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WOW Keith, we must be neighbors. I used to always read consumer reports. It seems to be they do alot of bashing of American goods. I know what they said about my Chevy Astro van of the eighties
but we got 136,000 out of my 1986 and 134,000 out of my 1994 Astro van, carting 4 boys around too. I am sure CR does not really care for my 1998 GMC pickup but after 178,000 miles I changed the motor because I did not think a leaky head gasket was worth doing with that many miles. Other than that NO problems. But I bet that got a bad write-up because maybe the lighter did not work or the door pins needed to be replaced. No matter what you have you have to take care of things. There are some really junkie products out there but not just from the USA.
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I had a 1990 GMC 4X4 that went 500k with pretty much zero failures.. couple of trans rebuilds never took a valve cover off in sixteen years.. didn't burn any oil!. We make good powertrains,fit and finish is another story but bottom line our products have been built well for quite some time but the stigma remains.
We didn't catch the memo about plant modernization. Robotics have been around for decades,domestic mfgs were nappin on those same as the looming CAFE standards that are coming due.
There's one word that can sum up this whole deal-from the auto execs ,mortgage industry,hedge funds,UAW and UAE. It's called greed,and it's killed this country in the short term. When these SOB CEO's are effectively sucking their golden parachute funds from retired people's 401k's it's no wonder we are at this point. Do unto others than split.