16th Nov 2009, 10:01
First of all, who is talking about 20+ years ago? I won't get into the "twice the price" Civic as that has already been covered... C'mon!! Imports that are of the same class of car as the domestics are usually the same or a little less expensive nowadays. The previous comment about the Cobalt is true as if you add options to a domestic the price rises quickly and they don't come with as many standard features in many cases.
If you shop comparable domestics against imports you'll find pretty much equal values in each line. I have shopped both recently and faired better with Honda. Buying a domestic only works to your advantage if it is loaded with rebates and other incentives. That is not an accurate measure of the original MSRP of the car, however.
And why does domestic companies charging more for their cars to cover their higher overhead make ZERO sense to you? It is simple economics.
14th Nov 2009, 11:34
I think that car dealers have something to do with price differences. When looking for a new car, I looked at both a Civic and a Cobalt (I mostly looked at a Chevy just for laughs, because I would NEVER actually buy one.) But I looked at a bare bones Civic and a bare-bones Cobalt. The Bare bones Civic was a little over $15,000 and for that I got 6 air-bags, power windows, power door locks, a TPMS, and a manual transmission. For the Cobalt, about $14,500 I got manual windows, manual door locks, 4 airbags, and a manual transmission. I ended up opting for a better equipped Civic in the end that came with an automatic transmission as well as all the other features I previously listed. I paid about $16,000 for it. The better equipped Cobalt that came with all the features the base Civic had standard was going to cost me over $18,000. You do the math, the Civic was clearly the better buy and I got a more reliable, higher quality vehicle in the purchase as well.