Today's Market of Import Vs. Domestic

[BaLListic]

Imports Vs. Domestic's Basically this is a timeless battle! Personally me for many years i hated domestic's (due to the fact of ignorance) which i have since corrected! For my daily driver as you see its a 2003 nissan frontier. At the time i needed a truck and i could either have a ford ranger (major pile of crap) or a Nissan Frontier Crew Cab(very solid vehicle!). The rangers just simpily didnt appeal to me but anyway back to the subject at hand. Imports Vs. Domestic's In their own ways i feel both are amazing! For instance lets take a stock Mazda RX7 of the same year and a Mustang SVT Cobra lets say 94.


The Mustang:
Displacement-----4949 cc / 302 cu in
Power--------------179.0 kw / 240 bhp @ 4800 rpm
Torque-------------386.41 nm / 285 ft lbs @ 4000 rpm
HP / Liter----------48.49bhp per litre

RX7:
Displacement----1308 cc / 79.8 cu in
Power-------------190.2 kw / 255.1 bhp @ 6500 rpm
Torque-------------294.0 nm / 216.8 ft lbs @ 5000 rpm
HP / Liter----------195.03 bhp per litre

I mean look at those specs...... where i have respect for a car is bhp per a litre and by car imports usually rule in that! a 79.8ci engine making more horse power but less torque than the american car. I'm not really knocking the american car but i find this amazing! I also feel that american companies should build the cars a bit more stout like they have in recent years with the new SVT cobra. But you will notice. I dont own an Rx7 i own a mustang because a little 1.3 liter engine doesnt send chills thru you like a big V8 beating the ground to death Also An import isnt nearly as cheap to build... In no way do i regret my purchase on my mustang or my truck i like both for different reasons and one last thing... Dont we domestic lovers and Import lovers all have one thing in common? Lets see if someone can actually answer that....

[BigCountryGT]

At the time i needed a truck and i could either have a ford ranger (major pile of crap) or a Nissan Frontier Crew Cab(very solid vehicle!).

I disagree I think the ranger is one of he best trucks on the market IF you stay away from the 4 banger. That goes back to the do you need a truck or just like the Idea of having one. As far as pickups go nothing beats a full size. I just can't see spending good money on a jap car.

[HotRoddin]

Originally posted by srv1
For the most part, they are not "crap".

I worked on too many American crap cars to lean more towards domestic.

James

Mine was CRAP, and it wasn't from poor maintenance, and as far you working on "to many American crap cars" You can drive into any Toyota or Nissan dealer and look at their cars lined up like cord wood waiting to be repaired.

At the time i needed a truck and i could either have a ford ranger (major pile of crap) or a Nissan Frontier Crew Cab(very solid vehicle!).

I'd be interested to know exactally why you consider it a major pile of crap ?? Have you had personal experience with them?

[BaLListic]

i drive my friends almost weekly.. its a 2002 V-6 model and it feels like its about to fall the hell apart just driving down the road...

[BaLListic]

I disagree I think the ranger is one of he best trucks on the market IF you stay away from the 4 banger. That goes back to the do you need a truck or just like the Idea of having one. As far as pickups go nothing beats a full size. I just can't see spending good money on a jap car.

no i dont need a full size for what i need it for.. i ride dirt bikes and it hauls my bike.. as far as needing a truck for anything else that about does it... Infact if i was going to buy a full size truck it would either be the new Nissan Titan or a Ford F-250 Crew Cab...
I'm not looking to piss anyone off here but this is a timeless battle and just food for a flame war....Like i said i like both for many reasons and dont dislike import or domestic saying you should only buy domestic is lame cuz many people work here in the USA in factories that produced so called "import vehicle's"
Many of toyota's line are produced here right in the usa. this being why there is gonna be a 2004 or 2005 toyota tacoma in Nascars truck series... somthing like that anyway...

