Comments: 1-15, 16-30, 31-45, 46-53
And here's yet another unanswered question. Where are all the 70s and early 80's Hondas and Toyotas at? It's not that long ago. Anyone else note their absence? So say at 61000 miles your engine goes, is that superior to a 100000 mile warranty? Even better if your Honda has 2-3 trans and the next prospective buyer or dealer sees it on your Car Fax, is it beneficial to you as an owner? I found it hurt me when I sold... anyone seeing multiple drivetrain issues even if some are under warranty hurts as I found. I like numbers matching cars too.
No import owner is evidently rushing to answer my 70's Honda Toyota population in the 50 states that every one in each state can watch passing by one after another after another. Where are they? I know what they look like as I owned them and sold back in the day. If you tout long term ownership, is there a cut off point that applies as I am not seeing examples.... lower production has some bearing, but there should be plenty as I saw quite a few new ones in the 70s in my city. They vanished in my area.
"Just read all of the reviews on here with happy Honda-Toyota customers! At least 95% of them are pleased with their vehicles!!"
Not true. The Camry has some of the LEAST happy owners. The Ford Taurus reviews are much more positive. Don't quote non-existent statistics. Japanese car companies do that all too well themselves. Current domestics are light years ahead of anything from Japan. The two top-rated cars in long-term reliability are a Ford and a Buick. Camry was so bad Consumer Reports dropped their "recommended" status in 2008 because of reliability issues.
"Just read all of the reviews on here with happy Honda-Toyota customers! At least 95% of them are pleased with their vehicles!!"
I took your challenge. As a domestic owner I base my decisions on more than import ad hype and misguided import owner's claims. I chose the year 2003, since it is long enough ago for real problems to start cropping up with the cars reviewed. Here are the actual percentages on this site of those who are satisfied with their cars and would buy another one:
2003 Pontiac Grand Prix: 70%
2003 Ford Taurus: 81%
2003 Buick Le Sabre: 100%
2003 Honda Accord: 47%
2003 Toyota Camry: 45%
Nissan Altima: 37%
Now that clearly refutes your 95% claim, and does it with cars clearly old enough to be having problems. You'll note that even the lofty Honda Accord scores only 47% approval, while the Ford Taurus nearly DOUBLES it at 81% and the lowly (and now defunct) Pontiac Grand Prix beats it (and Camry) by a whopping 23+ % points. Nissan, long acknowledged as horribly unreliable by all knowledgeable sources rates a dismal 37%. That's less than Yugo rated in the 80's!!
Since I had so much fun disproving the "95%" satisfaction claim by the (obviously uninformed) import fan, I decided to check more recent figures on this sight. I assumed (INCORRECTLY) that import figures would IMPROVE with later models because they hadn't had time to break down. BOY!! Was I ever wrong!! Here are the figures from the 2006 models (I substituted Hyundai Sonata for the Buick Le Sabre because there were no 2006 Le Sabre reviews). The "I'd buy another" figures for 2006 are as follows:
2006 Pontiac Grand Prix: 80%
2006 Ford Taurus: 60%
2006 Hyundai Sonata: 53%
2006 Honda Accord: 42%
2006 Toyota Camry : ZERO PERCENT (Don't believe? Look it up!!)
2006 Nissan Altima: 77%
The only import that was high in 2006 was the Altima, which DID make some improvements. The ZERO PERCENT for the Camry and measly 42% for the Accord says VOLUMES. The fact that the Pontiac Grand Prix scored an 80% approval rating makes sense and validates the findings on this site. It was chosen as J. D. Powers "Best large sedan" in 2007, beating out the over-rated Toyota Avalon. The fact that the Hyundai Sonata beat out both Camry and Accord shows that even cheap Korean cars are better built now.
If people are going to use this site to make attempts to promote Japanese cars, they should at least READ the reviews first. It might save some embarrassment.
There may not be very many 70's Honda's and Toyota's left, but I see plenty of 80's models. And by the way, all of the domestics from that era have had to be completely restored. And you can't tell me they've been daily drivers for more than 30 years. I'm an import fan, and personally, I wouldn't even buy Toyota's and Honda's from that era. That era was when domestics were better than imports. That's changed now, the imports have surpassed the domestics in quality since the 80's. I've seen restored 70's and 80's domestics, but none that were original. So stop with this argument over classic cars.
Just to inform in the 10% vs 90% discussion; you are all aware that the Japanese manufacturers makes cars somewhat different to US manufacturers? Japanese manufacturers utilize sub-contractors to a higher extent than GM/Ford/Chrysler. To get the numbers right you need to add these as well since 'foreign' sub-contractors in the US employ a lot of people.
Still it's natural that big-three employs more than Japanese manufacturers, since they overall production in US is a lot higher. This will change as 'Japanese' and other 'foreign' manufacturers gain more market share and start to produce even more cars in the US.
