What would you purchase?

<_< Seems to me that he's playing you all and the more active threads, the happier he'll be.
Will it be 5 threads by 5:00?

 

Alright. I believe I will stop soon then.

 

Naturally, it will be tough, and shame on GM and Ford for getting themselves into such a hole where it will hurt so many.

You are singing a different tone from yesterday when you were blasting Toyota's vehicles too for having bad fuel enconomy (you said that about the hybrids too) bad emissions (unsubstantiated) and bad quality.

Toyota has a number of environmental achievements. That does not mean every single Toyota vehicle is 'green'... moreover, they are a car company, and by that very fact, are doing harm to the planet more than if cars and that company never existed. But it's all RELATIVE. Toyota isn't a saint, they don't run the whole company like a charity, but if you're going to consider their environmental record, compare it to their peers. They are not a hero, but they are better than average. Room for improvement? Yes of course...

I don't believe they try to depict themselves as environmental heros but exactly what they are... better than average.

Moreover I'm still thinking about this latest poll you've made and the implications... you are hinting at how where the car company's headquarters is and patriotism should be the #3 or #4 thing that people consider when they buy a car... listening to some of your rhetoric, I can make the case that you're arguing that being a Domestic should be #1 or #2 priority when someone goes to buy a car.

You're trying to get all of us to say that if all things are equal, then by all means keep the money in the US...

BUT... all things are very rarely equal. I must keep with my assertion that if a person picks a foreign car over a domenstic, there's a pretty damn good reason, and patriotism shouldn't be THAT high on people's priority lists. Other things like personal safety, personal budget, and predicted reliability are more important... heck... in reality vanity is so important (I admit I am vain too), that the look of the vehicle should supercede even that factor of "is it domestic?"

 

The only reason I bought my FIRST foreign car (at least by nameplate) was that it was the Prius. That being said, I would buy the Ford Prius. However, that will change if Toyota starts making Prii in the US.

 

i buy cars that are made to last.

i've never seen a ford make it much more than 5 years without needing some really expensive repairs.

my husband drives an 87 camry, at 250k miles it's running pretty well and only needs a couple things like brakes and such. he is happy with it. when he got his first camry (it was given to him in a financial emergency) he was a gm man all the way. after going through and fixing all that needed to be fixed, he preferred toyota because of the way the car was put together.

and don't even get him started on fords. he's worked on a few and refuses to touch another one, ever again, because of the cheap manufacturing quality.

 

1995 Ford Mustang, 145K miles, 0 problems aside from standard wear and tear parts. (still have, summer car)

2001 Ford F150 Lariat, 100K miles, 0 problems (traded in for Prius)

1994 Mustang Cobra 104K miles, likewise... (traded in for F150)

Ford isn't that bad, again, every manufacturer has their specialty. Ford's lies within their trucks and Mustang line...


h34r:

 

I drive a Ford right now, and pound for pound, it gets as good as the prius and the whole time without using any regen braking.

Check it out sometime. 18.5mpg, 7800lbs vs 50mpg, 2950lbs.

Ford is 2.64 times the weight of the prius...

18.5mpg * 2.64 is... 48.91mpg.

Mine has 6 years, 101,000 miles and cookin like a champ. Prius to replace it in January.
I could only hope it holds up nearly as good as my Ford has.

 

I have had a number of Fords. My Paternal Grandfather worked in the first Ford assembly plant. That was before the assembly line. He was a cabinet maker by trade and worked on the wood parts of the early cars including the Model T. In those days assembly workers could sell cars. One day "Old Henry" told him "Stanley you make more money selling Fords than you do here you should do it full time" he had a dealership until the depression when he and my family moved back to "the farm". My Maternal Grandfather was at the time of his retirement chief purchasing officer for Ford Motor Company. I have worked on a Ford assembly line during college, thanks to my Grandfathers connections. It paid well but was not a good job! My Toyota is a very good car and maybe better than my Fords we shall see. I think that Ford has made great improvement in quality and I might just consider a Focus Hybrid. My daughter has driven one for 5 years and it has been a good and reliable car for her. I just don't know.

 

That's a interesting thought, but fuel economy does not necessarily scale linearly with weight...

And weight is probably a bad measure to use. If you've got a car that weighs twice as much as another car, it doesn't mean you get twice as much utility out of it.

mileage per utility might be more interesting.

 

Well, I already voted with my wallet. The FEH is what I wanted two years ago, when I had to dump the VUE. Ford had delayed the vehicles launch at the time, and due to the VUE's constant and expensive if it had been out of warranty repairs, I couldn't wait. Therefore, I bought my '03 Prius then. Ford deserves credit for embracing hybrid technology, instead of throwing the corporate equivalent of a tantrum for why they cannot build hybrids like GM did. Because of this, a domestic car once again sits in my driveway.

That said, I have to give the nod to Toyota. If it hadn't been for the Prius, there would be no real hybrid market, and no FEH. Honda's IMA system received a lackluster reception at best when it was first introduced.

 

I would buy from whichever one designed and built the car.

 

That's irrelevant actually. It is relevant regarding acceleration but is not even slightly relevant regarding cruising, which is what you're doing most of the time. When going at a fixed speed, the only reason any effort is required to maintain that speed is due to friction and drag. These forces have nothing to do with the car's weight; however, a heavier car has much greater inertia which means, if it has the same aerodynamic drag as a light car, it will slow down at a much lower rate than the light car and thus appear to be affected less by drag, but the catch is it takes a proportionally equal amount of force to speed the car back up to maintain its original speed.

What this means is it takes exactly the same amount of force to maintain a fixed speed with a light car as it does with a heavy car, assuming all else is equal. So your car is alot less efficient than you're thinking.

EDIT: This also assumes you're driving on perfectly level roads... if you're going uphill then that's effectively the same as accelerating as you're trying to negate the acceleration of gravity. A heavy car will obviously suffer alot here.

 

I wouldn't consider myself an unpatriotic American in any sense. I've owned a Saturn for the last 9 years. But quality and long term reliability trumps American-made in my book every time. If I'm putting my hard earned $ on a new vehicle, you can bet I'll pick the vehicle that I expect to last me longer than the other, foreign or domestic. Usually foreign (not European though-their reliability ratings aren't so great either).

 

Everything being 100% equal, I'd probably go with the Toyota. All 4 vehicles I've owned have all been American and none have gone past 100k miles without issues. My wife has wanted me to get a Toyota for awhile (her family is big on Toyota - brother is a mechanic) and I decided it was time to give it a shot.

Why not add, Jeep, GM and others as well. Why limit it to Just Ford and Toyota?

 

All things being equal, it would be a toss-up. But things are not equal in the realm of quality and reliablity, with Toyota still holding the edge (at least in the car market). It seems that even if both were a first year design, I get the feeling that Toyota works much harder to get a quality product to the floor, ahead of just getting a vehicle out there.

For instance, I have thought there with the Prius being out for several years, the Highlander could have come out several months or a year earlier and been the first hybrid SUV out there. If I were young and carefree, I would seriously think about the Ford Mustang, I haven't ridden in a new one, but I love the look and I have heard good things about it.

 

Toyota is letting Ford use some of its patents for hybrids. Ford and others want this techcology which is a positive step but they are no where near Toyota in this field. Toyota will always be the leader in new technology. In my opinion Ford will never have cars as durable, long lasting and of such quality as Toyotas cars. You can disagree but I strongly believe this.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/archivedSt...D%26minisite%3D