Reply #18: Sad

[cmutt]

It's a sad day when people will celebrate the demise of one of our nation's largest and most historied companies.

I feel for your experiences with your Ford pickup and am glad you've found something to your satisfaction with Nissan: but I don't believe most people would share your opinion. Nissan's trucks have been the industry laggard in virtually all areas: initial quality, vehicle dependability, depreciation, horsepower, torque, AND gas mileage. There's a reason Nissan has is dumping their full-size operations and has entered into agreements with Dodge to 'buy into' and rebadge their Ram pickup.

That being said, my point here wasn't to knock non-domestic auto manufacturers, but to stress that EVERY big company makes it's share of missteps-- especially when they have a 100-year history. The domestics have been working hard on improving their products for many, many years and I think a LOT of you need to take a new and objective look at domestic vehicles:

Ford tied Toyota for initial quality this last year. GM isn't far behind. GM leads (again) in plant efficiency. Forgetting the fact that GM doesn't have a small or midsized full-hybrid car, most (if not all) of GM's vehicles are segment leading (or tied for the segment lead) in fuel economy:

Compact Car:
Chevrolet Cobalt is 37mpg
Honda Civic is 36mpg
Toyota Corolla is 35mpg
Nissan Sentra is 35mpg
Mazda Mazda3 is 32mpg

Midsize car:
Chevrolet Malibu is 33mpg
Toyota Camry is 31mpg
Honda Accord is 31mpg
Nissan Altima is 32mpg
Mazda Mazda6 is 30mpg

Fullsize car:
Chevrolet Impala is 29mpg
Toyota Avalon is 28mpg.

Small Pickup:
Chevrolet Colorado is 26mpg
Toyota Tacoma is 26mpg
Mazda B2300 is 26mpg
Honda Ridgeline is 20mpg
Nissan Frontier is 23mpg

Fullsize PU V6:
Chevrolet Silverado is 20mpg
Toyota Tundra is 19mpg

Fullsize PU V8:
Chevrolet Silverado is 21mpg
Toyota Tundra is 18mpg
Nissan Titan is 18mpg

Small SUV:
Mazda Tribute is 28mpg
Toyota Rav4 is 27mpg
Honda CR-V is 27mpg
Saturn Vue is 26mpg

Large SUV:
Chevrolet Tahoe is 21mpg
Toyota Sequoia is 19mpg
Nissan Armada gets 18mpg

Crossovers:
Chevrolet Traverse gets 24mpg
Toyota Highlander is 24mpg
Honda Pilot gets 23mpg
Mazda CX-9 is 21mpg

By my count, GM leads in 8 of those 9 segments listed. When the Honda Civic was first sold in America, it was powered by one of Honda's 900cc motorcycle engines. Remember Honda's first Odyssey minivan--that had no sliding doors? How about Toyota's forgettable Previa minivan? Honda and Toyota have evolved their products over the years -- and guess what? So have the domestics. It's time to open your mind and take a fresh look. Sure, they've been slow to change, but give them some credit: they've HAVE changed - and changed SIGNIFICANTLY since that POS you owned back in the seventies or eighties.

BTW, all mpg stats (painstakingly) gathered from http://autos.msn.com