Doug,
I can understand how you feel. I work as an electrician, for Ford at the
Romeo Engine Plant. I hired in the in 1989. Since we were building the
engine plant we went to a lot of classes. We learned that Ford changed its
way of doing business because of the Japanese. What you say is completely
true and very embarrassing. They're whole focus was on numbers, we've since
learnt different. Today quality is the first priority. Anyone can stop the
line if something is wrong. No we're not perfect but we sure as hell are
trying. The union has a quality rep that you can call if you feel quality is
being ignored. A lot of the members of upper management in the plant come
and go as they move up the ladder. But we as members of an engine building
team will either prosper or fail with this plant are here for the long term.
The product that we deliver to you determines our future. I assure you that
the majority of us are very concerned with quality. Doug, I appo;igize about
the past and hope you check us out in the future.
Paul

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

snipped

How can you not understand? Millions of people got ****ed up the ass by
the American car makers. Those memories don't fade for many, many years.
Toyota offers cars that are damned close to perfect. Unless you require a
"niche car" like the one you bought, why gamble with an American car?

My brother in law used to bitch at me about how I was costing Americans
jobs by buying Japanese. My response was simple: My second Ford was in the
shop 5 times in the first year (1975). My boss read me the riot act: Find
a way to get to work, or work somewhere else. In other words, the Ford was
about to cost me MY job. When it finally died, I bought a Toyota. My
logic: If American engineers can't build a car correctly, they deserve to
lose their jobs.

It's an interesting phenomenon in America: Pick 10 products, one of them
being a cars. For each product, ask 10,000 people what should happen to
the manufacturers of those products if they're poorly built for years on
end. For 9 of the products, people will say what they should: The
manufacturers should go out of business. For cars, they'll cut the
manufacturers a ridiculous amount of slack. It's as if cars have some sort
of religious status. I makes no sense at all.