What's a foreign car?

Foreign company or foreign made/parts/assembled?

Is my Camaro foreign? ...I think my wife's Equinox is.

Are BMW's and Hyundai's domestic (amonst others)? There's a BMW plant in SC and a Hyundai plant in AL. Should we stop buying those and put Americans out of work?

 

Exactly, the lines are so blurred anymore with who owns what, and where its made, how do you know you're buying American?

Granted, the corvette is assembled in America, by American workers, for an American company, but I'm sure a lot of the parts are outsourced from outside the U.S.

But a far more confusing purchase is a Daimler Chrysler vehicle. They are made in American, but partially owned by a foreign company / merger / corporation, so who are you really supporting?

What if GM decided to merge with Honda? What then? Don't say it can't happen, look at Chrysler. They fell under hard financial times, just like GM is now. Diamler came in with cash, resources, and a solid infrastructure and now we have Diamler-Chrysler. Who knows, we could see a General Honda Motors in the not so distant future.

 

yes, it is true that there are some models of 'foreign' cars that are solely designed, built and sold in the US. I consider a product to be 'foreign' if the company HQ is based out of another country. yes, auto workers in the US get paid well, but all the real profits go to the corporation, and thus the bulk of the tax dollars from that profit is going to another country.

 

GM already uses the honda 3.5L engine in some of their vehicles. They traded the GM truck motors for it. It wouldn't be a shock to see a foreign car company like toyota coming in and trying to save either ford or GM. However it probably is unlikely.

 

I buy GMs and Fords, regardless of blurred lines historically speaking those are American based, domestic nameplate brands.
Just because a GM car has a German fuel injector or Japanese hose clamp doesn't mean one should just bail on the whole thing and buy a BMW or Toyota with a clear conscience...god forbid someone needs a fingernail amputated they don't tell the doctor to just take the whole arm.


Then I've likely bought my last new GM car. There are a lot of clean used cars out there for me if need be.
Let's hope not though.

 

What vehicles is GM using Honda motors in? I don't recall hearing ANYTHING about that!

And I think The Alchemist had a great point. It's not just hose clamps or fuel injectors, it's entire cars.

Think about all of the Mitsubishi powertrains Chrysler installed in the late 80's and all through the 90's. Hell think how many entire cars were Mitsubishi, even into the 21st century. And now with Daimler in the mix it's a complete blur from here.

Then there's GM, their Geo line was made by Toyota and I think Izuzu, the medium duty "W" body trucks that are almost entirely Izuzu, and with their aquisition of Daewoo we now have the Korean made Aveo being sold with a bowtie grille. There are other examples out there I just don't feel like getting into them.

Now before we let the big Blue Oval off the hook, let us never forget how many Mazda powertrains found their way into Ford cars, in fact once again, entire cars were built by Mazda and marketed as Fords. Now they're a Ford brand. The SHO motor of years ago was a Yamaha motor as well.

The point is the days of the Big Three are OVER, like it or not. We're a global economy, whether it works of fails has yet to be determined, but that's what companies are competing in these days. It's not just cars, it's industrial manufacturing, tech support, software engineering, assembly work, customer service, the list of how much work is being exported is nearly endless.

I think the global economy can work, we just have to get more balanced trade, and possibly impose higher tarrifs on countries that impose them on us, particularly affluent ones like Japan.

In the mean time, the cost of living in the US is at an all time high. Real estate is through the roof, as are health care costs, insurance, now oil and gas, taxes, and all kinds of other crap they keep sneaking in on us. Most of us here in the North East should be very familiar with the uneven inflation rates, real estate has more than doubled in the last 5 or so years, how many of you recived a 200% increase in salary in that time?

My point is a dollar just doesn't spend like it used to. In an economy where we are used to a high standard of life, people are going to spend their money on whatever gets them the most for that hard, and getting harder, to earn dollar.

