America's problem is in engineering and definition of requirements. If every part in an assembly just barely meets requirements, the the whole assembly may be marginal or even out of spec. Do you try to meet the spec, or push back on the spec with a better way? I give a real example from Buick. They wanted to add volume controls to the steering wheel. The standard radio knob had a light in it to indicate the volume, so, they ended up adding a somewhat unreliable motor behind the knob that the buttons on the steering wheel could control. I think the motor cost ~$30 per knob. My Audi (aka a German Buick ) also has the steering wheel controls, but they don't have light behind the knob on the radio. The moral of the story? If they had removed the light behind the knob they could have saved as much as $30 per car and had a more reliable control. Getting back to the thread question, try MSN Autos. They have an Amazon - like user rating that I thought was pretty cool... So, Americans are incompetent. Are you? There are strong differences between automotive markets. US federal nanny-state laws make things much more complicated. Many large manufacturers simply gave up on the US market years ago (the Italians and the French, notably). Your European Focus is a comparative snap to assemble... Stick around - it's going to get worse. On the heels of powered-down airbags which came about because a few hundred idiots put their kids on front passenger seats, you will see mandated tire pressure monitors because of the of the Jap company Firestone/Brigestone cootchy-cooing Ford into specifing bad tire pressures. As the subject rolled around the NHTSB, the manufacturers wanted to use anti-lock brake technology to detect a low tire - a good idea; ALB is a good thing. But Noooo...the civil service-protected NHTSB nannyite crowd was worried what would happen if all 4 tires were simultaneously underinflated - so plan on a 200 buck increase on cars sold on the US, which will have transponders affixed to the inside or rims, and enjoy spending 30 bucks per wheel for a tire repair or change. But we must protect jerks that might spill their brown-bagged wine if they bothered to check their tires, eh? And wait till the lead-free solder regs come into force. The hi temp requirements for that will knock the socks off of circuit boards, of which there are a boatload in cars sold in the US market. Buy a tow chain... 234054[/snapback]
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