Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Err... Who exactly are you including in "we"? Not me, that's certain.
But there is perhaps a bit of a "shot themselves in the foot" going on here. In the '80s and early '90s, Honda & Toyota (and perhaps others) were building small cars & trucks of such quality & durability that they'd last 20-30 years, which took a big chunk out of their market for replacements. Like my '88 Toyota pickup: 24 years and still running strong & reliably, so why would I spend money on a new(er) one?
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That's precisely the problem. Or part of it.
Smarter consumers often know to buy used... or will buy a brand new car and use it for a much longer time... they buy reliable, economical and smart cars and keep them... giving manufacturers little incentive to cater to them year after year.
The buyers who cycle through brand new vehicles under purchase or lease every three to five years are the meat of the brand-new market... the ones who buy cars as often as new shoes, don't maintain them well (or at all) and dispose of them once they show even the tiniest sign of mechanical trouble. It's hard to expect
them to be practical.
Car-buying is like democracy or TV ratings. The majority is hardly ever 100% right.
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I envy you and your pick-up (and lean-burn and his Suburban)... I don't know if I could make my Isuzu diesel last that long. Just eight years in and it's racked up over 150,000 miles. Most of them in heavy urban traffic... still... getting 28 mpg in traffic and nearly 40 on the highway. Not bad for a big, heavy diesel that's direly in need of calibration...