 

My saturn vue redline has the driveline out of the acura MDX 3.5 L v-tec with the 5 speed auto. I believe the equinox uses it as well. I'd have to look into what other cars their using the motor in but that's the two I know of. It wasn't a big publicized thing as they traded the 6.0 truck motor to use in the new honda trucks and GM got the 3.5 they use in the MDX,pilot and oddysey.

 

The Equinox has the A5, but it still uses the 3.4 pushrod motor...at least my wife's does.

 

you're probably right I didn't know if it was an option or not to upgrade. I just guessed it might be the same since it had the A5 tranny.

 

True, but my point (or question) is: global economy or otherwise, are you (and others) actually saying that it DOES NOT matter and that there are zero negative effects on the U.S. auto industry whatsoever whether one buys a Toyota or a Chevrolet? As an American living and paying taxes in America, am I actually now WRONG for buying a Chevrolet?


Also true, and this prompts me to bring up another important point. The frustrating problems/issues you mention above were virtually non existent back in the '50s and '60s (so I've read and have been told), unemployment was low and families existed comfortably on only ONE household income and guess what? Almost NO ONE drove an import brand name vehicle...coincidence?

 

Now you want to bring up a social/economic historic debate?

Fact is 40, 50, 60 years ago, men made 2-3 times as much money as women so women typically did not need to work since their husbands made a sufficient amount to support the entire family. One of the downfalls of women's lib, is not that equality has kicked in, women have to work as hard and as long as men to sustain that same comfort level as families did 40-60 years ago. Before anyone screams that I'm against women's lib, please don't. I fully support a women's right to fair wages and treatment, but they also must now share the burden or working full time till they are 65, if not later.

My wife and I both have good jobs. We both make a fair salary and have made wise decisions. We invested our money in real estate rather than vacations, toys, jewelry etc. We both put our selves through college, **** I am still paying school loans equal to a car payment and will for another 2 years. But I'm tired of hearing people complain and blame others for situations in life.

Make tough decisions, stick with it, and don't be afraid to drop back, replan an attack and move forward with it.

All of these plant closings are a fact of life. Just as the industrial revolution took away tens of thousands of manual labor jobs, we are now in anther revolution in the US. The majority of the workforce has turned to a service related economy. Manufacturing in the united states in no longer a financial option for a lot of companies trying to survive. The writing has been on the wall for a couple decades now, but people refused to beleive that they could ever lose their jobs because they got too comfortable. I feel for those people, but when things change, you have one of two choices, change with it, or get left behind.

As for real-estate prices, it's all about supply and demand. The interest rates were never this low when our parents were buying their houses. They could only dream of paying single digit interest rates, so they couldn't afford to pay a lot for their houses.

Recently they are building a multi million dollar 'custom estate' neighborhood less than a quarter mile from my neighborhood. All of my neighbors has asked 'who can afford these homes'? Well guess what, all 26 homes priced from 1.5 to 4.0 million are sold in less than 2 years. Moral: if somebody's willing to pay for it, somebody's willing to sell it.

Before I finish, let me say this. I totally beleive in trying to support and stimulate our own economy. Case in point, yesterday my wife and I went to buy a Christmas tree. We finally decided to go to a local tree farm and cut down a nice 8 foot blue spruce and paid over 100 bucks for it. We could have gone to the k-mart parking lot and buy a tree from the back of a tractor trailor from who knows where for the same price, but instead decided to put the money back into a local business.

Merry Christmas to everyone, may you have a safe and happy holiday.

 

i always try to support the local business when applicacable. (F walmart) i'm proud of you for taking the initiatiave.

 

I agree, I've been saying that for a while. With the large percentage of women in the workplace, in particular, the professional workplace, we have inflated the amount of spendable money in the consumer economy. The result is, stuff costs more since now familes have double the amount of income potential. Housing prices are perhaps the most shining example of this, as they are are more market driven than cost driven. Compared to hard consumer goods like electronics or food etc, which are typicly priced a fairly standard % above their manufacturing cost for their particular industries, housing is almost entirely driven by how much people can, and will, spend.

