Foreign cars

Joe, sorry to hear about your Mopar woes. Sounds like you have had more dealer issues than product issues. As a former Mopar dealership tech I can tell you that most Mopar dealerships, from a customer's standpoint are very poorly run. The service dept. is a profit center which is geared to... you guessed it, generate profits! Customers come second. Add to this a poor technician training program and a system that's designed to part the customer from his/her money and you have a deeply engrained problem in (I believe) most American car dealerships that's very tough to change. The customer very rarely does business directly with the manufacturer. They do business with the manufacturer's representative, the dealer, who is a franchisee and a separate and independent business that doesn't always have the manufacturer's best interests at heart. Most dealers lose around 75% of their service customers to the aftermarket. Very unfortunate.

That being said, my family have ALWAYS bought Mopars. Everything from Darts, Monacos, Gran Furys, cheap little Omnis and K-cars etc., to $40k Grand Cherokees and 300s. My 3 sisters don't maintain their cars worth a damn, to the point of being abusive. My dad at least has his oil changed, but not much else. For every Mopar you've had a bad experience with, I can name at least three in my family that have gone well past 100k miles with little or no problems. Yes, we've had door handles break and other stupid stuff go bad, but don't make it sound like foreign cars have no problems. As a former employee of foreign brand dealerships, I can tell you EVERY manufacturer, bar none, has issues with their cars. The difference is how the problems get handled by the dealers, which in turn drives customer perception of quality and value.

Chaz, you mentioned no choice in electronics, clothing, etc. It was only 40 -50 years ago when this country was the world standard in electronics with companies like Zenith and Motorola leading the way. You're right, WE LET the Japanese take the manufacturing of these products from us, and now we're doing the same thing with the automotive segment. Back then, the average guy went to work, saved his money and bought the very same product he or his neighbor helped produce. A Zenith TV, a Westinghouse refridgerator, and a Ford, GM or Chrysler of his choosing.

Every time someone buys a foreign product, it's the same as taking someone's job away in our country. Sooner or later it cascades into a 9.2% unemployment with very little being manufactured here. Know what the difference is between a recession and depression? Recession is when your neighbor loses his job, depression is when you lose your job.

Someone mentioned isolationism. That's an extreme and unrealistic catagorization by those that would do nothing and let things go on as they are. Yes we are in a global economy and that's fine, but how about some self-preservation? If others rely on us for our grain, great! They better be our friends, right? Just like we suck up to the oil producing countries (even though we have our own vast supplies, don't get me started!) Why is it that other countries put huge tariffs on the products we send them but we sign one-sided free trade agreements that allow, nay, encourage ourcorporations to trade jobs for profits? Why do we send monetary aid to other countries when our country has to borrow that very same money and pay interest on it? Why can we send tens of thousands of troops to protect another country's borders yet fail to utilize the few thousand that would be required to protect our own?

I could go on but I'll step down from my soapbox now. Sorry for the rant.