What fascinates me more than anything else
is how little the American car companies reward(ed) brand loyalty.
When I was a student driving back and forth to college somewhat more than 2 hours a day, seven days a week (slow learner? full-time student? full-time job? Yes, to all) my parents and relations gave me two Toyotas. Their argument was that the additonal cost was more than made up for by their reliability.
Which is absolutely true. The few times the Hi-Lux broke down, the Toyota dealer went to considerable lengths to find out why, how, when, etc. That data went back to Toyota.
As an adult who splits his time between Europe (our brilliant mass-transit obviates the need for daily driving and since rich people and the city mayor use it every day, it's not the low-rent horror it is in much of the US) and Colorado-Wyoming where I log several thousand miles a month, I drive American cars.
It seems important to support US jobs.
Had a talk with the Cadillac dealer in Fort Collins last year, shortly before my darlin' finally sold the Fleetwood Brougham d´Elegance...
I was complaining about the rotten quality, poor fit, rotten quality, high repair prices, rotten quality, etc. He sells GM, Caddilac and Subaru. He laid it out for me (helped, I had just brought in a friend who had just bought a new truck so he was feeling expansive). When he mentions problems to the Subaru district manager, she gets very concerned about their influence on customers' future buying decisions and passes them, in detail, on to the top.
When he mentions problems with Cadillac to the GM district sales manager, he buries them because GM shoots the messenger.
It's that simple.
I love my S-10. I really adore my '98 Malibu. I put more time and money into the Cadillac than she was worth...the day she came off the show floor...and my darlin' says he never put less than $5,000 dollars into repairs every year of her life.
For the record, both my Toyotas were killed by drunk drivers when they had over 175,000 miles on them. My Malibu has never run longer than 20,000 without needing at least $3,000 of work...and the S-10 averages $500 every summer for nickle and dime stuff which I didn't even know existed in the Toyotas...but which it can't live without.
Moral of the story? I will continue to buy American to support workers' jobs. But any American car is a piece of junk compared to the cheapest Japanese anything. If money ever gets so tight that I can't afford constant repairs, I'm going to have to give up this luxury and go back to reliable, good cars. Fiats, Renaults, that sort of thing.
(That was dark humor, no need to now tell me how god-awful they are.)