« First « Previous Comments 56 - 56 of 56 Search these comments
Is the Civic's engine and transmission designed and built in the US as well? How about the procurement, accounting, and other back office type jobs, are those also in the US? I don't think so.
In some cases, yes, and some cases no, just like so-called "American" cars. As I mentioned in prior threads, many of the "foreign" manufacturers have design teams here in the US because we have unique design requirements in some cases. In general, all the "foreign" manufacturers have North American or US subsidiaries, so yes, of course they have procurement, accounting, and back office here. These questions suggest that you don't know much about how these businesses work.
You know what -- prove to me that 100% of Fords, GMs, and Chryslers are 100% made here. You will fail miserably, as I stated in the other threads for many many reasons. End of story.
A lot of German sports cars (BMW M/Merc AMG/Audi S) get dinged badly for reliability, but a lot of them have a very aggressive service schedules that, if adhered to, will provide well over a decade of trouble-free service. I think that a lot of people buy the cars and drive the dog shit out of them, but somehow expect to service them like they are econo-boxes.
Yes, this is very true. Look at something like TireRack.com for reviews. I saw some reviews for the same tires my car has by someone who drove an AMG Mercedes. He complained that the tires didn't last long enough. Well no shit, if you keep doing burnouts in your AMG.
These cars are several orders of magnitude more complex then economy cars also. There are a lot of things to go wrong that don't exist on civic's or corrolla's.
Is that really true though? Most of the concepts are similar. Maybe if you have an automated manual transmission, it's more complicated than either a manual transmission or an automatic transmission, but some econoboxes have automated manuals (e.g. new Ford Fiesta, and it's more common in Europe).
I don't think having an extra computer or sensor here or there adds up to "orders of magnitude" (which implies 100X or greater more complicated).
Oh yeah, another thing you run into with cheaper Japanese cars is shitty wiring harnesses. The harnesses are nice and neat on BMWs because they will spend the extra money to run the wires a little further to go around things & to their destination. The ones in economy cars look like damn spider webs with wires branching out of the middle of a big loom and making a giant mess for someone trying to get their hand someplace like under the dash.
Yeah, I've noticed this too. There is some degree of meticulousness that occurs by the Germans that reduces the maximum efficiency of the Japanese in manufacturing, but increases efficiency in repair.
I bought a new car once. It was dinged at Wal-mart that first month. Never again will I buy a new car. Lessoned learned the hard way.
Umm, if your biggest problem with buying a new car is some cosmetic paint issue, that's probably misguided. There are many good reasons to not buy a new car -- e.g. expense, high depreciation, etc. However, there are many good reasons to buy a new car -- e.g. additional safety features, lower maintenance, additional modern conveniences, etc. The risk that you might get a ding seems quite trivial relative to the benefits, whereas the substantive good reasons not to buy a new car at least have the possibility of outweighing the benefits depending on your own personal calculation.
« First « Previous Comments 56 - 56 of 56 Search these comments
Something that I think about a lot on the way to work is to what extent do people place importance on "what" they drive. I say this because living in the Bay Area its clear that either there is a lot of well-off people or maybe a lot of people spending a lot of their incomes on their cars. Prior to moving here from NC you'd be lucky if you saw a new Bimmer or even a new VW in a day. Yet on my way to work I must see at least 100+ brand-new luxury cars speeding down the freeway. We're talking $60,000-$90,000 cars.
Now- don't get me wrong. If someone wants to spend that kind of money on a car then that's great. We all have definitions of what's important to us and there's nothing wrong with a shiny new car with heated leather seats. But when you stop and think about just how much people spend on cars its sort of insane. I'm going to guess that some of these folks must buy a new car every 5-6 years. If that's the case then assuming they spend $50k-$60k per car that works out to $100k+ every 10 years... for cars! Double that if the spouse drives the same type of car.
The thing is that cars massively depreciate almost instantly. Once they age and start to become mechanically less sound their value plummets. This is also partially due to such cars losing their prestige because part of the allure of exotic/luxury cars is their "new-ness". So unlike an old house, unless your car happens to be extremely desirable/collectible you will never see any return on that purchase. Instead the money spent is gone forever.
My Wife and I are at the stark opposite end of this equation. Both of our vehicles are well over 10 years old. They're both Toyotas and both have way over 200,000 miles. I work on and service them myself hence their maintenance is minimal. They are both the bottom-of-the-barrel models with "power-nothing" and no real luxurious amenities. They are easy to fix and since I've had them for so long I know them inside and out. We could very easily afford to buy a brand-new, top-of-the-line luxury car. I could walk into any showroom, take a test drive and hand the salesperson the cash and drive home. But I would never do that because in my opinion spending 50k on a car seems like a waste. While our cars are not worth hardly anything they have in turn served as an "investment" in that they save us money by preventing us from having a car payment. They've been paid for forever. Now I will admit that I'm bragging here which is about the same as bragging about a nice new car. I will also not deny that sure- I wouldn't mind having a nice new luxury car in the garage. Heck- even some of the rental cars we've used on vacations are wayyyy nicer than what we own and I am somewhat tempted to buy something new. But at the end of the day it comes down to dollars and sense.
Anyway, not sure where I'm going with this. But I'm sure others have some interesting opinions as always.