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They (CR not Forbes) were dead on about the Contour. If it wasn't for their glowing review, I would not have gotten one.
And all that carping about an anti-American bias conspiracy at CR is nonsense. Why would they try to pull this off? Were they biased in the '80s? Even American car companies admit their cars of 20 years ago were crap when compared to Japanese cars?
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Originally posted by 96RedSE5Sp:
They (CR not Forbes) were dead on about the Contour. If it wasn't for their glowing review, I would not have gotten one.
And all that carping about an anti-American bias conspiracy at CR is nonsense. Why would they try to pull this off? Were they biased in the '80s? Even American car companies admit their cars of 20 years ago were crap when compared to Japanese cars?
It is illogical to argue that because someone was correct in regards to something 20 years ago they must be equally correct today. Particularly when the argument being made today is that it's precisely that well-earned poor reputation from 20 years ago that affects the perception of the very consumers that are surveyed by CR. Perception changes far slower than reality.
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Originally posted by sigma:
Originally posted by 96RedSE5Sp:
They (CR not Forbes) were dead on about the Contour. If it wasn't for their glowing review, I would not have gotten one.
And all that carping about an anti-American bias conspiracy at CR is nonsense. Why would they try to pull this off? Were they biased in the '80s? Even American car companies admit their cars of 20 years ago were crap when compared to Japanese cars?
It is illogical to argue that because someone was correct in regards to something 20 years ago they must be equally correct today. Particularly when the argument being made today is that it's precisely that well-earned poor reputation from 20 years ago that affects the perception of the very consumers that are surveyed by CR. Perception changes far slower than reality.
Yeah, that's nice, but reality doesn't sell cars. If you have done things to make sections of the American Public percieve that your cars are inferior to Japanese cars, and they won't even look at the Ford model, then you certainly won't get them to buy one, regardless of the fact that it isn't a bad car.
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Originally posted by red99sesport:
Originally posted by sigma:
Originally posted by 96RedSE5Sp:
They (CR not Forbes) were dead on about the Contour. If it wasn't for their glowing review, I would not have gotten one.
And all that carping about an anti-American bias conspiracy at CR is nonsense. Why would they try to pull this off? Were they biased in the '80s? Even American car companies admit their cars of 20 years ago were crap when compared to Japanese cars?
It is illogical to argue that because someone was correct in regards to something 20 years ago they must be equally correct today. Particularly when the argument being made today is that it's precisely that well-earned poor reputation from 20 years ago that affects the perception of the very consumers that are surveyed by CR. Perception changes far slower than reality.
Yeah, that's nice, but reality doesn't sell cars. If you have done things to make sections of the American Public percieve that your cars are inferior to Japanese cars, and they won't even look at the Ford model, then you certainly won't get them to buy one, regardless of the fact that it isn't a bad car.
Then that's not Ford's problem. If they simply won't ever buy a Ford again then there's nothing Ford can do at this point to change that. No use crying over spilled milk. What's done is done.
What they can do is go after those that aren't quite so close-minded and believe that change does happen. And many American-made models have the highest percentage of conquest sales on the market, meaning that if they can actually get people into their showrooms to look at their cars, they have a higher percentage of converting an import into a domestic buyer than vice versa. So, if/when Americans actually look at American cars, they actually like them better than the Foreign makes. The problem is getting them to look at them.
Oh, and I thought of 2 more articles-we'll-never-see-very-mainstream in addition to the 2 I mentioned earlier
1> The oh-so-perfect Toyota recalled a higher percentage of their fleet last year than any manufacturer except Ford (Ford's F-Series recall hurt them because such a large percentage of their fleet is F-series)
2> Toyota is under criminal investigation in Japan for deliberately hiding severe safety defects in order to avoid costly recalls that would hurt its' reputation. Yay Toyota!
American car companies don't make the most reliable car companies in the world. And you won't see me make any statement to the contrary. But they'd be doing a hell of a lot better with a little "fair and balanced" news reporting of their own. As soon as the automotive media stops collectively sucking on Toyota's teat and actually actively reports on some of their problems with the same level of perceived severity, the American automotive industry will rebound in a huge way.
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Originally posted by sigma:
...
1> The oh-so-perfect Toyota recalled a higher percentage of their fleet last year than any manufacturer except Ford (Ford's F-Series recall hurt them because such a large percentage of their fleet is F-series)
2> Toyota is under criminal investigation in Japan for deliberately hiding severe safety defects in order to avoid costly recalls that would hurt its' reputation. Yay Toyota!
..
IIRC, there was a big lawsuit maybe 15 years or so ago in California because the Camry tires would wear out after a short time (maybe 15K miles or so). And the dealers said that it was just the way it was designed.
"Always do the cheap and easy ones first."
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Originally posted by sigma:
Oh, and I thought of 2 more articles-we'll-never-see-very-mainstream in addition to the 2 I mentioned earlier
1> The oh-so-perfect Toyota recalled a higher percentage of their fleet last year than any manufacturer except Ford (Ford's F-Series recall hurt them because such a large percentage of their fleet is F-series)
2> Toyota is under criminal investigation in Japan for deliberately hiding severe safety defects in order to avoid costly recalls that would hurt its' reputation. Yay Toyota!
And I'll say this about that.
1) Who cares how many cars were recalled? It's about the nature of the recall and if a accident occured because of the problem. If the Ford recall for the cruise control involved say 500,000 units (in the USA), but those 500,000 units could catch fire in your garage, burn the house to the ground and kill you, and it did in one case, whilst Toyota had to recall 1,000,000 cars (worldwide) because the steering assembly may fail, but only say 300,00 of those cars were in the US and so far no such failure had occured here, then who will get the bad press and who will take the hit on their reputation?
