I get the desire to hold onto chips, and if cars were chips, I'd like to be the Jay Leno of chip collecting.
I like cars better than chips, if I didn't I would be posting a new custom set every four or five months and still be saving money. Cars are more expensiver and my bank account is more limiteder because of that fact.
But biased? Yes you are. In the latest (and for a while now) the bulletproof cars are Lexus and GM, with the American made car being far more affordable when repairs need to be done.
http://www.jdpower.com/cars/awards/Vehicle-Dependability-Study-(VDS)-by-Category/843ENG
I am biased against leasing, it's my polite way of saying I think you could light money on fire and come out ahead of most leases because at least you still get the ashes of your money. I'm glad there are people who lease because it makes finding 3 year old, low mileage, cpo luxury sedans very affordable for a guy like me who will do whatever the fuck I want with them and then sell them for a good chunk of what I bought them for considering the insane depreciation rate was payed for by the lease guy. Again, I'm glad it works for some people, it makes it all the better for people like me and also the people who lease and sell cars, those people are customers of mine so I say lease away.
To your point and the link you provided though you are arguing against your self. Your original comment was referencing why pissed's situation reminds you why you like leasing but then you provide a link highlighting reliable cars and there are 9 different mainstream makes spread across 19 different categories? Yeah, sounds to me like there are a lot of really good cars out there from a lot of different makes that make statements like "thanks for reminding me why I lease" concerning major repairs fallacious.
Then you try to correct me and say that the bulletproof stuff is from Lexus and GM? What you really mean by the way is Toyota and GM, I'm sure you know Toyota is Lexus, and since 6 out of the 19 cars are from Toyota and 6 are from GM I'm going to assume that's what you meant. I said "Toyota, Lexus, Honda, and Mazda" as examples of reliable, cheap to maintain cars and hit on the head 2 of them as you can see from your link; now as far as Honda and Mazda? Do yourself a favor and expand the entire categories rankings and take a look at where Honda and Mazda are falling in the categories they have cars, actually I'll save you some time and tell you they are all either near the top or in the top half. Again, appreciate the backing up of my point.
Additionally reliability isn't everything, the ongoing maintenance of a car has to factor into it and if you take a look at this
http://priceonomics.com/the-lemon-index-which-cars-have-the-highest/
you'll see that the brands I mentioned are the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th cheapest cars to maintain for 10 years on a list of 30 from that site. GMC is at 10th and Buick is at 14 with Chevrolet, Jeep, Dodge, and Ford all coming in higher in the list and all behind many different foreign brands. As far as my original comments go the Beatles wrote a song about them and named it Getting Better.
Then again, I'm the son of an American autoworker and prefer facts over the perception that everything made in Japan or Germany is excellent, so when I hear "Hondas are the best" I cringe.
This statement has really pissed me off for the five minutes since I've read it and if I'm taking it the wrong way please disregard
everything I am about to say; however if by your statement you are trying to imply that
I have a perception that anything made in Japan or Germany is excellent and
I am saying "Hondas are the best" you can shove your post up your ass sideways so you can feel it better. OK, maybe that's a little far, I'm not that serious, but please sir politely f off with that noise because you know nothing about me.
My favorite brand is Ford, always has been and always will be even if only for sentimental reasons sometimes. Out of the 6 cars that my wife and I currently have to drive around 2 are Ford, 2 are Chevrolet, and 2 are German. Given that 66% of the cars we drive right now are domestic and the 2 German cars we own are the
MOST expensive to maintain on the list in the link I provided I think it's pretty damn simple to categorize me as a parrot saying "Japan and Germany numba one foreva no stop" "Honda is GOd!!!!!".
I also prefer facts over perception which is why the article you linked backs up my statement, but you know what else does? Working on cars of every make, every model, from every year, almost every day since 1997, that certainly helps a little as well to form an opinion. Working with the sales, service, and body repair shops on every kind of car from Maybachs to piles of shit that aren't worth $500 gives you a pretty good perspective on what goes into a car.
The statement really gets me mad because I am the opposite of the person who shits on everything American and categorizes anything from here as inferior because it's trendy to hate on America (speaking of cars in this sense). It grates on me to no end to listen to shit head selfish fucks bad mouthing everything from or about this country while sipping a Starbucks and standing in the very place they hate more than anything else, it's one of the things I silently judge people on and I will think less of you if that's your attitude. You're entitled to your opinion, I'm not going to say "Love it or leave it!!", but I am going to think of you as a fucking idiot in that regard.
Getting a little off track, back to that whole facts thing, it's a fucking FACT that American car companies went from leaders and innovators of the industry to incredibly lazy, obsolete, and entitled entities who put out steaming piles of shit because of a "meh, what are they going to do, buy one of those jap cars?!?!" attitude. In the past foreign car companies weren't big innovators in the field, they had the luxury of a shit ton of hard work from this country making cars and being able to refine our problems and short comings which made them seem ahead of the curve (and they were in a lot of ways) more than they were. What was the American companies response to starting to get passed in terms of reliability and other such trivial things? How about they went on a twenty or so year run of putting out SHIT products that make it reeeaaallll fucking hard to defend American car companies like I want and have always tried to do. Do me a favor, jump in your average 1990's American car, truck, or SUV. Drive it around, work on it, replace parts. Now do the same with a 1990's Honda or Toyota, there is no denying there is an incredible gap, the foreign stuff is on average in much better condition both in mechanical terms and over all "not a bucket of squeaks, broken clips, sagging hinges, and general fucked upness" things.
Your father is an American auto worker? Awesome, it's a very noble profession. Let me just ask though, is he currently an auto worker? If he is then he is working in a company that was forced by bankruptcy and a government bail out (well, except for Ford, you know the only company to not be bailed out) to BUILD BETTER SHIT. There are a few reasons the big car companies were on the brink of death, one of the biggest though was peoples discretionary income was being reduced and sales dipped of domestic cars because people were liking getting 100k+ easily out of a Civic rather than 80-90k starting to be the death zone for America's line of small cars. Please compare the average 1992 Civic (just to grab a car out of the air) to a 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier (same class I believe), if you want to look at me with straight face and tell me the Cavalier is the better car go right ahead but you will be wrong. That trend continues right up to mid 2000's when red numbers forced changes that should have been made long before that.
Furthermore, if he was an auto worker during the time of the decline of American cars I would ask him WTF they were thinking putting out lazy designs made from inferior materials while their own unions were cutting their own throats with outrageous pension/benefit plans all the while Japan is putting out reliable and affordable cars. It was a dark period for American cars and the sting has turned many in this country off of American made automobiles (whatever the fuck that means anymore with Fords being made in Mexico and Toyotas being made in Kentucky (I think) among many other out of country assembly plants across all brands).
I am not one of those people though, and if I were looking for anew car/truck/suv right now I would personally be looking at Ford, the products they are putting out right now are beautiful imo and head and shoulders above the level of quality they were building just 10 years ago. However I am also a realist and I realize that even though America has gotten it's shit together lately that is a very recent (comparatively) development and doesn't mean a Honda is any less of a smart move than they were in the years 1990-2007 or so.
Seriously, sorry if that wasn't what you meant, but that got on my nerves and I decided to write a book about it on the internet. I'min a pissed off mood and going to take the same tact other posters use and not really give a fuck who I piss off and possibly jump to the wrong conclusion...
If it is what you were implying in a condescending way though Chester said it best, "the less apt a man is to making declarative statements the less apt he is to look a fool in retrospect."
