well... just for you mustang,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/petercu...72868/sizes/o/
they're not all domestics. this was my friends beloved beater... if the roads were too bad for his bike he was driving this till now... great car.
imho, it shouldnt surprise anyone that the vast majority of trade ins are domestics, or that the vast majority of cars being purchased aren't. under this program or not. look at what WE DRIVE :/

 

I was going to use this program to trade in my Dads old 91 maxima which is barely running and makes a humming noise when it goes about 35mph. The car is not eligible under "Cash for Clunkers" because its new mpg is 19. When I went to go buy my sister a new car, the cars I seen that got traded in under the "Cash for Clunkers" were mostly Chevy Astro Vans, and Old trucks n SUV's.

I dont mind getting SUV's who give horrible gas mileage off the road. They should make an extra special offer to trade in Hummers.

 

That's the part that kills me.

The American auto industry is a HUGE part of the american economy. It touches nearly every state and employs millions from the guys building the cars all the way down to guys machining replacement components sold at Autozone.

So it sucks to sit here and complain about how we need to support them when my driveway had two Foreign cars in it. (Lexus and Infiniti). So yes, it's a little hypocritical since I don't practice what I preach. (I do own a Ford...but it's more of a toy tghat sees maybe 200 miles/month...so i don't count it)

To be honest, the reason why I don't drive a domestic is because none offered what I wanted in a Sport AWD (RWD biased) luxury sedan until the '09 CTS4 came out. To be frank, when it comes time for a new vehicle, I will give the Caddy CTS/STS an honest look. They are about the closest thing to what i'm looking for from a domestic automaker. Lincoln's MKS and MKZ are nice, but i can't stand their Transverse AWD setup which is mostly FWD. If only they made the LS in AWD I would have bought one.

Personally, i think the unions are to blame for a lot of the domestic automakers shortfalls. It's hard to pour money into R&D and Quality control when a vasy majority of the money you make has to go to paying benefits to someone who hasn't turned a wrench on the line in 20 years. Import companies employing people here pay very good wages but don't have to pay out what Ford and GM and chyrsler have to pay to the UAW. The Unions were a good idea in the 20's...but now all they do is inflate wages for people with HS educations who expect to work their whole life screwing doors onto frames and get $30/hour to do so. I remember reading an article over the growing solar industry employing non-union labor paying around $10/hour. At the end, a union rep was quoted as saying something along the lines of getting the union into these companies to bring up wages for people. It makes you wonder why we build factories in china. Why pay someone $35/hour to turn some screws when you can pay someone $2/day.

But i have owned both domestics and import cars. WHile a lot of guys bash domestics on this site, i'd have to say i've had great luck with all the ones I bought. My last '03 Mustang gave me 5 years and 70K miles of very reliable service. When the warranty was almost up, i couldn't even find any sort of annoying broken trim or something to bring it in for. It just really angers me when i see people who've never even owned a domestic vehicle call it unreliable and then make a thread asking why their front suspension knocks and their VDC and slip lights come on randomly.

But like i said before...i can only say so much....because I own two Import cars myself

 

Exactly the same reason I ended up with a G35. It's basically between Japanese and German if you are looking for a true sports sedan.