[Mr 5 0]

American automobiles have a generalized quality problem and always have. Not every car or every model; my 1990 Mustang 5.0 (bought new by me) has had next to zero factory quality problems in almost 15 years and 125,000 miles, but even 'Stangs have had their share of quality glitches. Not as bad as GM, of course, but still, Ford has had quality problems and we all can name a few.

In my opinion, the corporate penny-pinching stems from a combination of factors: the obvious need for return on investment and stock price stabilty and the union factor, which pushes up some labor costs that Japanese manufacturers don't have. Although all the assembly is now done in America, many car parts for the Japanese manufacturers come direct from Japan, where manufacturing costs are lower. In addition, I doubt that the Japanese auto executives receive mega-millions in annual salary and perks, as their American counterparts do, regardless of how auto sales or the company stock price is doing. They have more sense.

The Japanese have learned economy of design and how to build-in quality and still keep the price affordable. When we bought our new '04 Honda Civic (which replaced a tired '95 Mazda 626 with 141k) about this time last year, we found that a fully-equipped, automatic transmission, Honda Civic LX sedan was priced at $2,000. or even more over the Ford Focus. Even so, I never seriously considered the Ford Focus or any other American car because I knew the quality of the Honda line and the fantastic re-sale value (near 60% of the original price after five years) was well worth the extra cost at purchase. I still do. So do tens of thousands of other car buyers out there. Apparently, Ford doesn't. They will.