[95mustanggt]

Originally posted by BaLListic
For instance lets take a stock Mazda RX7 of the same year and a Mustang SVT Cobra lets say 94.


The Mustang:
Displacement-----4949 cc / 302 cu in
Power--------------179.0 kw / 240 bhp @ 4800 rpm
Torque-------------386.41 nm / 285 ft lbs @ 4000 rpm
HP / Liter----------48.49bhp per litre

RX7:
Displacement----1308 cc / 79.8 cu in
Power-------------190.2 kw / 255.1 bhp @ 6500 rpm
Torque-------------294.0 nm / 216.8 ft lbs @ 5000 rpm
HP / Liter----------195.03 bhp per litre

I mean look at those specs...... where i have respect for a car is bhp per a litre and by car imports usually rule in that! a 79.8ci engine making more horse power but less torque than the american car. I'm not really knocking the american car but i find this amazing!

You can't compare those 2 cars, they are COMPLETELY different engine designs. Ones is Rotary and ones a standard V8.

I'm not neccesarily going to disagree with you about HP per litre. What what really is HP? Want to increase it? Just turn it faster. Since the rotating components are lighter thats easy to do.

Another car that everyone seems to love is the Honda S2000. Why? Who the hell wants to drive at 8000 RPM just to get enough power to move the dam car?

[95mustanggt]

I think there is alot more to the arguement than Which is better, Import or Domestic.

I'll give you 2 reasons why:

#1 My sister-in-law loves imports, namely Acura's. Swears they are the most reliable car on the road. She takes it in every 3000 miles and gets the best oil, best service, best everything. She pays for it, but, reliability is important to her. She rarely ever has problems, in fact I can't even think of 1.

#2. My neighbor has a 99 taurus. He MIGHT get the oil changed every 20,000 miles. In fact in the year and a half I've know him, he's only had the car serviced twice! He puts on tons of miles per week! The car has well over 100,000 miles on it, and hardly had anything done to it (in terms of maintenance). Of course the car is falling apart (surprise, surprise).

He says his Taurus is a piece of crap....is it?

I personally think this is the case more often than not.

[Mr 5 0]

Wal Mart is a Chinese store not Japanese. Check it out Wal-Mart represents over 10% of China's Gross National Product. Cheap is costing us a lot of jobs.

Thanks for that information but I was simply posing a hypothetical situation. Millions of items large and small sitting on American store's shelves are now made in China so that's nothing new or exclusive to Wal-Mart. The reason Wal-Mart succeeds (with it's China-made goods) rests largly on the fact that it's human nature to look for the best price on almost any item. 'Buying American' is a fine sentiment but when it simply means that you pay a lot more for things you buy - thus, reducing your standard of living - to enable a company to offer a better pay and benefit package for it's employees, most sensible people balk - and go to Wal-Mart.

Jobs and the industries that provide them are cyclical. As one section of business - manufacturing - subsides, another takes over. To expect nothing to ever change would be naive. Two economists; Michael Cox and Richard Alms, explained this in the November 7th, 2003 edition of the New York Times. This is a portion of that article, edited for brevity:

While it may seem that little progress is being made on the jobs front, beneath the surface the economy is doing what it's done for decades: orchestrating a relentless and enormous recycling of jobs and workers.

Large-scale upheaval in jobs is part of the economy; the impetus for it comes from technology, changing trading patterns and shifting consumer demand. History tells us that the result will be even more jobs, greater productivity and higher incomes for American workers in general.

New Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering the past decade show that job losses seem as common as sport utility vehicles on the highways. Annual job loss ranged from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. Even in 2000, when the unemployment rate hit its lowest point of the 1990's expansion, 33 million jobs were eliminated.

The flip side is that, according to the labor bureau's figures, annual job gains ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to 35.6 million in 1999. Day in and day out, workers quit their jobs or get fired, then move on to new positions. Companies start up, fail, downsize, upsize and fill the vacancies of those who left. It is workers' migration to new and existing jobs that keeps the country from sinking into some Depression-like swamp.

