Clocker said:
There is a perceived quality misconception that the foreign makers are better.
First, I have to say I have the opinion and personal experience that foreign makers (specifically honda & toyota) are better quality.
Second, Let's take the 90's honda accords out of the picture. I think this is quite an exceptional car that honda got right early on and just kept producing. I think they've since screwed it up at least on the looks/interior.
I owned a 94 honda accord and bought it for over bluebook and could have sold it for over blue book (I sold it for the high blue book value). And aside from normal maintenance it only needed a compressor and an exhaust.
Like Mark said you are fighting an uphill battle trying to convince people that domestic and foreign cars have the same quality. Not only because consumer reports ratings are, I believe, historical in nature but also people's opinions on cars are typically formed from their last car purchase which can be 10+ years for some folk. So what was the situation 10 or 20 years ago. At that point I'd say the quality wasn't the same. That is why Toyota has so much market share now.
Consider my recent auto purchase of a Toyota Sienna (mini-van).
The personal experience I have that was most forefront in eliminating domestics from my purchase decision was that of my wife's parent's minivan. This was a dodge caravan. The original model from like 85. That thing was a POS. It literally fell apart while they were driving it. And they kept fixing it. A few years ago they finally replaced it. My wife's aunt has the model from a few years after the initial one. It has lasted better, even still running and in use. But it still had problems.
My wife's parents replaced it with a used ford explorer, even after the rollover debacle and huge recall of tires. I wouldn't expect anyone to be buying that car after that. Compared to the caravan the quality on this car is far better. But compared to the new ford they bought, freestyle I think - the smaller version of the explorer, it doesn't look great.
So people have historical bad experiences with domestics. They have been improving. But then they buy a used foreign car or a new one, and it is leagues better in terms of maintenance costs and just feel of quality - how the interior, exterior, and engine holds up. And this is reflected in blue book values. It isn't just a perceived lower quality of domestics, look at the blue book values for used cars. Domestics lose their value much faster.
Which leads to the next argument for higher sales of foreign makes, the rise of the auto lease. Auto leasing is all about depreciation. You want a car that will not lose its value during the life of the lease. Otherwise you are financing a larger amount of money. By minimizing depreciation, you minimize the difference between the initial cost (capitalized cost) and the agreed upon depreciated value. Thus minimizing the amount of the loan and your monthly payments. This leads people to lease high value cars like BMW or Toyota or Honda.
So domestic makes counter this by offerring employee pricing, lowering the value of their cars? I think domestics are caught by two cycles that they can't get out of. That of historical quality perceptions and the used car value problem. The only way I see domestics making a comeback is if they do something that significantly increases fuel economy. And by significant I don't mean beat Toyota by 5 miles to the gallon.
