2009 Toyota Camry LE from North America - Comments

"5th Nov 2009, 14:36.

"(Honda doesn't make trucks)"

So the Ridgeline is a figment of my imagination?"

You have an active imagination indeed if you consider the Ridgeline to be a truck. The Dodge Ram and Ford F-150 are trucks.

"So the Ridgeline is a figment of my imagination?"

The Ridgeline IS NOT a truck. I'm an import fan and even I agree that the Ridgeline is not a truck. It just isn't designed for real truck use. The lack of a full frame, V8 engine, and REAL truck bed makes this clear to see. It's an excellent vehicle, but it isn't a truck.

"1st Nov 2009, 10:24.

So it's okay to you that Ford and GM are only shafting a certain number of people with their outsourcing as long as they are not hurting you? "

There you go, arguing the exception. Ford and GM always paid high union wages. It was your precious Honda and Toyota that undercut them by keeping out the unions, opening plants in poor rural areas where people were desperate enough to take jobs with no benefits. Ford and GM had no choice but to outsource some jobs in order to remain in business at all. Despite outsourcing some jobs, Ford and GM STILL employ more people than Honda and Toyota.

Your argument is akin to advocating shooting yourself in the head because you have an ingrown toenail. The reasonable course of action is to remove the infected part to allow the body to remain alive.

With your logic, you would apparently laud Carnegie and Vanderbilt for offering thousands of people jobs, never mind that they paid and engineered starvation wages for 18 hour days. That is thinking that comes from the Conservative Radio Network. And by the way, how did Honda and Toyota help the community where they built those plants when conservative southern congressmen gave them huge tax breaks just to open a (non-union) plant? They got the land for free, they got the plant for free, they don't pay taxes, and they get employees at cut-rate wages. So how is that good for the country? Please explain.

@ 5th Nov 2009, 14:50.

I couldn't have said it better for myself. All these people here boasting about the Fusion for ONE SINGLE YEAR beat the Camry in the reliability rating and they are telling the world about it. Well guys, one snowflake doesn't make a winter.

Regarding the Fusion quality, all I can say is congratulations Ford. Try to keep the quality consistent and I'll come back to you. But for now I'm sticking with my Toyota that has a proven quality year after year across the whole model range.

With my previous bad experience on Fords I'd be inclined to say that the Fusion was a Fix-Or-Repair-Daily 'accident'. I mean, finally Ford was able to make something that doesn't fall to pieces after a couple of years. Probably won't happen again so you Fusion owners enjoy your vehicles while you can. I'll stick with Toyota for now.

"All these people here boasting about the Fusion for ONE SINGLE YEAR beat the Camry in the reliability rating and they are telling the world about it."

Fusion has outranked Camry and Accord for the past FOUR years (counting the 2010 model), not one year as the comment claims. Ford now has as many "recommended" models as Toyota and matches their overall reliability rating for ALL their vehicles.

And comment 16:51 is right on target. People who feel that Japanese auto makers have done ANYTHING to help the U.S. are greatly misled. Toyota and Honda combined employ less than 5% of those in this country who work in auto-related jobs and pay starvation wages in order to destroy other Americans jobs. I, too, would like to see a SENSIBLE, FACT-BASED reply to that commenter's question. I work with a group of patriotic American car enthusiasts who attempt to educate people on this issue and I've had great success in showing uninformed import owners the truth and persuading them to buy from American companies. I get tremendous satisfaction out of helping dispel the myths billions of dollars in Japanese car ad hype has created and helping my friends and neighbors get a solid and reliable product that benefits OUR OWN industries.

Now for the Ridgeline: Anyone who could even think of calling it a "truck" should not be posting comments criticizing ANYTHING. Comparing the Ridgeline to a REAL truck, such as the F-150 is like comparing an outhouse to Buckingham Palace.

"You have an active imagination indeed if you consider the Ridgeline to be a truck. The Dodge Ram and Ford F-150 are trucks."

Hmmmm, a large vehicle with an open bed on the back for hauling stuff. If that's not a truck then what would you call it? Being a full frame vehicle with a two piece body isn't the only requirement of being a truck. Just because it isn't big and burly enough for you. Honda just does it better is all!!

"There you go, arguing the exception. Ford and GM always paid high union wages."

And there you go explaining why domestic car companies are inefficient. They overpay all of their workers to the point of needing to send labor jobs out of the country. Yeah, that makes sense. How about everyone coming down to reality in the U.S. and working for what a job is worth?

Overpaying people obviously doesn't really make sense, or had you forgotten about the bailouts and near crash and burn of all three domestic companies. It also doesn't make a better company when the product doesn't support the pay scale as is evident in the car industry. Ford only saved itself by offering really good discounts on its cars, therefore ramping up sales to make their profits look better. How long do you think they can do this AND pay their high labor costs?

Yeah, we all need better benefits and higher wages... or maybe we've just become accustomed to more than we deserve in this country. I have seen more low income people with $400 phones and iPods etc, so I don't feel too bad for people who make a little less. If you want to work in a factory, you should get the salary that goes along with that type of work, and not some overinflated pay scale with a fat benefits package including pension for life.