Yes, this disruption can be very hard on some workers who lose their employment and have trouble adapting. But in the larger sense, the turmoil in the labor market is vital to economic progress. A good part of the turnover takes place in a handful of industries, like restaurants and retailing, but to greater or lesser extent the churning grinds on across the board, in bad times and good. Tallies of net jobs lost or gained capture only a fraction of the flux in the job market. As this plays out, most workers end up better off.

Societies grow richer when new products emerge that better meet consumers' needs, and when producers adopt new technologies that reduce costs by making workers more productive. In a dynamic, innovative economy, these forces unleash waves upon waves of change. Some industries and companies prosper while others wither. Some companies find themselves with too many workers while others struggle with too few. A free-enterprise system responds by moving resources — in this case workers — to where they're more valuable.

For example, e-mail, word processors, answering machines and other modern office technologies are cutting jobs for secretaries but increasing the ranks of programmers. The Internet opened jobs for hundreds of thousands of Webmasters, an occupation that didn't exist as recently as 1990. Digital cameras translate to fewer photo clerks.

A century ago, 40 of every 100 Americans worked on farms to feed a nation of 90 million. Today, after one of history's most brutal downsizings, it takes just two agricultural workers out of 100 workers to supply an abundance of food to a nation more than three times as large. Suppose we'd kept 40 percent of our labor on the farm. Absurd, yes, but if we had, we wouldn't have had enough workers to produce the new homes, computers, movies, medicines and the myriad other goods and services of our modern economy.

Likewise, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators in 1970, when Americans made 9.8 billion long-distance calls. Thanks to advances in switching technology, telecommunications companies have reduced the number of operators to 78,000, but consumers ring up 98 billion calls. Let's face it: Americans are better off with more efficient long-distance service. To handle today's volume of calls with 1970's technology, telephone companies would need 4.2 million operators, or 3 percent of the labor force. Without the productivity gains, a long-distance call would probably cost 40 times what it now does.

Microeconomic failure is not macroeconomic failure. Quite the opposite, "failure" is the way the macro economy transfers resources to where they belong. It is the paradox of progress: a society can't reap the rewards of economic progress without accepting the constant change in work that comes with it. Efforts to soften the blows, by devising policies or laws to preserve jobs or protect industries, will lead to stagnation and decline, the biggest threat to American workers.

Job losses for farm hands and telephone operators came so long ago that they don't sting anymore. Today we see the benefits clearly and forget the costs. That's harder to do in the short term — it rightly distresses us to see newspaper photographs of laid-off industrial workers. But these are the economic forces that raise living standards.

Since 1980, Americans have filed 106 million initial claims for unemployment benefits, each representing a lost job. Facing unemployment and rebuilding a life can be hard on families, but the United States today is better off for allowing it to happen. Even with the net decline in jobs over the past three years, during the past decade total United States employment has risen to 130 million from 91 million since 1980, a net gain of nearly 40 million jobs. Productivity, measured by output per worker, increased a staggering 56.2 percent.

Some people tend to forget this. The almost daily drumbeat of reports and "expert commentary" about a so-called jobless recovery prompts the question, "What's gone wrong with the labor market?"

The surprising answer: nothing.

Job growth will come, as it always has in the past. The economy, meanwhile, is as busy as ever in shifting labor from one use to another to make the country richer and more productive.

Resale value is a market driven phenomena. Market charges what it can get for a product. Reputation is a part of it but not all. Believing that a 1995 Honda SHOULD cost more than a 1995 Tarus is also part of it. Marketing plays a big role.