This is all true, but I think the reason this happened is we LET it happen. We opened our borders, we lowered or eliminated import tarrifs, we allow domestic companies to send work overseas without penalty, etc. What we are left with is the service industry, doing tasks and providing services that cannot be exported.

Coinciently, and perhaps ironicly, I just happen to do service for a Japanese owned industrial machinery company.


I usually buy from the local fire departments that sell trees during the holidays.

 

NOOOO!!!! I'm not saying that at all. Trust me Marc, I worked in industrial fields for years, it's definately going down the tubes and it sucks. In my nine years of being a machinst/moldmaker/diemaker I can't even begin to tell you how many times I was laid off, hell over half of those companies are no longer even in business. Although we are on a bit of an upslide. As I mentioned in my post above, I work for a machine tool company, and sales are through the roof right now, this is the best year they've ever had in their 25 or so years here.

There were other reasons for this too.

People expected less. Many familes had only one car. People didn't live in these McMansions they live in now. Look at most of the houses from the 50's and 60's, a majority of them are very small by modern standards. Basicly, people just didn't have the material demand we have today. Nobody these days can fathom surviving without a TV in every room, 9,000,000 channels on cable or satelite, a computer, iPod, digital camera, video camera, cellphone that also takes pictures and video, 4 bedroom 2500+ square foot house (for 3 people), expensive clothes, etc, etc, etc.

 

I just got a news letter in the mail from our real estate agent summerizing the housing market. These days the average home is just over 2400 sq ft, up from 1800 in just 1990. In 1975, the average home 1600 sq ft. In the 15 years from 1975 to 1990, the average home size went up 200 sq ft, in the 15 years that followed that, it went up 600 sq ft. So if you compare apples to apples, the cost of homes has gone up considerably because the size of homes has gone up as well.

****, in my county, the smallest neighborhood they will build consists of a base model that is 2600 sq ft and some neighborhoods go up to 4000+ sq ft. So you are 100% right about we are now livin at a much higher standard than our parents ever did. How many of us on here have more cars than people in a house? I know we have three cars for two people and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

Exactly. You can't buy a "normal" sized house anymore if you want to build new. Everything they're doing around me is pretty much 3k+ on the footage. Anything "normal" is either a block from the beach and still fetching $600,000+ or considered "low income".

But it's not just about floorspace, houses themselves have shot up. A friend of mine bought his house (1800ish sq.ft on 1/2 acre) 6 years ago for 115k. During their recent tax reassesment, the house was appraised at 375k!!!!! That's more than TRIPPLE in just six years, and he has done no improvements to the house or property.

I know one thing for sure, when I eventually buy a house it won't be in Jersey! It's pointless to even bother here starting out. A small 2 bedroom house on 1/4 acre is over 200k here. I just can't justify that pricetag for what I would get, especially after considering the INSANE property taxes.

 

not to toot my own cause or anything... but just to open people's eyes, down here in fort worth, you can get a 1500 sq ft house starting at $100k and you can get a 3500sq ft house for under $200k. and thats on the edge of city limits, which is like living in a suburb of boston like peabody or danvers or whatnot... and you are still 15-20 mins from downtown fort worth. and FYI, fort worth has more people than boston, so its no slouch of a city.

 

True dat, there are some great values if you go outside of the areas that we're talking about here...real estate has gone crazy around here.
Texas is among the cooler places to be if you're looking for a home/value.
I wonder what a nice house in North Dakota or even parts of say Arkansas can be had for.

 

I hope you 'do' realize we were all foreigners at one point....Or are you Native American Indian?

 

Rates plummeted after 9-11. Greenspan (IMO) has done a fine job in trying to jump start the economy then, and now trying to avoid a housing bubble by raising rates. Obviously its a trickle down effect, but he has raised rates 13 straight times now. Don't except these crazy property values to continue to increase, they will level off as rates gradually continue to climb.

Land/housing is also about supply & demand. The country is much more densely populated now then it was 30 years ago, that will drive prices up....