Most of those Asian vehicles do rust away; but I would not ignore the
fact that most domestic vehicles did the same thing right through the
80's.  Even today I'm surprised at how many late model vehicles I see
with rocker panels rusted out!  I guess New England salt conquers all.

My wife likes her Civic, I think it's a tin can--but it does what it
does quite well (point A to point B).  Which is what the Asian imports
do.  One has to remember that in Japan, their registration causes the
price (of registration) to increase as the vehicles age goes up.  Hard
to justify making the vehicle last forever when the users won't.  That,
and it seems most American consumers want a new car (or at least new to
them) every few years anyhow.

Me, I like my VW TDI.  When was the last time a domestic could offer a
station wagon that did 46mpg (real world mpg for me), 700+miles on a
tank, will run on biofuels, and comes in a stick?  I must be an oddball,
but I thought it made for an ideal family man's car.

Shawn Upton, KB1CKT
Test Engineer
Allegro MicroSystems, Inc
[log in to unmask]
603.626.2429/fax: 603.641.5336

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Goulet
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 8:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] A Modern Parable - car topic

Your paying more than you think because if you have to buy one every 3
years at a loss of at least 8K then you threw away 32K plus the fire and
theft is higher on those cars. You avoid the mechanical problems on
those cars because at 4-5 years the expensive things like the computer,
water pump and the other things. As the unibody starts to rust the whole
car becomes unsafe. The basic engine is good. My Toyota Supra engine
died from metal fatique, the subaru couldn't be lifted up, the floor and
seats went up on the lift  but the wheeels and sides stayed on the
floor. They had to throw it out. The last Subaru my wife leased was good
for the  4 wheel drive but was like riding in a golf cart, the leather
seats were hard and uncomfortable, the noise from the wheels and
transmission on this new car was terrible. Of course if all you drive
are these kind of cars then you wouldn't know it until you drive a real
car like a Caddy CTS or the full size caddy or Mecury MKS. The Nissans
a!
nd Suba
rus cars were rust buckets. I've kept all my American cars 66 Mailbu, 74
Mercury for 7-8 years and the  people I sold them too ran them for many
more years. I sold my 1985 Chevy Blaiser to my painter who as of last
week had close to 200K miles and running fine. My current GMC SUV year
2000 and Cadillac CTS also year 2000 are running fantastic with only a
brake job and no rust! These cars ride so much better than those light
little foreign cars that it is not even close. The money we save buy
keeping them we can use to pay cash when the market or good opportunity
arises. 
PS my 1969 Caddy convertible and 1969 Buick GrandSport are running great
as well and needed paint only because of the  acid rain. All the old
foreign cars have rusted away many years ago.
 

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