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Posted by Doc Dave on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 11:33:20 :
In Reply to: Re: If you switched years ago.... posted by Brian Holt on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 10:15:19 :
Yes,
The big three is playing catch up, which is not an enviable position.
But, the Japanese did the North American people a big favor in forcing the big three to improve quality A LOT in the last 25 or so years. Personally I think the quality is pretty close now, from a reliability standpoint.
A friend who was a chemical engineer told me a story that back in the 60's-70's, Du Pont developed a innovative rust proofing system that would have really had an impact on the rusting issues effecting American cars (and of course if adopted would have put those cars ahead of any others made quality-wise. They pitched it to at least one of the big three. Bottom line, the big three was not interested, they made plenty of money on replacement sheet metal... a lost opportunity for "quality branding".
I can say that my 01 Dodge Ram CTD truck and 05 Chrysler 300C hemi appear to be very well made.
Our daughter, representative of so many of the young adults (she is 26) acts like no one in their right mind would buy an American vehicle; that Japanese or German is the only thing to consider quality and reliability wise. She had our old Toyota Camry for awhile, and it is bulletproof. Extremely reliable and still in our family.
Once a business develops a reputation, deserved or not, it takes extra time and effort to overcome this.
Again, better to be the lead dog, not the one where the view is always the same.
To survive, Chrysler and the other two have to convince the young that they are equal or superior to the foreign makes. If that doesn't happen, they will be in trouble when us "older folks" die off.
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