That's correct but even with the best marketing, if customer's experience over time shows a specific car or model is failure-prone or if it's simply a bore to drive and gets so-so gas mileage, it won't retain it's value no matter how clever the marketing. Resale value is consumer-driven and not simply a result of clever marketing. If a Ford Taurus is bland and boring and has a reputation of developing expensive problems (such as leaky head gaskets on the 3.8 engines), it simply won't hold it's value. If the Honda Accord has fewer problems and gets better gas mileage and is more fun to drive, it will demand a better price upon resale. With cars lasting much longer than they used to, it's not always easy to find an older, high-mileage car that won't be a frustrating money-pit and like it or not, Japanese cars have developed a reputation for durability, thus, they retain their value better. That's not marketing, that's simply consumer demand based on experience. Would you prefer to buy a 1995 Chevy Cavalier with 120,000 miles on it or a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry with the same mileage? Most used car buyers will go for the Japanese car - and knowingly pay more for it. If they DO buy the older Chevy or Ford, it will usually have to be a 'steal'.

I do agree that any car that is maintained carefully and not really abused will last a long time - but the engineering has to be there for that to happen. My 1990 Mustang 5.0 has 124,000 miles on it with very few repairs...it's almost all original...but I've maintained it carefully since I bought it, new. If the engineering was shoddy, it simply would have worn out or otherwise given me problems by now. As I often tell friends: all the oil changes in the world won't change the sloppy tolerances in a poorly-built engine. So while I can agree that marketing is a factor in resale value, to give it too much credit would be a mistake. Once a car or specific model has been around awhile (5 years or so) it develops a reputation. If car has too many problems and it's not exciting or special in any substantial way, it won't hold it's value over time. Of course, I don't believe in buying a new car based solely on it's probable resale value but many people do, and so, the Japanese imports retain their value while many (but not all) domestic models sink. Fact of life and while not always rational, still a fact to be dealt with.

[BigCountryGT]

If you were going to by a flag. Would you buy a Japanese flag just because it was cheaper. To me that is what you are doing. Flying that big ole foreign flag in your front yard. I really hate to see is a foreign car with an American flag pasted to the back glass. If your that patriotic buy an American car.

The profits from those foreign cars still goes overseas those people making Nissans would be making Ford, Chevy, or dodges if people would buy American.

Isn't it worth spending a little more to know that some starving 9 year old working 88 hours a week didn't make it. To make sure it didn't help to build that big old nuke that could one day drop into your yard. Is it worth spending more so your neighbor won't be out of a job due to cheap foreign labor. Is it worth you piece of mind.

I think it is a matter of pride. So next time you are driving the foreign car Think what you are really doing is flying a big ole Japanese flag.

[BaLListic]

The profits from those foreign cars still goes overseas those people making Nissans would be making Ford, Chevy, or dodges if people would buy American

Not completely True..... alot of companies that people consider foreign are now owned by US companies such as Ford. They own or their partners with.....
Mazda,Volvo,Jaguar,LandRover, And Aston Martin

Then lets look at chevy
Saturn and Saab

Then lets look at Daimler Chrysler
Mitsubishi, Mercedes,Hyundai

So need i go on? seriously lets just bridge the gap between domestic and import Jeeez! And Honestly where do you think the eletronics in american cars are made? I mean now its to the point you may as well buy on preference. If your preference is american so be it. If its an import thats cool to. BUT DO NOT SAY IM UN AMERICAN FOR BUYING AN IMPORT... Is the guy that just went to Iraq and came back and bought a nissan un american! I think not!

[srv1]

Originally posted by HotRoddin
Mine was CRAP, and it wasn't from poor maintenance, and as far you working on "to many American crap cars" You can drive into any Toyota or Nissan dealer and look at their cars lined up like cord wood waiting to be repaired.

Really? Most of the Toyota's or Nissan's that are at the dealership are usually in for routine maintenence or an NVH (noise, vibration harshness) problem that is usually stupid things like leaky doors seals or other simple stuff. Not saying they dont break, its just considerbly less than domestics.

If I wanted to be a true flag waver and buy "Fords and Chevy's" my whole life and spend more on repairs than that of Japanese, then yeah I will do it, but I am not a flag waver since American cars arent American. I am not saying domestics suck, that isnt true, but the Japanese make more models reliable than we do.