Further it's common knowledge that especially GM is inefficient and has a too high cost base. GM management has shown incompetence over several decades, and poor management together with the mighty UAW have managed to destroy GM. They are now lagging behind in every respect. Do you as a consumer want to support that? You want to reward being fat, incompetent and inefficient?
"Not true. The Camry has some of the LEAST happy owners. The Ford Taurus reviews are much more positive. Don't quote non-existent statistics. Japanese car companies do that all too well themselves. Current domestics are light years ahead of anything from Japan. The two top-rated cars in long-term reliability are a Ford and a Buick. Camry was so bad Consumer Reports dropped their "recommended" status in 2008 because of reliability issues."
Consumer Reports? Don't even bring that up. I wouldn't trust Consumer Reports for ANY VEHICLE, ESPECIALLY A DOMESTIC. And try taking a read at ALL of the Camry reviews and then read ALL of the Taurus reviews, there are more happy Camry owners than Taurus owners.
Light years ahead of anything from Japan? You domestic owners really like to believe that don't you. Go ahead, I really don't care. I'll just smile and wave at you as you're staring under your hood along the highway as I drive by in my Civic.
And yeah, I just bought my Civic new in '08, to replace my previous vehicle, a Ford Windstar that had problems like oh say, the entire intake manifold needing to be replaced at just over 25,000 miles, and then the starter and alternator at a little over 40,000. The interior lights had a mind of their own, and would turn on and off whenever they felt like it (brought it to the dealer NUMEROUS times for that, they told me that nothing was wrong.) The transmission never shifted right, I eventually had to start downshifting manually to get up hills.
And unlike my dealer experience with Ford, the dealer I bought my Civic from was excellent. The salesman didn't force anything on me and he actually gave me $1800 for a trade in on my Ford, which is the amount that I wanted. Ford themselves weren't even going to give me $1200!! And when I brought my van to the shop for the last time, I told them I wanted to trade it in for something smaller, and they forced nearly every Focus on the lot on top of me in a pathetic attempt to get me to buy one. I ended up WALKING down the road to the Honda dealership to look at the Civics.
16:52 You may not have been around in the 70's perhaps. In the early 70's there were 2 factors that prompted many to try imports.
After 1970 the auto manufacturers reduced HP after tremendous mounting pressure from insurance companies. Emission controls stifled cars from the era... a 350 engine went from 360 HP in 1970 all time high down to 190 HP due to all the smog devices as well. It certainly did not increase MPG either. Insurance rates were extremely high for the era and many sold to buy more affordable models.
Another huge factor was the oil embargo forcing everyone to sit hours waiting for gas in lines, and then there became odd and even days one could buy gas. It was not the pricing of gas, relatively still cheap as it was, but you could not get it. Some stations went dry and you had to wait elsewhere if you had enough fuel in your tank to wait again. It was dreadful and boring waiting. You work all day and the last thing you want to do is stand outside your car in summer heat waiting to fill up. I could not get enough gas to drive my thirsty car.
At that time I saw many Toyotas being purchased (the Celica was very popular and a Corolla; I later had both and were commonplace) many VW Bugs 73-74 which you still see them around today. My father would fill his 73 Super Beetle and weather through on a tank of gas, while many with big V8's like myself could not get enough gas, plus the high insurance wave penalizing those with big V8's or any serial # that bumped you up into high insurance. Many of us had no points or issues, but the cars forced us to sell. People were afraid the gas situation would last and panic drove them to buy cheaper cars to run. It was a real pain waiting and waiting.
Similar to the situation a year back with high gas today, I might add without the lines waiting. Great cars were sold to buy very cheap economy cars. In hindsight I wish I could of bought a smaller house then and bought 3 or 4 of tremendous American car oppys that arose at the era.
As far as saying only 30 year old surviving commuters are totally restored or classics while no 70's early 80's Toyota are not buying it. Many people drove Olds Delta 88, Buick Le Sabres, Old Cutlass just to name a few and they are still out there. I do not know anyone doing ground up restorations on these models. Strong dependable transportation though. I know many that had 2 in their drive and spread mileage between the 2 to go to work. If you even look for early 80's, I do not see the surviving Toyotas. On here people think a 90's Toyota is a long lasting testimonial. There were 2 million Celicas sold. Maybe I look for them as I had one GT, but where are they? In the late 70's I saw lots of them and that model won awards... it was a good looking model. I had rust issues with my imports then, even my 82 280 ZX (not a cheap new car whatsoever at the time) and its quarters starting showing telltale rust. I do not know if the bodies of these 70's 80's survived the passage of time. If that's the case I should see lots of them in southern states and I am not. Sure are lots of domestics though.
