If I had a choice to drive a Japanese car, it would only be Infiniti, Lexus or Acura. Ever notice how the new TSX looks JUST like a 2000 Bonneville... just a lil bit smaller.

I have driven a 2000 Honda Accord 4 cylinder, and as nice as it was, my Aurora is a far superior car in MANY department. Overall build quality may be SLIGHTLY higher but its in the name of competition.

Auto manufacuturing is a passion, that was turned into a business and continues to be fueled by passion.

Well my two cents worth, I owned a Toyota Camry, or well my wife did. Got over 200,000 miles on it, got to admit, nice little car. Then she got a Nissan Maxima, junk,..biggest P.O.*. I 've ever seen. Problems from the get go. Now she drives a Saturn, and loves it, said she'll never go back to rice. I have never owned a foriegn car, except a Porcshe once. Awesome car, but hell, EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN. THE OIL FILTER WAS LIKE 20 BUCKS! I have always drove GM cars and trucks, just my thing, i guess.

Yeah, I don't trust Nissan unless it'* their current new models. Our '98 Altima... well... I want something else.

wowsa - this is a hot topic for a lot of people (some of which i know). toooo much dis-information. domestic quality has shot up over the past few years, and now, as far as powertrains at least, (and FWD especially), we're finally getting to be on top - but you never quite hear about that in the media.

anyhew, one of my friends once let me drive their acura integra - at the time, i was pretty excited, cause i'd heard that they were pretty fast. got in, fired it up, and babied it during it'* warm up time. when it was finally warmed up, i gave it a good run through on the gears. revved up fast, but you didn't really feel anything until the higher rpm'*. also made the mistake of a) trying a second gear start - *shudders* the car barely moved, not joking and b) trying a 1-3 shift - the car lurched back and bogged into some pretty freakin low RPM'*.

so i guess i would say this - it wasn't all that bad, but there was *NO* torque to be found in that motor. *uggh*. can't stand that. of course, every car i've owned (only at 3 so far) has had a 3.8 under the hood, pointed in one direction or another, so i was used to having torque.

the experience still makes me cringe - stompin the gas and nothin.

anyhew, love my gm cars, and i use my 96 lesabre to help people realize just how nice they can be, even after 8 years of faithful service...

matt

I swear, this statement came back to bite me HARD. Dad was checking the spark plugs last night, only to find oil on Cyl. #1'* plug. This with 163,000km (100k mi), for a 1998?

I dunno. I think just about all cars are the same today in terms of reliability. There are good cars and there are bad. Now for me I would never buy a four cylinder accord. I drove a rental 99' on a trip and found it to be so underpowered. At 80 mph it it made so much engine noise due to 3200 rpm in OD! I constantly had to manually downshift for climbing hills. I was on a strait away doing 75mph and hit this hill in SD and the car slowed to 28mph and wouldn't go any faster! I tried everything and for a good 5 minutes it was screaming @ 5400rpm. I have the urge to go back to the Black Hills with the Olds to the same hill and see if the same thing happens.

The news just had something on tonight about how the Detroit companies are getting better with reliablity.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in604651.shtml

Here'* another link about the J.D. Power and Associates' 2003 Initial Quality Survey. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...-quality_x.htm Check out the charts - the Bonneville is in the top 3 for full-size cars.

European cars have a nice passion to them. They make drivers, and still manage to make them nice inside. I don't mean soft ones, i mean ones with rwd, and sticks that scream autobahn.

Japan has tried to make it affordable, and "efficient". They like the fact that Hp sells cars.

They're nice, but they cut corners i don't like.

All cars cut corners that people don't like, it'* all in the name of profit :(

Too bad that Toyota overtook Chrysler and Ford in North American sales... Now it'* the Big Four with GM, Toyota, Ford, and Chrysler, respectively.


edit: Saw this on Consumer Reports as well as the local news... Detroit is making gains, indeed.