Originally Posted by caymannyc

I grew up in Nagoya Japan (where my dad was sent by, you guessed it, a US automaker to learn how to build cars properly, get the irony on that) and in the Detroit area where, you guessed it, he has spent the last 30+ years of his life engineering and building cars. Thanks to my dad's influence, I also happen to cover the auto industry and have worked closely with US, German, Japanese, Korean and Indian car companies on various projects.

First off, the ones saying "Toyotas are "American" just because certain manufacturing or assembly plants happen to be in the US solely for tax reasons, are simply wrong. The design, management and engineering all happens in Japan, by Japanese engineers and workers. Certain cheap parts may be sourced from common-US suppliers, but any dummy can read the annual Audit Report for Toyota (sec.gov, TM) and get a list of suppliers for Toyota. Guess what? Most of its suppliers are...affiliated (read, Toyota controlled) companies. Even the Japanese factories located in the USA are managed by Japanese managers and quality control personnel. These are very much Japanese cars.

Now, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with the quality of American cars. In fact I know the quality is good and American companies are capable of making some good vehicles (but continue to make absolute stinkers). What I'm about to say has to do with my emotional decision on why I will never buy an American car.

Say all you want about the big bad anti-American brigade - the fact remains it was this very same "America is ARE country" Big-3 that shoved overpriced crappy cars down our throats for 20 years while spouting all sorts of racist propaganda against Japanese and Asian automakers (while deploying people like my dad to learn how to build cars from them and hiring as many Japanese engineers as they could get their hands on). This hypocrisy where they were shoveling crap into dealer's lots and expecting Americans to pay above and beyond what Honda was charging lasted for decades and you were punished with scorn, ridiculue and sometimes being told you were un-American for refusing to buy one of their cars (I'm an honorably discharged Army veteran, no less). What kind of utter garbage is that.

Also, the glee with which the US automakers reacted everytime a Japanese maker had to do a recall (or even during the Toyota break failure issue, which incidentally, has happened many many many MANY more times for the US car makers yet never received so much publicity) was also over the top, especially in light of the bailout for the US auto industry.

The following ad pretty much sums it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouSHc9yDZT4

It's insulting that a multi-national has to appeal to nationalism to sell their products. And it's even more idiotic that these same Big-3 are currently making a big push to sell their products in countries like Japan, Korea and China, the very same countries from which they were clamoring for trade embargoes and tariffs.

Originally Posted by snake eyes

Wow.. wrong completely... sorry. Coming from someone in the industry.
Btw Toyota Camry is 100 percent engineered in the USA. I would know that personally and I'm very sure my former colleague friends boss is not Japanese

Anyways just my .02 cents

Also Toyota and gm shared a plant in the USA called numi in California...produce same cars for years aka vibe and matrix etc


So many fake rumors about the big three,
Btw GM went bust mostly because of GMAC taking home loans. Cars were also crap too but they sold them with no margins. Oh boy has that changed now.

Originally Posted by Para82

He lost me on "racist".

Originally Posted by caymannyc

I grew up in Nagoya Japan (where my dad was sent by, you guessed it, a US automaker to learn how to build cars properly, get the irony on that) and in the Detroit area where, you guessed it, he has spent the last 30+ years of his life engineering and building cars. Thanks to my dad's influence, I also happen to cover the auto industry and have worked closely with US, German, Japanese, Korean and Indian car companies on various projects. First off, the ones saying "Toyotas are "American" just because certain manufacturing or assembly plants happen to be in the US solely for tax reasons, are simply wrong. The design, management and engineering all happens in Japan, by Japanese engineers and workers. Certain cheap parts may be sourced from common-US suppliers, but any dummy can read the annual Audit Report for Toyota (sec.gov, TM) and get a list of suppliers for Toyota. Guess what? Most of its suppliers are...affiliated (read, Toyota controlled) companies. Even the Japanese factories located in the USA are managed by Japanese managers and quality control personnel. These are very much Japanese cars. Now, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with the quality of American cars. In fact I know the quality is good and American companies are capable of making some good vehicles (but continue to make absolute stinkers). What I'm about to say has to do with my emotional decision on why I will never buy an American car. Say all you want about the big bad anti-American brigade - the fact remains it was this very same "America is ARE country" Big-3 that shoved overpriced crappy cars down our throats for 20 years while spouting all sorts of racist propaganda against Japanese and Asian automakers (while deploying people like my dad to learn how to build cars from them and hiring as many Japanese engineers as they could get their hands on). This hypocrisy where they were shoveling crap into dealer's lots and expecting Americans to pay above and beyond what Honda was charging lasted for decades and you were punished with scorn, ridiculue and sometimes being told you were un-American for refusing to buy one of their cars (I'm an honorably discharged Army veteran, no less). What kind of utter garbage is that. Also, the glee with which the US automakers reacted everytime a Japanese maker had to do a recall (or even during the Toyota break failure issue, which incidentally, has happened many many many MANY more times for the US car makers yet never received so much publicity) was also over the top, especially in light of the bailout for the US auto industry. The following ad pretty much sums it up. Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouSHc9yDZT4 It's insulting that a multi-national has to appeal to nationalism to sell their products. And it's even more idiotic that these same Big-3 are currently making a big push to sell their products in countries like Japan, Korea and China, the very same countries from which they were clamoring for trade embargoes and tariffs.

Originally Posted by caslca

We bought a brand new 2016 GMC Yukon Denali not 6 months ago to replace my wife's MB GL550. Probably will not buy American again for the foreseeable future.

Problems with car:
- 4WD got stuck while we were 200mi from home. Causes front-to-back diff to get locked. Car won't turn in tighter spaces (e.g. parking). Dealer fixed via reprogramming
- Panels don't line up well. I examined a bunch of cars on the lot - all are built the same. I mentioned that to the salesman, and he said "Well, it isn't a Mercedes". No sir it isn't!
- Window gasket was not installed properly
- Collision detection/lane departure would not turn on sometimes
- Got "Brake assist not available" one day. Brakes felt like ABS is kicking in right away. Issue fixed itself on next restart.
- Electronics have been flaky since day 1, and got worse. Car would triggered some 15 faults every 1min or so. Dealer had car for 4 days and couldn't reproduce. After I did some investigating myself, i was able to find a flakey connector in the steering column. Went back to dealer and told them to fix the connector - no issues since.

If the space wasn't so important to us(for our two kids, friends, and dog), I'd trade it tomorrow for a Macan.