11th Aug 2011, 22:01
I agree that car production is global. It's also true that the import bashing rhetoric is pointless. I think GM lovers should Cruze away from bashing Toyota, Honda, and others and stick to talking about the completely unproven in North
America Cruze. It can't be perfect. Remember, the title of this review is 'Cruze to a local Honda dealer.'
12th Aug 2011, 17:50
Same goes for Yota lovers bashing GM. They should stick with talking about their product's declining quality. As for the title of this review, just take a look at some of the titles of junk Toyota reviews that pretty much tell it like it is. But according to some, those reviews are false and made up stories (yeah right).
12th Aug 2011, 22:12
Many import fans seem to have a "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" attitude.
A great example is the Corolla. Every automotive magazine or tester who has done a comparison of compact cars recently has ranked the Corolla DEAD LAST among the field. Check out the recent issue of Motor Trend, a notoriously import-biased publication, or the grand-daddy of all import-biased magazines, Car and Driver. Motor Trend rates the Hyundai Elantra tops and the Corolla last. Car and Driver (fanatically addicted to Honda for decades) rates the Ford Focus as the best compact, above even the can-do-no-wrong (until now) Civic. In a USA Today comparison a family was asked to rate compact cars. They chose the Hyundai Elantra in spite of the fact that they were Toyota owners!!
Another "Don't confuse me with facts" area appears to be what constitutes an AMERICAN company. Ford and GM are AMERICAN companies. It doesn't matter if they build their cars on Mars. They employ several times as many American citizens as all imports COMBINED. They pay U.S. taxes and benefit the U.S. economy. Japanese companies are JAPANESE owned and employ a tiny handful of U.S. citizens. They are of very little benefit to the U.S. economy in any way.
It isn't a matter of hating imports, although I DO staunchly prefer helping my friends and neighbors to helping someone in a country I have never visited. I DO prefer helping U.S. industries grow and employ more Americans, and I do believe in helping to expose the myth that nothing made by American companies is any good. Compare a new Ford to a new Toyota, and that argument will crumble to dust faster than the Toyota will be recalled.
13th Aug 2011, 14:46
Once again, Toyota has the highest percentage of cars still on the road purchased after twenty years. As if Ford or GM has never had a problem with recalls or safety. I suppose Toyota invented that. Before the perfect Cruze showed up, GM pedaled the Sunfire and Cavalier for almost 25 years as their best compact offering. Those cars were outdated, and outclassed by Corolla and Civic. It's common knowledge. GM lost money on almost every one they sold because nobody wanted them. What kind of business sense is that? Then there's Ford's perfect Focus, which set a RECORD for recalls for its first six years of production long before Toyota got involved.
Consumer Reports takes data from actual owners. Car magazines like Motor Trend care only about flashy looks, 0 -60 times, and body roll. They don't test reliability. They recommend the Corolla. I'll admit that Ford and GM have better designs than Toyota and Honda, but many owners don't base their purchase on flashy looks and 'body roll.'
Consumer Reports recommends almost all Toyota models, far higher than GM. Also, GM and Ford sell cars globally just like Toyota. Many of GM's cars are based on and built by Daewoo, which is South Korean. There is a huge Toyota dealership where I live, and bought my car. They employ many people there. Many more than the Fiat dealership across the street, a foreign company that saved 'American' Chrysler from extinction for about the third time. All of 'American' Chrysler's products will be Fiat based.
14th Aug 2011, 03:20
Or, you can buy whatever you want, because this is America.
See how I did that in less than 5,000 words?
14th Aug 2011, 18:01
I guess I just can't help but read some of these comments and snicker. If Toyota made bad cars, then people wouldn't buy them, nor would they have gotten the positive reputation they earned from decades of consistently reliable products. If you're someone that is trying to convince people that Toyotas are bad, then you're wasting time, because for starters everyone already knows Toyotas are solid.
But just so that I can show that I'm not a staunch Toyota advocate, I will say that some of the offerings from Ford and GM are fairly competitive these days. I'd have no problem buying a Cruze amongst other small cars. But it wouldn't be because it was Merican' made. It would simply be due to it being a product that has desirability. Had you asked me 5-6 years ago if I had an interest in Cavaliers or Cobalts, there would be no way I'd consider them. Those products were atrocious, cheap, and bland. That was pretty much the name of the game for decades with the Big 3.
The question is why are they now building better products? The answer is that they had to. Toyota and Honda have been slowly eating away at their once overly dominant North American market share. This was because Toyota and Honda built reliable, desirable cars, and that reputation is what caused the Big 3 to change and start focusing more on quality. Sure - there were people like those commenting here who would've bought anything they made just because of the old-fashioned notion of buying American at any cost, or regardless of how poorly made the products might be. But that demographic alone wasn't enough to stop the slide. The reason GM and Ford in particular are doing a lot better is due to stiff competition from Japan's big 3, and now to some extent Hyundai. That alone reinforces the comment I made previously: Toyota and Honda make good, reliable products, and had they not, people would have not bought them, and the Big 3 would not have had to step it up and start making better cars to remain competitive.
So in reality many of you Big 3 cheerleaders should be thanking Toyota and Honda for forcing the Big 3 to do better. This is the reason why global trade and capitalism is a win-win for consumers. You have to build good products in order to win, and it doesn't matter if that product was made in Japan, the US, or Germany.
10th Aug 2011, 22:31
'Disgraced Toyota?' Yeah, they screwed up, but moved quickly to fix it. GM is the real disgrace. They screwed up for 25 years, sold poor products, went bankrupt, and got bailed out by taxpayer money. During all of this time, the fat cat executives of the company were filling their pockets with billions. Then they went in front of the Government and begged for a handout of more billions. That's the real disgrace.
GM was number one and went bankrupt. Toyota had no luck with it either. It's a curse. It has nothing to do with a company's ability to make consistent reliable cars. Maybe VW will have better luck at number one. Toyota has the highest percentage of cars still on the road twenty years after purchase. That speaks of long term reliability. My father's Toyota has been extremely reliable for 14 years, and I've had no complaints with mine for the brief time I've owned it.
As for the GM Daewoo Cruze, it's not proven in North America. I'd take a Corolla, which is the number one selling car of all time, over a Cruze any day.