[DLIT]

Originally Posted by Mudpuppy

I have owned a lot of cars. Maybe not here but on another forum someone was bashing the Contour - I owned the Mercury version - the Mystique. Beat the shit out of it from 5,000 miles when I got it to 212,000 when I sold it - did nothing to it except brakes, tires and oil. I could name you 20 more examples of American cars and trucks I have owned with the same result.

Of course if you are talking about Dodge trucks then I would have to agree - their quality has always been suspect and for a good reason. Back when I was in vehicle development at an auto parts supplier Chrysler ALWAYS bragged about being able to blow away Ford and Chevy on getting a new product to market - in I believe half the time or even less. Yes because they cut every fucking corner possible - I was making prototype parts that weren't fully tested to put on their production vehicles. And when they came to me for a new part they always had these insane ideas and I would say no metal doesn't bend that way no you can't put a hole there no that is not possible. They were completely out of touch with reality and I was only 1 part out of a million that went into the vehicle so I can only imagine what other crazy shit they did - and it shows by the number of times their junk vehicles are in the dealership.

And did you ever consider the ratio of American trucks to Toyotas in your shop equation? i.e. if they sold 2 million American trucks and 50,000 Toyotas which one do you expect to see more of for irregular service? It's a numbers game. I have seen literally thousands of American trucks that have gone hundreds of thousands of miles with only normal maintenance. And yes their body went to shit before anything else did as well. I had an F250 with a 390 in it that I drove to 400,000 miles - even the last day I had it the truck ran like the day it was born - put the key in, tap the gas pedal 2 times, turn the key and immediate start up. I beat the fuck out of that truck and it took it, liked it and asked for more.

Toyota for life.