"Consumer Reports? Don't even bring that up. I wouldn't trust Consumer Reports for ANY VEHICLE, ESPECIALLY A DOMESTIC. And try taking a read at ALL of the Camry reviews and then read ALL of the Taurus reviews, there are more happy Camry owners than Taurus owners."
OK, I took your challenge: Here are the results:
"Since I had so much fun disproving the "95%" satisfaction claim by the (obviously uninformed) import fan, I decided to check more recent figures on this sight. I assumed (INCORRECTLY) that import figures would IMPROVE with later models because they hadn't had time to break down. BOY!! Was I ever wrong!! Here are the figures from the 2006 models (I substituted Hyundai Sonata for the Buick Le Sabre because there were no 2006 Le Sabre reviews). The "I'd buy another" figures for 2006 are as follows:
2006 Pontiac Grand Prix: 80%
2006 Ford Taurus: 60%
2006 Hyundai Sonata: 53%
2006 Honda Accord: 42%
2006 Toyota Camry : ZERO PERCENT (Don't believe? Look it up!!)
2006 Nissan Altima: 77%
The only import that was high in 2006 was the Altima, which DID make some improvements. The ZERO PERCENT for the Camry and measly 42% for the Accord says VOLUMES. The fact that the Pontiac Grand Prix scored an 80% approval rating makes sense and validates the findings on this site. It was chosen as J. D. Powers "Best large sedan" in 2007, beating out the over-rated Toyota Avalon. The fact that the Hyundai Sonata beat out both Camry and Accord shows that even cheap Korean cars are better built now.
If people are going to use this site to make attempts to promote Japanese cars, they should at least READ the reviews first. It might save some embarrassment."
This is DIRECT from OWNER REVIEWS. Now what was that about Toyota being better?? ZERO PERCENT SATISFACTION??? Not even the 1980 Yugo has a ZERO rating, ONLY Camry!!
When something is too fantastic to believe, it's usually so. That is; too fantastic. No car has ever gotten a 0% CR approval rating. The table you've been looking at has probably been wrong. CR has always rated Camry favourable.
Just to quote what CR actually says:
"YONKERS, N.Y., Jan. 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Consumer Reports (CR) ranked the Toyota Camry LE best overall in tests of four family sedans for the February 2005 issue.
Freshened for the 2005 model year, the Camry received a "Very Good" overall rating from Consumer Reports. The Camry has consistently been ranked among the best family sedans by Consumer Reports in recent years."
"When something is too fantastic to believe, it's usually so. That is; too fantastic. No car has ever gotten a 0% CR approval rating. The table you've been looking at has probably been wrong. CR has always rated Camry favourable."
As usual, someone didn't bother to read the comment. It clearly states the figures came from CARSURVEY.ORG owner surveys, not CR (although CR DID pull their recommendation of the 2007 Camry based on horrible reliability). Just click on "2006 Camry reviews", then look at the "would buy another Toyota" space. It clearly says "0" percent, which isn't surprising. The overall approval rating for Camry on Carsurvey.org from 2000 through 2010 is a dismal 43%. Ford beats the heck out of that with the old Taurus at 62%, and even the now defunct Pontiac Grand Prix averaged a 63% approval rating for the same time period. Even the divine Accord only manages a 63% approval rating for the same period.
Sounds like yet another case of someone being swayed by ad hype from Japanese car companies. Real owners tell a VERY different story.
The problem with these kind of sites is that everybody can post information. That's how the Internet is. I've commented earlier that a lot of Camry reviews look like fakes. I can usually spot one when I see it. It's in the details.
Each reader must read information on this site carefully. The Camry section of this site seem to be taken over by Internet trolls. People commenting on Toyotas and especially Camry do not seem to have ever have owned one. Most people commenting seem to be Chevy or Ford owners bad mouthing the Camry.
People after real facts can see past this balloon of hot air. Referring to statistics from this site? When many of the reviews appear to be fake? Frankly, it's totally irrelevant.
"Sounds like yet another case of someone being swayed by ad hype from Japanese car companies. Real owners tell a VERY different story."
The only "ad hype" I've seen has been from the Big 3. Ford is constantly claiming that they have quality that "surpasses Honda and Toyota" and Chevrolet used the fact that the made more vehicles that were eligible for cash for clunkers against Honda and Toyota endlessly. I have yet to see a Honda or Toyota commercial or ad that says ANYTHING about the Big 3.
16:11 why would they mention domestics? We bought Honda after Honda only, never even looked, kind of stupid really. We had engine and trans issues, test drove GM and really liked them better. Better ride, more comfortable seats, power, handling, very good fuel usage, better warranty and less out of pocket repairs. We were dedicated Honda buyers, but they lost us recently. Old days they were better for us when new.
I have yet to see why I should accept half a standard warranty from any car made in 2009 now 2010... I said goodbye to the import service manager and my new car salesman too. They move around anyway.