Why can't American companies make really great cars? Or, will American companies begin to make really great cars again?

A lot of these kinds of questions make a lot more sense if you flip them over and assume “they” are doing it on purpose.

Before Iacocca, whoever ran Chrysler went robot crazy which is why the Plymouth Voyager was such a POS. They didn’t care about quality, they just wanted them to run off the production line and had somewhere around 30–40% or more being recalled for defects.

Look at this and tell me that we aren’t getting hosed.

Most of the cars Ford have made for the European market have actually been pretty good. Right across the range from the really small to the large family cars they have all been good to drive, been reliable and haven’t fallen apart.

Thinking about it a bit more the cars I see over here are probably made by Germans which might explain that.

As far as long lasting ability, American designers/companies tend to go for cars that have higher horsepower, or beefier engines or what have you, this plays into the shorter lifespan of engines/other parts. High powered cars simply break down faster.

Honestly though you’d be surprised how the level of “durability” has evened out in recent years. A lot of people still favor foreign cars, but now it’s more because of quality and gas mileage (that and the general feeling that foreign cars are better). All of the domestic cars I’ve bought that were reasonably new held up pretty well.

Lastly, don’t think that foreign manufacturers are immune to problems. My brother works for a major foreign car company as an engineer. One of their cornerstone cars had MAJOR transmission issues for the last few years, and they have NO clue why (I won’t say exactly what or which company as my brother told me in confidence). His job for most of the last few years was to take the transmissions out and check them, they were testing whether it would cost them less to issue the recall or just pay the people that complain.

Not all American cars are made poorly or are not “outstanding”. For example: A new Dodge Challenger R/T (when driven correctly) gets 16mpg city and 25mpg highway. Now, that doesn’t sound great in comparison to a Toyota Prius, or whatever, but this is a large car with a 5.7 liter HEMI, 372 horsepower stock – that isn’t an outstanding vehicle? To me, that is a great modern American muscle car.

US cars have a higher incidence of failure because they have too many options and too many variable choices for consumers. Each variable creates a failure opportunity. Cars that are perceived better built, such as Honda, have minimal consumer choice, and fewer failure opportunities.

Chevrolet Corvette. Case made.

On the other hand, there’s the Dodge Caliber…

I really like the Corvette but it was out performed by a Ford Fiesta in a recent TV road test

@Lightlyseared Multiple things. One, the Corvette isn’t designed to handle in such closed quarters as the interior of a mall. It’s rear wheel drive and about 400 more hp than the Fiesta, not at all good for driving on a high slip surface in closed quarters. Two, I don’t know who was driving the vette, but the host of that show who was driving the fiesta is a veteran race car driver/car enthusiast who literally makes a living driving cars. If anyone was going to beat a vette in a fiesta, it’s him. The Corvette is built for raw power and big race tracks, rematch them there and I can almost promise a vette victory.

@dlm812 You’re really comparing apples and oranges there. The Prius is a compact fuel efficient commuter car. The Challenger is a brute force horsepower machine built pretty much soley for the purpose of racing. I think the OP though was referring more to the durability of American cars vs foreign cars. For example an American car might be more likely to have some form of engine trouble in the first 100k miles, whereas the foreign car might make it to 200k without any problems (not saying that that’s true, but I think that’s what he’s asking).

@westy81585 Thanks for pointing out the obvious there. I posted the link because I thought it was funny not because I thought the Fiesta could actually out perform the vette.

The ‘vette was probably being driven by The Stig so imagine it gave the fiesta a run for its money. Also it probably helps if you see the whole road test sequence as it was taking the piss out of people who complain that the show (Top Gear) only looks at super cars and doesn’t road test cars that audience are likely to buy. It ended up with the little Fiesta being driven off a beach landing craft full of marines while being shot at They were trying to be thorough.

American car manufacturers can, but they choose not to.

Not out of conspiracy, mind you. They choose not to because they’ve elected to seek profits in a different way. A way that isn’t profitable. They basically made decisions they knew were bad, but kept their fingers crossed hoping it’d work out anyways.

It’s not just any one thing. There’s a myriad of little things that add up into one big mess. And, mark my words, any car company that takes bailout money is one that will see more doom long before anything gets better. There are so many strings attached to that money that it’s like signing a deal with the devil. Yah, they get something short-term, but in the long-term they’ll realize that relinquishing autonomy of the company is very much akin to losing one’s soul.