Ford Ranger? HA! The only ones I would think about considering is the newer SLA suspenion designs. If you worked on ANY Ford truck from 80 to 95, you would know what is the most common problems with them and that is in the front suspension. Ford built that layout (twin I beam) for nearly 15 years and it is crap.

If you want to buy a Ford, then fine, its your money. I know what is reliable from what comes through the shops door and the TSB's that I read almost everyday.

Got to admit, Ford has made MAJOR improvements over the years. They increased their reliabilty big time. I think the best American cars would be Ford.

James

[BaLListic]

well said...... this is still an endless battle though... was an instant flame war from the time i saw the topic

[BigCountryGT]

I guess that we can agree to disagree. BaLListic didn't mean to slight you for buying the Nissan. Through "my personal" experience domestic cars (particularly fords) are more reliable. I owned two Toyota's and hated both of them (transmission problems on both). I think every one I know with a Toyota pickup either has valve train problems or rod bearings "knocking." May be I just go lucky and got all the good domestics. I've had a 79 f 100, 92 ranger, 96 GT, 97 Taurus , 90 GT (present). All of the vehicles have been great. I had some intake trouble on the 96 but it was under recall.

I guess also it goes back to what you are looking for in a car. If it isn't a full-size pickup or a sports car I not really that interested. I just don't see the appeal of a camery, civic, or a KIA speck.

But I guess that's why ice cream comes in chocolate and vanilla.

[BaLListic]

the only decent reason i see owning a civic is fuel economy. I mean if you have a daily commute of 50 miles there is no use in making a new hole in the ozone layer by driving a full size truck... in my case i just needed a medium truck for my purpose and it has a bit better fuel economy. But im really looking to trade it in on a 2003 SVT cobra is some dealer will come off one at a decent price. Found one at 28k with 2,000 miles on it....

[srv1]

Originally posted by BigCountryGT
I guess that we can agree to disagree. BaLListic didn't mean to slight you for buying the Nissan. Through "my personal" experience domestic cars (particularly fords) are more reliable. I owned two Toyota's and hated both of them (transmission problems on both). I think every one I know with a Toyota pickup either has valve train problems or rod bearings "knocking." May be I just go lucky and got all the good domestics. I've had a 79 f 100, 92 ranger, 96 GT, 97 Taurus , 90 GT (present). All of the vehicles have been great. I had some intake trouble on the 96 but it was under recall.

I guess also it goes back to what you are looking for in a car. If it isn't a full-size pickup or a sports car I not really that interested. I just don't see the appeal of a camery, civic, or a KIA speck.

But I guess that's why ice cream comes in chocolate and vanilla.

Just to let you know BigCountry, that Toyota pickup has no lifters and uses a cam follower to valve using lash. That is the noise most likely you are hearing. If the noise you hear sounds like an engine rattle and it happens mostly cold, this is due to piston be contracted when cold. When it warms up, the piston expands and the noise goes away. That is IF that is what you are hearing. All the cars you listed except the F100 and the Ranger are Fords best vehicles.

Like someone said, it can be vanilla or chocolate

James

[BigCountryGT]

the noise you hear sounds like an engine rattle and it happens mostly cold, this is due to piston be contracted when cold. When it warms up, the piston expands and the noise goes away

If you say so.

A co worker of mine has a 95 SR5 4x4 with about 127k. Something in the top part of the motor went askew. I don't know what. But He paid the Yota dealer about $2500 to solve the problem. That being about 4 months ago now when the truck is started it makes a "clunking" noise. It does not go away after the truck is run. But it isn't as noticeable at driving speed. The yota dealer said it was rod bearings and would be another $2000 at least. That is what I have been told

[mustardjohn]

I have a friend who has made a good living for many years. He owns and operates a foreign car repair shop. He always has a house full of toyotas and nissans. Front lot and side lot are always full too. He doesn't do door seals and minor rattles. He is not the only foreign car shop in our small town either.

