Ford vehicles comparable to Toyota, Nissan in quality, study says

That started happening ten years ago when Saturn started stealing all of the initial quality awards from Honda. And GM feels confident in light of their 100,000 mile warranty.

The pendulum is swinging the other way. Can anyone guess where the Japanese learned their quality ethic from? Shortly after WWII, an American quality expert named Charles Deming went to Japan for several years and set up their industry in the right direction. The pedulum starting coming back in the 80's and 90's when a Japanese quality expert named Genichi Taguchi came to the US to help us out with our quality. Saturn used a lot of his stuff, and guys like me are coming out of college with advanced knowledge of Taguchi principles.
 
Not sure if it was Saturn that was stealing anything from the Japanese. Maybe Buick... Saturns are POS that don't last much past 100k (from the 90s). Doesn't even compare to a Corolla. Saturns had the best "customer service" for a few years. Until Lexus got it back.

I am not an advocate of Japanese cars, and I have yet to own one besides my horrid Mazda 626 which was the worst POS ever. But I have had many first hand experiences with Japanese cars (Camrys, Corollas, Galants) and their quality WAS superior in many aspects during the 90s. Now the playing field is quite level. With some of the german cars sliding off.

BMWs used to be MORE reliable and so was MB. But they had some bad times in the late 90s.. early 00s.
 
Not sure if it was Saturn that was stealing anything from the Japanese. Maybe Buick... Saturns are POS that don't last much past 100k (from the 90s). Doesn't even compare to a Corolla. Saturns had the best "customer service" for a few years. Until Lexus got it back.

It only lasted in the mid-90's - 94-96 or something like that. Honda quickly got the title back.
 
gotta get the word out though. Honda and Toyota are gaining sales while the American brands are losing.
 
GM is doing pretty good this year, since they have quite a few strong products out. Ford only has a bunch of mediocre products out right now hence the slacking sales. And Chrysler has no competitive "family sedans", comparable to best sellers like Camry and Accord. At these gas prices good luck selling SUVs. And 65% of Chrysler sales are made up of SUVs. Simple math really. Toyota and others have industry a few industry leading products and are still riding out the wave of "Japanese cars are more reliable". I don't know a single person at work that doesn't consider Japanese cars far superior to American cars in terms of reliability. So much so that it is scarry. People were always amazed that my 1998 mark VIII is "holding up" lol.
 
Hey Max, did you ever get your 1998 Silver Frost sold? I saw it on the East Bay and was wondering if the deal went thru. I have mine up for sale so will see what happens.


Cecil
 
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