Reply #44: Anecdotal accounts mean nothing

[skepticscott]

Even if foreign cars are higher in lifetime quality, with as many cars as there are on the road of course there are going to be SOME American vehicles on the road that outlast SOME imports. Even if you line up hundreds of people to say "I had a (fill in the blank with a Japanese car) and it was a piece of shit and I had nothing but trouble with it, then I bought a (fill in the blank with an American car) and it's still going strong 15 years later", it really doesn't prove squat. Threads like this get filled with those stories from both sides, but they do nothing to explain why American car manufacturers can't turn a profit.

And as far as the American consumer, he's just like the American government...he hasn't had any REAL money to spend in a long time, he's just been feeding at the credit trough and indulging in an orgy of debt that eventually has to be paid.