I have kind of lost the point of this thread. Where did we start?

Most cars have come a long way in the last 40 years. How about the first Datsuns (for those too young that is a Nissan now). Compare a Pinto to a Focus. We are getting better product now, foreign or domestic, than we ever have and that's the good news.

[BaLListic]

hmmm i dunno about compairing pinto's to focus ehh i would rather have the pinto:P or sell the focus and buy 10 pinto's focus' are junk to say the least!

[mustardjohn]

Get out here Pintos were junk. May be we could start a new thread on this one. What about the new Focus SVT. I don't think Pinto had anything like that. Maybe a poll..... What would you rather have a Pinto or Focus SVT. Did anybody ever mod up a Pinto? Probably did

[Mr 5 0]

All cars - foreign and domestic have improved drastically from the era of the 1970's Pintos - and Datsuns. Technology has helped tremendously in making automobiles safer and far more reliable and longer-lasting than those of even 20 years ago. From efficient, almost pollution-free engines to the lack of body rot after a few years to the quality, fit and finish as well as the vastly improved ergonomics, a 2004 automobile is an excellent machine in all respects, whether it's a Mustang 4.6 or a Honda Civic.

Having stipulated that; the unavoidable fact remains that a lot of those improvements came into being due to governmental mandates for safety and fuel economy (which gave us air bags, crumple-zones and fuel injection, among other welcome improvements) and in the area of ergonomics and the efficient use of space, as well as build quality, the imports, especially Japanese imports, generally led the way as domestic manufacturers followed. In other words: all cars slowly improved in all areas - but the Japanese cars did so sooner. American automobile manufacturers have often had to cut corners to compete with the foreign car manufacturers on price and that can make for a less-reliable car or one that 'ages' rapidly. Union wages that exceed worker productivity is partly to blame, as well as a bloated corporate bureaucracy and a lack of vision. You name ithe mistake and domestic manufactures have probably made it.

Foreign manufacturers are not all geniuses or invincible and course their cars are never flawless, but they are usually a good value and do hold up well. Not every American manufacturer can say that about their cars. The real comparison isn't between a Ford Focus and a Pinto (out of production since 1980) but a Ford Focus and a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. Frankly, the SVT Focus (a neat little car) is a 'niche' vehicle and is not the model that pays Ford's bills and returns dividends...the standard, bread-and-butter Focus does that. Is it superior to the Honda Civic? Buyers decide. In January 2003, the Honda Civic sold 20,734 units in the U.S. The Ford Focus: 16,937. That particular market is doing well and Ford is holding it's own.

On the down side, according to Car and Driver, GM's market share in America has slid from 50% in the early 1960's to 28%, today. Ford and Chrysler have each lost 20% of their shares in just the past five years. And, the 'Big Three' have to give big incentives and zero percent financing to sell what they do. Not encouraging. There are a multitude of reasons for this erosion and it isn't all based on quality or even price but when the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry (as well as the Honda Acura) are consistently given the very highest possible ratings from every car magazine (for value and quality) and Ford competes with the boring Taurus and Chevy with the warmed-over Malibu and Impala, the growth and acceptance of foreign automobile manufactures marques is fairly easy to understand. Cars are expensive, from around 20 to 30 thousand for a decent vehicle of any type, even more for a loaded SUV or a Mustang Cobra. Buyers demand some style, lots of comfort, respectable performance and gas mileage and of course, durability. Lets not forget 'a good resale value', too.

As I stated in a previous post: foreign cars generally deliver but not all domestic cars do (think of the Chevy Cavalier or even the Taurus). That has a lot to do with the slow but steady growth of foreign car manufacturers share of the U.S. market and it isn't all based on mere perceptions but on reality and buyer's mostly happy experience with Japanese cars. Not all, of course, but a majority - and that's enough.