G35MT is a frikkin genious! Not only is he spot on with his comments about unionism in the US, but also the result, which is less (or no) pride by that labor force of creating a good product. Unionism only creates an environment of entitlism, where even though paid very well, union workers always feel they aren't being paid enough. Guess what that means? Only doing enough to keep their jobs or equivelently...slacking off to the greatest extent possible.

Unions suck.

03.5 6spd DG/G aero pk/kit + Hyper Grounded
FX35 Blk/Brick Tech pkg
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

 

US assembled cars suck period. My acura cl first gen was built in the US i believe and i had tranny probs all my time i had it. My friends dad alos bought an oddessy and had tranny probs because it wasnt built in ***. From now on i will only trust cars made in *** if i bougth a *** car. Its worth buying a car that cost over 4k if it doesnt give you annoying expensive problems.

From a seller standpoint, of course seling a car 4k less to a buyer is a great thing but little that the buyer knows that its cheaply made..... car saleman..... cant trust them.....Its very hard to find a decent honest one. The ones taht are honest are actually the service and mechanics for the company.... they tell you how it is. From what i have learn, you should talk to service people or mechanics before purchasing a car.

 

I would not buy a car if it was assembled in the US...my 03 acura cl type s was crap...The G's biggest seller was it was assembled in Japan and it was 90 or 95% japanese

Northface

 

I guess I'm lucky that my 98 Accord coupe didn't have any problems other than a blown alternator that was replaced under warrenty. I've always thought that the car company determines the quality of the cars, but it does make sense that US union workers make sub standard cars. I was negatively affected by the west coast dock worker's problem last year and I'm also a Major League Baseball fan (baseball has a greedy union), so I've come to hate powerful unions who keeps asking for more money while doing a worse job. I guess until those union workers start doing good work, it's always going to be a risk buying US made cars. And that's too bad because I want to support US made products, but not at the expense of quality.

2004 Diamond Graphite/Graphite AT
Premium, Nav., 18" Wheels

 

We have a large Toyota plant here in Cambridge, Ontario which so far has managed to avoid a union. The quality of our cars is very competative and some have said made as well as JDM autos.
GSM

<font color=red>GSM</font color=red> <font color=black>Silverstone Coupe</font color=black>

 

It's not as simple as the quality of the car being determined on where was built. I think more importantly is the materials used to build the car. Fit and finish issues are inlarge due to faulty build practices but are also dependent on design of the part to fit well with the other parts.

Northface and Xenon mentioned their CL's Tranny being crappy. Unless it was an installation issue, the real problem lies with Honda using inferior parts not becuase it was made in America.

American Vs Japanese is a toss up. I believe that Nissan has used Good materials in making my G35 but I believe their workmanship fails. Otherwise my G wouldn't be at the dealer right now getting various squeaks and rattles looked at. My Taurus SHO was built well. The main problem with it is all of the substandard parts Ford used on it that fail. So go figure

Jim
'03 Sedan
Brilliant Silver/Graphite
6MT/ Premium package
Sport tuned suspension
Aerodynamic Body Kit
Navigation and Satellite Radio

 

I too live in a town with a Toyota plant (of which my wife works). The union is starting another push and it gets closer every time. I dislike unions myself, but I can say that if they do go union this time it is management's fault. They have been decreasing benefits at the same time as profits have been record breaking. Employees are merely a commodity, like steel or plastics. Many line employees' bodies break down after 8 - 10 years at which time they are simply cast aside like scrap metal. Don't get me wrong, they are paid exceedingly well during this time, but it can be relatively short. This plant has, in the past, been one of the highest rated North American plants when it comes to quality, but I think it has already begun to deteriorate due to the reasons I stated above.

04 5AT Coupe, DG/G, premium
If we weren't all crazy, we'd all go insane!

 

I was happier it was built all in Japan.

Black / Black 2004 GcoupeMT. Premium. Splash Guardz.

 

Forget it~ I'd pay $4000 more for a Japanese built rebadged Skyline Coupe any day. Sorry, but I have absolutely no faith in US built Nissan vehicles so far. *Acura yes, Honda yes, Nissan...... no*

 

Now here in Alabama we have a Mercades and Nissan plant and are now building a Hundai plant here now And since then some of the automobiles have slowly come down in price but to see it you have to pay attention to the prices all the time.

The sky is the limit
350gt Ride on [img]/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

 

i'm sorry about your car is at dealer to fix all the problems but let me tell you something...
doesn't matter how good materials they use every car can't be same.. if i remember correclty, about 5% of cars are defected from the factory even though they used same materials... it's each person's luck not to pick those 5% cars... and also US built have higher percentage of defect cars.. 8-9%... *** built surely have way more chances not to get those defect ones than US built ones...

 

There is really no hard and fast data that supports the contention that all NA built autos are crap. Quality or lack thereof is a product of design, production methods, workforce and part quality.
I work for a company that has designed numerous auto plants, in both Canada and the US, for both the Big 3 and Asian Companies (Honda, Toyota, Hyundai). In reponse to some of the statements made above, let me say that:

Currently none of the Japanese-owned plants in North America are unionized. The Japanese treat their employees pretty well, and there is little of the "us against them" attitiude you find in the Big 3 plants, which has prevented the unions from gaining a foothold.
The foreign companies do try to source their parts here, in order to exceed a percentage of local content that qualifies them as "domestically" produced. Not sure if it is only 51% as quoted previously, I think it is higher.
Honda Odessey vans sold in the US are built at the new Honda plant in Lincoln, Alabama - there is no connection to Ford, as someone suggested. A second plant is currently under contruction there, to build the Honda Pilot and Acura MDX.
In Canada, the Honda Plant at Alliston builds the Civics, Pilots and MDX for all North America, Oddessey's for Canada, and the Acura EL (a Civic clone sold only in Canada). The build quality is consistently top notch. I owned a 1996 Civic built at Alliston and it was absolutely trouble free.
The Toyota plant at Cambridge builds the Corolla, Solara and now the Lexus R330, all top-rated for quality.

Personally, I would not worry about whether a Japenese car model was built in Japan or North America, but more about the quality history of the particular model or manufacturer.

 

The Mercedez-Benz ML-320 is the only Benz built and manufactured in America and mine is a PIECE OF CRAP! It has been to the dealer over 20 times, has squeeks, rattles, rolls what have you. I hate it. Maybe its just a benz in general, but my mom has a CL-500 and it rarely has anyproblems.
I think that the fact a car is built in america is a MAJOR negative. I always look at the sticker before buying a car and make sure most of it is manufactured overseas and glad that the g35 is mostly built in japan... 98 or 95 % i believe

 

For me, the issue isn't whether the car is assembled here, but whether most of the parts are sourced from local vendors here. Back in '90, I bought a Canadian-built Civic Si, and while the build quality wasn't bad, the parts on the car were in some instances clearly inferior in quality and workmanship when compared with the JDM version. Whether things have improved since then, I don't know, but I wouldn't want to take a chance on a $38k car. It's like buying an expensive SLR camera or lens. I would gladly pay the extra $$$ to buy one manufactured in Japan.

RainMeister
'04 G35C 6MT, diamond graphite, premium, nav, aero