American car companies don't have the attitude that they need to compete.
One thing that I continually find myself saying about my VW is that "they really thought of everything when they built it". Do I need a visor so that the glare from the interior lights is blocked from the rearview mirror? Or a button that allows me to turn off the illumination for the volume/cruise controls on my steering wheel? Probably not. However, some engineer at veedub sat down and thought that it might be nice for the driver to have that option. What's more (and probably most important) is that the bean counters gave the engineer the freedom to build these things into the car. The problem with FoMoCo and GM (save Cadillac--thank god) is that they build non-offensive generic looking cars that don't offend their owners, run for 60,000 miles trouble free, which is just long enough for the average driver to get the 7 year itch and trade it in for another. For sure, there are naysayers that will toss in the argument that they can buy a 4 door cavvy or focus 6k less than, say, a Jetta, so why should they spend the extra. For those people, maybe that's ok. They don't think that Ford and Chev are out there to move units. "Oh, but the Focus has a 5 star gov't crash rating!!!" Yeah...so does the Freestar. The rest just meet or barely exceed the bare minimum gov't safety standards. Why? Ford can't put asses in Foci or Freestars without those government numbers. As long as its small car and people mover do well, their trucks and SUV can do as poorly as they want, and people will still buy both. The hellbent soccer moms who don't want an SUV will buy the freestar because it's big and cushy and has all sorts of nooks and crannies to put away the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip. Others will buy the focus because it's cheap transportation that will be a "good car" for a few years. The other side of Fords business unit does well because of the SUV mystique, and the need for work trucks. You will never see a well made, thoughtful, reliable car with "bank vault" doors made by Ford (at least on this side of the pond). However, there's a sucker born every minute, and that's what Ford counts on. Am I saying I'm a sucker for buying a contour? Yes. I was 19 when I bought it. I couldn't get a loan from the likes of toyota or honda at the time. The contour was a great car. It gave me 60 thousand trouble free miles. When I hit that mark, between the creaks and rattles, the warping dashboard, and the impending preventative maintenance (which doesn't bother me) the numbers weren't adding up, and I dropped it like a hot potato.
/rant