2) Ford top brass once bought their way out of being found guilty of 60 or so counts of CRIMINALLY NEGLEGIANT HOMOSIDE in the US after they decided to make the Pinto cheaper by taking out its gas tank liner and rear subframe reinforcement. Elements that without, the car was a ticking time bomb. They knew this, and the didn't care. Their risk-benefit analysis showed that it would be cheaper to pay out when they killed people with their unsafe design then it would be to fix it and make the car safe. Ford also decided to use a non IRS suspension on the Explorer, compensate for the handling problems by recommending an inappropriately low tire pressure and then using dubious quality tires. This lead to the death, disablement and severe injury of over 100 people. Ford tried to cover both of those incidents up and only recalled those veicles when the Federal Government threatned to force a recall. How is that any better than what Toyota did?
Last edited by red99sesport; 08/02/06 02:55 AM.
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I never claimed that Ford hadn't done the same things in the past or that Toyota's issues were different. But rather that you don't see equal reporting on Toyota's mishaps.
And I think you helped that point along -- you know precisely the problems that Ford has had, but I'm willing to bet money that you hadn't heard a thing about the criminal investigations at Toyota. Very few people have, and it's current news, only a couple weeks old. When Ford did it it was HUGE news, front page everywhere and headlines for weeks. When Toyota gets the exact same thing, it was never mentioned in any major news establishment and was relegated to the backs of the Business section of local newspapers at best.
And I referred to recall numbers because that's what the Media does. Until recently, that was much to the detriment of the US industry simply because they sold so many more cars than the competition so they could easily have an announcement of a "500,000 car recall" whereas others didn't sell that many cars in an entire year, let alone one model. Percentage of total sold fleet is a much better metric and Severity would of coure be ideal, but not easily quantifiable. In regards to Toyota, their severity would be rather high as well. The Prius had a problem which would cause total loss of steering at highway speeds. Hundreds of thousands of Toyotas had a problem with airbags that would cause them to not fully inflate in the event of an accident. Neither of which I would consider very minor.
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Originally posted by sigma:
And I think you helped that point along -- you know precisely the problems that Ford has had, but I'm willing to bet money that you hadn't heard a thing about the criminal investigations at Toyota. Very few people have, and it's current news, only a couple weeks old. When Ford did it it was HUGE news, front page everywhere and headlines for weeks.
Well lets step back and look at this one....
100 people die when Ford Explorer tires fail on the highway
10,000 Toyota Corolla owners need to go to the dealer to fix their potentially defective seatbelts....
Which one is news to you?
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http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2001/06/01/022275.html
Your blame of Ford in the Explorer case is completely based on fiction. Firestone did not deliver the tire they were contracted to deliver, it's that simple.
On the Pinto case, that is irrelevant ancient history, and I don't have the facts to determine whether the outcome was warranted.
Let's see... steering separating and failing while being driven (Prius), sudden stalling in traffic when driving (Prius), air bag failures (several vehicles)... yeah really minor.
Ford can't fix the stupidity of the American public. They have convinced themselves of the hallucination that Toyota delivers vastly superior quality when the facts show the differences are very small. They pay a premium price for an illusion...
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Originally posted by sigma:
I never claimed that Ford hadn't done the same things in the past or that Toyota's issues were different. But rather that you don't see equal reporting on Toyota's mishaps.
And I think you helped that point along -- you know precisely the problems that Ford has had, but I'm willing to bet money that you hadn't heard a thing about the criminal investigations at Toyota. Very few people have, and it's current news, only a couple weeks old. When Ford did it it was HUGE news, front page everywhere and headlines for weeks. When Toyota gets the exact same thing, it was never mentioned in any major news establishment and was relegated to the backs of the Business section of local newspapers at best.
And I referred to recall numbers because that's what the Media does. Until recently, that was much to the detriment of the US industry simply because they sold so many more cars than the competition so they could easily have an announcement of a "500,000 car recall" whereas others didn't sell that many cars in an entire year, let alone one model. Percentage of total sold fleet is a much better metric and Severity would of coure be ideal, but not easily quantifiable. In regards to Toyota, their severity would be rather high as well. The Prius had a problem which would cause total loss of steering at highway speeds. Hundreds of thousands of Toyotas had a problem with airbags that would cause them to not fully inflate in the event of an accident. Neither of which I would consider very minor.
You'd be wrong about me not knowing about the Toyota recall and investigation. It was on google news several days ago, and I knew about it before I read it there. However, I will agree that Ford and GM will get bad coverage when they have a recall and Toyota and Honda will barely get a mention. But the news tells people what they want to hear and to some extent our country has a domestic car inferiority complex. We want to see and hear when Ford and GM fail and we don't want to see and hear when Honda and Toyota do.
Do I believe that all Toyotas are goldern and all Ford cars are scum? The answer is no, there are certain Toyotas I would never buy. A Celica GT-S isn't a substitute for a Mustang, and according to the magazine CR (which I know you guys think are totally biased) the Mustang was the single most reliable car in 2005, more reliable than a Lexus or Toyota anything. Would I ever buy a Tundra over an F150, not if I wanted a real truck and not some girly toy to drive on road only. Would I buy a Tacoma over a Ranger? Nope, the Ranger is more reliable, cheaper to maintain, and costs less up front when identically equipped.
I'm not an American Car hater, I don't want to see them do poorly. Many of my friends and family rely on their sucess to keep afloat financially. I don't want to see them go under, but they need to do better and they need to get people to see they are doing better. I don't know how they'll do that, but it is what they need to do.
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