16th Oct 2007, 15:36

100% American... made by a Japanese company... but hey let's praise import companies that can get away with paying their workers far less than the domestic companies with unions can... it's fine to convince yourself you'rw perfect for buying an import... but I'll buy my domestics even if they break... have fun.

16th Oct 2007, 16:55

EXACTLY!!!

That's what this whole argument is about! People believing in different things!

Neither side of this debate is going to win. Both sides are wrong, both sides are right.

But I will say this, the domestic end has bundles of evidence and facts over the import crowd here, I can see that clear as day. The people who argue in this only see their side of things, therefore "everyone else is wrong." I will also say that the amount of bias and the magical opinion-to-facts statements leans HEAVILY towards the import crowd.

It is my belief that, from experience and zillions of horror stories, the Toyota brand name is nothing more than exactly that, a name. One that does not back or deliver it's product the way it's made out to be.

16th Oct 2007, 18:39

10:43 has summed it up correctly. Thank you for being one of the few here that make sense.

16th Oct 2007, 18:53

16:55; Wrong. It has nothing to do with beliefs.

The domestic crowd believes that the Big 3 build higher quality vehicles than Toyota. They are incorrect.

The import crowd believes that Toyota builds higher quality vehicles than the Big 3. They are correct.

You can type all day about who 'believes' what, or who has more facts, or whatever. Fine with me. Whatever answer you come up with at the end of it all, Toyota still makes far better vehicles than the Big 3. That fact will still remain.

I won't bother going through the mechanics of 'why' for the 5 millionth time, because when I do, the domestic crowd simply tells me my fact is wrong, when it clearly isn't.

16th Oct 2007, 20:10

I watched the TV evening news 10/16 and just saw that Toyota has slipped quite dramatically on reliability lists compared to other brands. And check out how great new Ford's quality is doing across the board.

Apparently, people are still buying (many basing on the better import reliability perception of 5 or more years ago)... according to the news. I have commented myself that I have seen this exact problem in our household directly having bought many imports, until recently, every 2-3 years. Some people are commenting on high mileage imports they bought on this survey and are still driving early to late 90's without owning newer ones.

The engine sludging issue is real and not made up on this forum. Look at www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_engine.html

I seriously doubt someone has their head far in the sand to believe otherwise, but until they personally get burned on a late model purchase they will keep saying its impossible as their old import has been great or domestics don't sound good.

I would take a strong look at the Ford lineup as tonight's news was very impressed with their mechanical quality and not so with Toyota.

By the way, just blaming sludging on owner neglect is not necessarily accurate regardless of overchanging oil/filters. Could it possibly be, as some feel, due to Toyota changing their engines' top end design several years ago relative to an emission requirement?... raising the operational temperature in which the engine cools quickly after engine shutdown, in which sludge can form quickly, especially in colder climates which can cause catastrophic engine failure.

I guess there will always be one import diehard that never believes there can be a serious flaw until it potentially affects them directly. Everyone has an opinion including myself mine being formed from premature import mechanical issues more than anything else.

I still plan on reading the latest issue of Consumer Reports to compare with tonight's news. I suspect the import diehard will say it's untrue.....I agree everyone can have the freedom of an opinion if it's relative to recent vehicles being commented on, not ancient history.

16th Oct 2007, 21:04

20:10 I am a loyal Toyota owner. I'm on my third in 15 years, and have yet to have a single repair on any of them.

Most everyone I know, my family and friends have all made the smart choice and bought Toyota's, or Honda's. I know many people with new Toyota's; no more than 1 or 2 years old, and they ALL have the same experience I have had with them: not a single problem.

It seems to me that the only time I hear of any problems Toyota has are in print, usually anonymous, like here, and that's about it.

I know that they are just machines, and surely some of them do break. But very, very few. Almost nothing compared to such disastrous auto manufacturers as Ford or Chevy.

Everybody I know that likes to keep vehicles for a long time, and has bought a Toyota, has kept it for upward of 275,000 miles with no major repairs; in some cases, many more miles than that. And I know of a few very high mileage '02 - '05 models also; still flawless to date. You cannot do this with a Ford or Chevy, and I don't care who says otherwise. If you get that kind of mileage out of a Ford, you are 1 in a 100,000 or so. Every Toyota I've come in contact with has done this. Everyone can talk, talk, and talk some more, but Toyota owners know the proof is in the years of flawless ownership that we all get.

16th Oct 2007, 22:31

It took Ford 30 years to make the Panther platform reliable, and that goes with most other of their platforms. It does not help the equation that interior quality is only comparable to GM, and safety is not top priority unless you have the Taurus.

17th Oct 2007, 09:53

2104 Are your vehicles less than 5 years old? The news comments last night were on late model imports.

17th Oct 2007, 10:12

Let us take a look at that report shall we? Let's see...

"The survey dropped Toyota from first to fifth place - behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru - in average vehicle reliability. The rankings are based on average predicted reliability for all models sold under a given brand."

OK... So if the argument is that all those "die-hard import fans" are wrong, then it looks like the top 5 are STILL ALL Japanese brand cars.

Let us read further...

"Domestic manufacturers General Motors (Charts, Fortune 500), Ford (Charts, Fortune 500) and Chrysler continued to improve in the Consumer Reports reliability rankings. But only Buick, GM's near-luxury brand ranked number 10, made into the top ten."

So as we can see, GM isn't even in the top 10 with the exception of Buick. Not exactly a dead-ringer, wouldn't you say?

How bout' a bit more?

"Ford, in particular, is improving in quality, according to Consumer Reports. In all, 93 percent of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles showed average or better reliability in the most recent reliability survey.

Among overall brands, Ford's Mercury brand ranked 11th, the Ford brand ranked 13th and the Lincoln luxury brand ranked 14th. Other than Buick, they were the highest-ranking domestic brands."

The same can be said for all the domestic manufactures, which is that they indeed show vast improvement. I'll give them that. But improvement from what? Improvement from the old Taurus or perhaps a few of those old Ford Windstards that blew trannys with regularity before 50k? If we're talking improvement, then yes- I will agree. But that isn't really saying that much when comparing the garbage GM and Ford were mass-producing barely 2 years ago. It is easy to improve when you're improving basically from the rock-bottom.

Here's another tidbit:

"Of the 39 cars rated "Most Reliable" in Consumer Reports new list, four are by domestic manufacturers. They are the Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, two-wheel-drives Ford F-150 V6 and GM's Pontiac Vibe. The Vibe is built in cooperation with Toyota and shares its engineering with the Toyota Matrix."

So in reality, only 3 of those cars are actually domestic. The Vibe is basically the equivalent of an 86' Chevy Nova: A Toyota with a GM badge stuck on the front. Wow. A whopping THREE cars out of almost 40 that are domestic are reliable. How bout' them numbers?

It goes on to say:

"But 20 of the 44 "least reliable" models named by Consumer Reports were also from domestic manufacturers."

Interesting. So how are domestics supposedly more reliable than many of the imports?

To conclude- Yes, you are right in a very thin-veiled way. Domestics have IMPROVED. But the question is are they any good? Improvement versus actual warranted quality are two totally different things.