22nd Apr 2017, 10:08

So what's next, calling a Ford Model T or Model A an import because we didn't grow rubber trees in the United States for tires? Your point is lost. We just bought a new Audi and are also US citizens, so it's not necessary to go over it's a free country and free to choose. We really liked this import. We just bought 2 new domestic full size trucks and it's about quality. By the way, our Audi is in no way shape or form a domestic. It's a foreign car also known as an import. Toyota shares this exact same description. Maybe stop by a dealership and ask if it's an import or a domestic if you're still unsure.

22nd Apr 2017, 17:13

30 years ago and you carry on like domestic new full sizes are hands off. Actually I think cars you actually own are better fitting. Like your Tacoma or the Volt. It's first hand daily experience in all kinds of conditions. I can sit at Thanksgiving with relatives all over the country talking cars. Doesn't tell me about driving position, headroom, performance in all types of condition. Other than they like it. I might hate it. Even if I drive it without a load in it or not towing. Maybe road noise or a pathetic air conditioner. It's almost like watching Autoweek on TV and reviewing a review.

The one mistake I made years ago was buying a car from a favorable comment from someone. I was just a passenger. I went to the dealership as I usually do and told them to get out the order sheet. I ordered a factory sunroof option. When I took possession 5 or so weeks later I found my head jammed against the ceiling. No seat rake was available. That sticks with me too. I don't own a new Rolls Royce, but I would if I needed one or could. That doesn't help on a Rolls Royce review. It's like buying a Mini Cooper because you want small. But a relative likes a Rolls. Not much of a review. Maybe better to get your relative to write a Tundra review as a suggestion. With experience and service records. If it's real old it may not help a new buyer, but it's a start. Good luck with your new GM. The trucks are equally great.

23rd Apr 2017, 05:12

My family always bought new cars and they were maintained. Never an old secondhand car with dubious origin. Or a car someone traded in to get rid of. Always a domestic V8.

As I recall vividly, the change to imports was due to the 1974 panic of a national gas shortage and only getting gas on odd and even days. That got the imports noticed in a big way. People were rushing out buying new 2k VW Beetles with a 10 gallon fuel tank to get 28 MPG vs 16 MPG. The other deterrent was sitting for hours in long waits for gasoline. No one wanted or liked that one bit. They didn't rush out to buy many imports over quality. It was over getting to A to B without sitting for hours for gas. Some tremendous domestic automotive history was nearly given away at bargain prices. What good is a car without fuel? But I will say my parents stayed firm and had excellent full sizes over the following decades. Again all new. I do not remember once hearing of any trans replacement. Or multiple car visits to dealerships. They bought a lot of tires, did brakes, batteries and scheduled fluid changes. Never extended to save a buck. I was a kid in the 60s and all the cars we had then were just as good as the ones today.

As far as maintenance, the 70s and 80s never anything much. Things like window regulators and one had an air ride issue. No engines, trans or neglected normal routine repair. My parents even would buy name brand only gasoline. All this paid dividends.

I have found buying new cars does cost more, but with a factory warranty, if you drive sensibly and routinely maintain them, you can easily go 50k through these years and even today. If you want to roll the dice, you either get a good one or a nightmare with not knowing who drove it. My sister in law was a flywheel queen. Backed up and threw right into drive. She bought a Camaro I drove for a few years. And then said it was horrible. Unfortunately anybody buying a car she had would be sorry. I don't let other people drive mine. With nearly 48 years of driving, I have yet to buy a engine or trans in a new car. In old ones I bought new to upgrade, not ever out of need.

Lastly, on the big trucks, you cannot beat the reputation of Ford for number 1 spot and the Silverado is fantastic as well.

Did your family buy their cars new, and what kind of miles were on them when they had issues like failed trans. Was the trans fluid and filter ever changed? Lot of people don't want to spend money in this area. We do vs drive without clean fluid.

25th Apr 2017, 14:24

I wouldn't even complain as you now answered my question. You cannot tell a car or truck's history buying used ones. If you sat in shops or needed a trans, there's no telling its former treatment. We had a lot of new cars that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy a while back. Flood salt water victims cleaned and resold. Look like new. Many left the state. Carfax is often never reported. I am not paying good money and you have to ask why myself someone sold it. So to date never a single transmission replaced on one of my new cars.

2nd May 2017, 19:58

The Olds, Buick and Chevy my parents bought were done so brand-new. All of those cars had serious mechanical/electrical issues. None made it even to the 50k mark before the things were garbage. Anyone that wants to claim that American cars of that period were great is only going to get a mild chuckle from me, because they were in fact often just crap. One only needs to look at the myriad of various publications of that era to see how badly those cars rated for long term and even short term reliability.

At this point American cars are right up there with any other manufacturer... but ironically many of them are from foreign platforms such as the Cruz, Taurus, Fusion, Fiesta, and Focus. Does the fact that those cars come from platforms developed overseas make them inferior? Of course not. They are global platforms and have had to be tested in numerous terrains. Many have been sold in Europe for decades where the higher demands for better interiors and handling means by the time they make it to our shores, they're already tried and proven products.

Many of the full sized trucks from US manufacturers are loaded up with imported parts too: Many Dodge and Ford trucks used Aisin transmissions for example. In fact just take a look at any vehicle. It's not like the whole thing is just one solid thing, but rather a collection of parts from 100s of different companies from around the world. It's no different than a computer sporting innumerable capacitors, resistors, processors, hard drives and so on from probably dozens of countries from around the world. The whole reason why we can still to this day go out and buy a car that's fully loaded with power everything for the still amazingly reasonable price of $20-$30k is enabled by that level of global competition. In fact a friend of mine bought a brand-new Volvo station wagon. Talk about an example of modern commerce: Volvo was owned by Ford, then was sold to Geely, a Chinese firm. The cars are still designed in Sweden. I took a look under the hood and there were seriously a few parts stamped "FoMoCo" (Ford) as well as parts from Vietnam, Germany, China and many other places. The car was seriously a very nice car, but again - a car made of truly internationally sourced parts.

At some point these discussions always fall back to the same thing, and that is about the differences between evaluating and deciding on vehicles on a comparative basis for the sake of their merits as machines, versus simply making blind declarations over nothing more than patriotism. I will not nor should I make a decision on a single item I purchase on where that item was made. That not only does me a disservice, but in turn the manufacturers as well.

Come to think of it, if we were only ever supposed to make choices based on whether something was American and that was our only choice, then that would more or less be communism, right? I mean look at all of the crappy cars made by all of those former Soviet bloc countries: outright garbage because that was the only choice to be had, and the makers of those cars had no reason to improve them either, since there existed no competition, right?