Bob, you need to do a bit of research about auto ownership in Japan.

Japan requires very strict vehicle inspections.  As a result, vehicles in
Japan
are usually scrapped after they are about 6 years old, because it's not cost
effective to repair them.  And we are talking they get out the micrometers
to
measure bearing wear.

Why is it done this way?  Well, the vehicle manufacturers have pressured
the government into this so as to force obsolescense and sell a lot more
cars.

Also, the Japanese culture and people are such that the culture prefers
home grown products over imports.  Keep in mind that it hasn't yet been
a century since Japan lost to the United States in WWII.  And this is
a culture that one of their biggest festivals - Obon - takes a week and it's
sole purpose is to honor deceased ancestors.  A lot of Japanese feel
subconsciously that buying American is dishonoring ancestors who were
killed in WWII or fought Americans in WWII.

In the United States the culture is completely different than in Japan.  It
is very common for Americans to project their culture on everyone else.
It is doubtful in the US for example that anyone under the age of 20
could even tell you if any of their grandparents fought in WWII let alone
which ones.  This is a strength of the American culture because it makes
it a lot easier for us to forgive and forget and move on with life.  But
it puts blinders on us when we try to understand other cultures,
particularly
ones that have many many thousands of years of history.  You must
understand that the Japanese culture is very very different than the US.
This is, after all, a society where 30% of the homes have toilets that cost
$1000
and have computers in them.  (and I'm not talking computers that you type
on,
if you want to see a Japanese toilet control panel see here:
http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/techno/toilet/washlet.html )

Ted

First of all, it is not easy to gain entry to the U.S. market. Their are EPA
and NHTSA hurdles that are significant...like crashing cars and gathering
data.

I do not know that the equivalent Japanese restrictions are harder or
easier, but there is also the matter of them driving on the other side of
the road from us. I do know that the restrictions were eased years ago from
what they were. I doubt that they ever had a 25% tariff on pick-up trucks
like we did for years, by way of comparison.

European brands do quite well in Japan because owning something like a
Bimmer or Merc is very prestigious in Japan. Few American brands are
considered prestigious and most of what the U.S. brands have been making is
simply too large to sell in Japan. The country is very congested, streets
are narrow, and your typical U.S. truck or medium sized sedan or mini-van
would not fit there. Eve if the quality were of a level that they are used
to.

OK, I bow to no one in my contempt for idiotic past GM management (can you
say R-o-g-e-r S-m-i-t-h), but to be fair what these clowns were trying to do
was buy a degree of labor peace (get longer term contracts avoiding the
threat of costly annual strikes) with money and benefits that they could not
afford long term. The UAW always had an ace up its sleeve. They could strike
one manufacturer, while it's members in the other two kept paying dues that
went into strike pay for the strikers. Plus, as I recall - may be wrong, the
strikers could get unemployment benefits from the government. Pretty good
stacking of the deck against the manufacturer, no?

Perhaps but will the they be willing to relocate to Mexico or China when the
imports pull out of the US  ;)

mike hunt