5th Oct 2012, 02:47

What in God's name are you talking about? I remember in the '80's and '90's, Chrysler products based off the K-car platform (which was more or less all of them) had sagging suspensions at an epidemic level.

And, really, who gives a damn what Toyotas were like in the 1970's? The fact is they and the other Japanese manufacturers got their act together and built the most reliable cars in the '80's, '90's, and beyond, not to mention cars that people WANTED -- not simply cars that the car companies thought people wanted. They also pushed the technology forward with overhead-cam engines, balance shafts, variable valve timing, etc. What were the domestics doing? Doesn't GM still offer unrefined overhead valve engines? (If not, they did up until a couple of years ago.) It's possible Toyota's hubris has gotten them in trouble recently, but they still seem to come close to the top in every scientific survey. Once the Detroit Three switched to building front-drives, their quality and reliability went down the tubes. Okay, we know the early Japanese cars were rust buckets. Why do you conveniently forget the nasty paint jobs domestics put on their cars in the '80's and beyond? Do you forget the number of cars with paint delamination?