This is why domestic car companies are failing. People should learn to live within their means and stop expecting so much more to the point of killing the company they work for. This is how we got into this whole financial disaster in the first place. People spending WAY beyond their means, and buying houses for three times what they should have been looking at. Everyone wants the world and they want to do nothing to get it. If the employees were paid reasonably, these companies would then be able to afford U.S. workers and they could then claim to really be domestic companies. To me, they are just as unpatriotic as Honda or Toyota regardless of the 90% figures you quote.

"So it's okay to you that Ford and GM are only shafting a certain number of people with their outsourcing as long as they are not hurting you?"

The guy is probably an engineer who doesn't give a hoot about the guys on the assembly line. Why else would he not care about outsourcing?

"He'd never owned a domestic. Now he'll almost certainly own another import."

I'm confused by this. Your saying you convinced him to buy a domestic, and now that he owns one, it has scared him back to imports? Isn't that what usually happens? Yet you seem to be support Ford for that?

"Hmmmm, a large vehicle with an open bed on the back for hauling stuff. If that's not a truck then what would you call it? Being a full frame vehicle with a two piece body isn't the only requirement of being a truck. Just because it isn't big and burly enough for you. Honda just does it better is all!!"

It's a truck in the sense it has a bed on the back, but it really ends there. I'm an import fan, and I think the Ridgeline is an excellent vehicle. But I wouldn't trust it for the work a real truck does. No construction worker, or carpenter, or electrician is going to go buy a Honda Ridgeline for his line of work. It's not durable enough for real work.

For hauling around a small camper or doing some light off-roading, the Ridgeline is a great vehicle. For the average person who goes to Home Depot to get some 2x4's or gardening tools every once in awhile, it's a good vehicle. But if you need to tow over 5,000 LBS. on a regular basis or travel offroad a lot, then the Ridgeline simply won't cut it.

In the sense of being a truck, you could call it that. But it's not a very good work truck. But it also was not designed to be. It was designed to be a light duty vehicle for someone who needs a good amount of utility, but isn't going to be using it for severe duty work. I think that's what the commenter's on here are trying to say.

Desperate people likely will take low pay and no benefits, not getting fairly paid. I paid my home off and used cordless phone at home and even pay phones on the road. I am glad I was able to even buy and own a home vs a low paid autoworker without benefits. I could rent if I worked lots of overtime with low import wages I have heard about. No thanks.

"It's a truck in the sense it has a bed on the back, but it really ends there. I'm an import fan, and I think the Ridgeline is an excellent vehicle. But I wouldn't trust it for the work a real truck does. No construction worker, or carpenter, or electrician is going to go buy a Honda Ridgeline

for his line of work. It's not durable enough for real work.

For hauling around a small camper or doing some light off-roading, the Ridgeline is a great vehicle. For the average person who goes to Home Depot to get some 2x4's or gardening tools every once in awhile, it's a good vehicle. But if you need to tow over 5,000 LBS. on a regular basis or travel offroad a lot, then the Ridgeline simply won't cut it.

In the sense of being a truck, you could call it that. But it's not a very good work truck. But it also was not designed to be. It was designed to be a light duty vehicle for someone who needs a good amount of utility, but isn't going to be using it for severe duty work. I think that's what the commenter's on here are trying to say."

I wasn't arguing about how capable of a truck it is... I just stated it was a truck plain and simple. I know the rest of the story on it.

"People who feel that Japanese auto makers have done ANYTHING to help the U.S. are greatly misled."

Yes because we all know how much the American car companies have helped the U.S. economy by taking billions of tax payer dollars due to their incompetence and inabilities to run an efficient business. Sorry, I almost forgot how good they have been to this country. I should be so misled not to see this!

It's incredible that a company like GM lose money like that. But they are incredible mismanaged in my opinion. The car industry is economy of scale business where it should be easy for the biggest ones to make money. The reason is that there are many fixed costs in this industry, and the more cars you produce, the more units you have to spread the fixed costs. It should be possible for GM to make $1000 more per car than, let's say Nissan, just because of GM's high output. The reason GM loses money like this is that they are mismanaged and inefficient, and has been over 50 years. All this talking about US auto makers employs so many people, this is probably true. I worked for consultancy company having GM a client. And it was like working for the government. Bureaucratic, tons of people running around, no one had any responsibility and it's impossible to get any real answers fast. UAW and the pension fund is just one of GM's problems but I've heard this adds a $1000 or so on each car. If this is a good argument for buying cars from them, go ahead! If you want to subsidize an old inefficient company, go ahead.

You are right in the sense that the UAW was overpaid to an unsustainable rate. What choice did the auto manufacturers have but to agree to their demands? Especially when Honda and Toyota undercut them by paying no benefits and half the wages to people desperate for work?

However, the UAW also was the guide that said blue collar work was as important as white collar work, and that manual labor deserved a good, middle class standard of living. Apparently you, as well as Honda and Toyota, do not agree.

You see, it's not just auto workers and manual labor. It is also graphic designers, and other tech or white collar jobs. Why not have us return to 1932, when paying what the job was worth meant that a railcar of coal could be unloaded by a man in return for a handful of corn meal? That's your vision, is it? The New Deal emplaced wage price supports so that the population would not have to be starving to death for sub-subsistence wages. Conservatives and business owners then, as you do now, railed against that. "Let the market forces work!" they cried. But what you mean is that everyone will work for bare subsistence except a handful of the super wealthy who collude to keep wages low. The market forces do not work because they are subverted. Yes, your relatives who are doctors and lawyers, too, because those jobs can just as easily be outsourced to India.