Oh man, I forgot the Altima SE-R, man, those cars are so sexy. The rims are awesome the ground effects oh ever so tasteful. I want one of these babies.

Don't get me wrong, I know I talk smack but I'm not going to go for a car over another just because it'* an american company. I just lean twoards what apeals to my tastes , style, and personality.Along with the important things like performance (0-60 in 5 flat) and reliabillity.(One reason why I'm waiting for bad news of horrible recalls and design flaws to kill my dream of owning my said "next car")

Well it'* good you're not close-minded. I personally don't factor the nationality of a vehicle in anymore, just look at the car objectively for what it is.

And 35k sounds cheap for an SRT-8 Charger...

There'* more to a car than just building it. Lots of engineering work goes into it. American cars are at least engineered in America.

Not as much as you think, the majority of the LX platform (read: 300, Charger, et al) was designed/engineered in Germany, using lessons learned by Mercedes-Benz. The upcoming Epsilon platform (which will underpin the updated Chevy Malibu/Pontiac G6, Saturn Aura, and Caddy BLS) is being engineered in Russelsheim, Germany, and it is often viewed as one of the keys for GM to regain it'* hold in the market. Expect the Zeta (or whatever they will call it, RWD GM platform) to be engineered under similar circumstances. Last example, the Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan/Lincoln Zephyr is basically underpinned by the Japanese-engineered Mazda 6 chassis.

So it seems that the newest and most modern vehicles in the "Big 3" (if you go strictly on figures from 10 years ago, and ignore Toyota'* rightful 2nd place spot) are all engineered for the most part outside of the US. Looks to me like the heads of those respective companies have acknowledged that better engineering may be had elsewhere.

Now, I am in no means knocking American engineering, or saying that no good cars were engineered in the US. I am just demonstrating that so-called "American cars" are not always manufactured, designed, nor engineered in the US.

You wouldn't believe how much goes on at North American Nissan and Toyota engineering facilities

I have owned GMs most of my life. With two exceptions.

A Honda Accord @1977. At that time I swear the Honda dealer would make up any story he could to fix the car for free. That was because Honda would reimburse him for anything. Honda must have lost billions to start getting market share. Their cars weren't really that dependable, but who gives a chit if everything is fixed for free.

A Volvo sedan @1985. Very dependable, but when something minor went, it was a mechanic'* disaster. Does anybody buy them?

Anyway.... what i watched over the years was the foreign (read Japo-Asian) designs first build incredible efficient little cars with just a tad or two extra in niceties. Slowly but steadily they built on this efficiency with performance and increased niceties, also they crept into the midsize. All the time keeping reliability as the premier value. This was key as their true strategy was make cars a commodity. Buy it, keep it for 5 years, and the closest you got to a mechanic was Jiffy Lube.

Meanwhile the bigbutt GM was coming from the other direction. Tthey were designing down. But this meant they had to throw away all the big block, big car engineering. there was nothing to build on and that'* when Detroit started to hurry crap to market. ie Chevy Vega, Ford Pinto, Amer Gremlin. How proud they must have been of those POSs. It was great because the buyers needed a car pretty soon, but man were they po'ed.

That'* where they lost the edge, and they never could get the momentum back. While Nissan or Toyota was building better seats and trim for their soon to be Lexus etc, GM was pumping R&D $ into totaly crappy 4-cylinders. And now they end up with a good 6-cylinder 3.8L, that huge Northstar thing, and good big blocks for trucks/SUVs. And a gas price problem again.

All they did was a patch job during the 70s gas shock, and went right back to what they were doing before.

They never got it. The Japanese blew by them in style. And gameover on all fronts.

As a company, they are too big, too slow and the good stuff they have coming out now is "me too" attempts of the imports.

Anyway, maybe this time while they have to back up, they will get smart and we'll see some real fine stuff from them in the next decade.

I'll let you in on a little secret about these 10 year warranties.. They don't cover CRAP.

A friend of mine bought a brand new Kia, and the engine died within 45,000 miles.. The car was somewhere around 3 years old. The engine wasn't covered in the warranty because it was "an expected failure." They basically say everything is expected to fail, so it'* not covered. They're not all they're made out to be. atleast the GM warranties cover ANYTHING that goes bad in exception to brake pads/rotors, 02 sensor.. other parts like that.

Regardless of how great a car is suppose to be, 10 years is just not a feasible hope for no problems.
Of course when a car is brand spaking new, it looks like it will last a lifetime.

For those who are 30 someting, remember in the early 90'* when they said - "These newer cars will last an eternity and only need a tune up every 100K miles".
Yeah, now the cars from the early 90'* are worthy only of a junk yard.

Besides, if a car was actually gonna last 10 years with little to no problems, cars would not sell very well. As long as crap falls apart on a car (like a certain engine with a plastic intake), the companies make money.