the real reason toyotas are so "reliable"

[deadrats]

i was hesitant to post this, as i can't quote from the article, nor can people really comment on it, because it would violate one of the rules of this forum, however i thought people might find this article on what led up to the massive toyota recall quite eye opening, and makes me wonder just how reliable in general are japanese vehicles, if much of their vaunted reputations isn't the result of a series of massive cover ups:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_toyota_the_road_to_recalls

[JohnnyMalaria]

I applaud your jingoism.

[deadrats]

I applaud your jingoism.

first off allow me to applaud your use of a word that i needed to look up, not only did i not know what it meant, i can honestly say that i never heard that word before in my life.

having said that, don't misinterpret my comments as jingoism, it's the japanese (and in all honesty it seems to permeate most asian cultures) that suffer from that character flaw, my comments are a reflection of my own experiences having worked in a car dealership (a honda and chevy) dealership as an assistant mechanic (basically i did all the scrub work) and noticing that out of 11 mechanics, 8 were honda techs and 3 were chevy techs.

the reality is that when a customer would bring in a honda for an oil change and the service adviser informed them that it was time for the regularly scheduled xxx mile service, the honda owners would invariably spend the money (typically in the $250-$400 range) while the chevy owners typical response was something along the lines of "f*ck it, it's a chevy".

i saw honda accords with less than 20k miles on them that had blown engines, blown trannies (no, not transsexuals), you name it.

and i recently was looking for a cheap used car and from interacting with owners of various cars it just reinforced something that i long suspected: the perception of durable japanese cars doesn't seem to jive with the reality, a few examples:

the guy that was selling a used toyota camry, with 90k miles, a blown tranny, asking $3500 for it and here's the kicker, in his advertisement he actually said: "needs a tranny but that's nothing, everyone knows that toyotas last forever". LOL.

the snapper head that was selling a nissan altima, with 170k miles, for $1700, the front fascia was held on with wire, the trans slipped, the engine sounded like a lawn mower and actually stalled on me after being driven less than 20 feet and she actually said to me "it's nothing, it's a nissan, it'll last forever".

the clown that was selling a mazda 626 for $1000, the car had 125k miles and it had a vacuum leak, in fact it almost sounded as if one of the pistons was bad, and he actually said to me "you don't understand, you're not buying a car, you're buying the name, this is a mazda".

i ended picking up a ford contour, with 59k original miles, new brakes and tires, that had a minor oil leak, for $1000 bucks. the oil leak turned out to an improperly threaded drain plug that cost me all of $5 bucks to fix and another $200 for a clock spring to fix the horn.

[zzyzzx]

Don't Worry About Toyota, its new Kamikaze model is going to be a real smash.

[zzyzzx]

..

[zzyzzx]

In so far as I can tell, no Honda or Toyota is any better than my Escort.

[zzyzzx]

Actually I thought it was Mitsubishi that was so famous for covering up product defects.