I'll put it in simpler terms for you, don't let the front door hit you in
the a.s on your
way out.  I've yet to figure out why people who do nothing but bitch about
how lousy everything is here, and how much better everything is any where
else don't pack their bags and move to one of those any where else
countries.

Whitelightning

It wouldn't be an issue Nate if they wanted to work to make things better.
They don't, they never will accept anything made in this country by an
American corporation as being a good buy, and can't stand the labors of
their fellow Americans.
The so called gap between American cars and Japanese cars is gone, in
reality it never existed.  The fact that junk like Mitsubishi and Hyundai
are on the road says it not about quality, its about price, and miss
perceived value. For 30+ years  I made a very good  living with grease under
my finger nails, paid for a house, raised a family doing it.  I never saw a
day where I didn't work on a as many foreign cars as Americans, not one.
And I have worked on just about every brand on the road including Rolls
Royce and Bentleys.   What I did notice is the model years difference,
seldom an older Japanese car, but a steady flow of everything year wise
from mid 60's to the mid 90's for the American cars was coming through the
shop  when I hung up my wrenches.  Daily drivers, not weekend cruisers.  And
I see the same things on the roads daily now, a late 70s early 80's anything
Asian on the road is a rarity, and mid 80's to early 90s are not common
sights, and road salt isn't an issue down here in the sunshine state..  I
don't see foreign car dealerships with no repair facilities, yet to hear the
hype from the media and from people like "his" and "who" foreign cars never
break down.  I noticed that Aldata and Mitchell  all of a sudden don't have
the recall and service bulletin lists available to non subscribers for Honda
and Toyota and their subsidiaries. The last year I was able to do a
comparison was 2005, and Ford's worst car, the Focus had fewer recalls and
service bulletins than Acura's flagship the 3.5RL, or Honda's Accord which
had almost twice as many.  The recalls, only an emission sticker missing  on
the Focus, fuse box problems with a fire hazard on the Acura and Honda, and
side air bag issues, as well as drivers side air bag issues on the Hondas.
. The Ford 500 AWD, 2WD, the Crown Vic, and the Taurus had no recalls that
year, and half as many service bulletins.  I originally dug this up for
discussions on a ford group last year, or I would have the Chevy numbers
handy as well.
 And its not just current models that are gone, everything is gone for
Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti.   Now then as I spent a
good chunk of money over the years with Mitchell manuals, I asked my old
sales rep why?  He danced all around but finally the gist of what I got is
it was pull the info off the sites, or loose the ability to have it for pro
shops completely.
I figure maybe it had something to do with things like Honda's on going as
in 7 years worth of problems with rear suspension arm failures, or Toyota's
issue with ball joint failures across its line up, or the rear hub bearing
failures from the late 90's all the way up to 2004, or all the vehicle fires
they had with the Toyota Mini van, they finally recalled all of them, gave
the owners a couple hundred dollars towards a new Toyota  and then crushed
them.. Nissan has sunk so low Renault has their hooks in them.  Last
American company Renault did this to doesn't really exist anymore,  That was
Mack Trucks, now wholly owned by Volvo, Renault milked what they could out
of Mack and then sold what was left.
Then there are the design and look issues.  One of my favorites, GM's
Avalanche. Ragged on as a horrible design, butt ugly etc etc etc( and
rightly so it is ugly).  Honda comes out with a copy, the Ridgeline and its
all ooo's and ahh's  Lexus has been copying Mercedes 'lines" for years.
Toyota's copy of the 69 Mustang in 77 was so blatant I never understood why
Ford didn't sue.
Have the American auto makers missed the mark a few times or moved too fast,
or too slow , yes.
My favorite, the  Vega was way too far ahead of its time.  The engine design
was ingenious, but the average American car buyer's mindset was still 1955
when it came to maintenance. Sadly too much recycled steel was used in the
body and the re-smelting process wasn't so good, so rust was a major issue
the first four years, but then Ford and Chrysler suffered the same problems
with many of their vehicles those years, but none of them rusted out faster
than a Honda Civic, or a Toyota Corolla, or Datsun F-10s
Paterson Publishing got 320 hp out of the Vega engine, with out turbos,
super-chargers, fuel injection or Nitrous Oxide. 320 hp out 2.3 liters.
Actually 2 liters because they sleeved the block.  Not to shabby for 1977
when they did it.
There have been some down right nasty things too, Chevettes, Escorts,
Festiva,  the K-car line.
I can appreciate the design of the 240 Z, and its subsequent models the 260
and the 280, but everyone seems to over look at how the rear diffs fell out
of them literally.  If it wasn't for the little datsun hustler p/u trucks,
my beloved S-10's might not have come to be.  Datsun sold the sh.t out of
them, but you never see one today.  S-10's are every where.
See my beef is with the damnation of anything American, and the
glorification of everything foreign.

Whitelightning