Chrysler Recalls 230,760 SUVs Globally 9-22-14

Need a "Random GM/Ford/Toyota Recall Thread"

But this is the Dodge family!

Fine!

"Random Shitty Car Company Recall Thread"

Maybe a "Random generalization from ignorance" thread

What, did you all of a sudden join the cast of Top Gear?

Going all snob on American vehicles?

American cars aren't garbage?

What is your fascination with recalls?

It depends how you define "American". More foreign cars are made here than American ones. It's been a running joke with tech's that Honda, Subaru, Toyota, VW, and Nissan's are built in America, GM, Chrysler, and Ford's are built in Mexico and Brazil.

But, the big 3 aren't garbage. they each make good cars and bad cars with less than perfect quality... just like every major auto manufacturer. No major car company hasn't had a major recall or lawsuit, and American cars have actually come a long way in the last decade. Several American cars have better safety and reliability ratings than the token imports. That said, there are very few American cars I'd own.

Isn't that every thread you post in then?

Naw, I own a Dodge Nitro (and a Toyota Camry before that) and love them both.

I'm just saying that car companies are going to ***because of bad designs/shortcuts to save a buck.

fascination is just letting ppl know in case they have one. Example; one of the models in this was the dodge durango. My brother had this vehicle for many years. A few hours after he sold it to some 'buy any car' type place, it caught fire and blew up. Considering he used it every day and often had his little kids with him... im sure he would have liked to known about an issue with his car.
My car was part of that initial GM recall a year or two back that was killing ppl. I found out by media like this LONG before i ever heard anything from GM letting me know about it.

The question shouldn't be my 'fascination' but rather; if you dont give a damn, why do you keep coming to these threads?

Everything American is garbage, apparently, in your book.

Except movies, because those are the truth....

Nah.
Americans are the best at a lot of things and making a lot of things. Cars are NOT one of them.

Give me an example of an exceptional American car that has been made in the past 20 years.

By what standard?

Luxury? Economy? Compact? Full size? Sports? SUV?

I watch enough Top Gear to know that there's a lot of anti-American bias in the automotive industry. And even they have American cars on there sometimes that they give good marks.

The Fiesta has received praise and awards in a very competitive class against many very good imports. The Focus was even more highly regarded over the 10 or so years it was made. That's 2 cars in one class from a single manufacturer. Just saying.

If you want, I'll put my Chevy Sonic up against anything else in the price range, which in it's case it came in right around $20,000 fully decked out.

Edit: And the Sonic is also the only car in its class built in the U.S.

Those were two others I was going to bring up, as they have, in fact, had good ratings from the Top Gear guys, who have been decidedly anti-American automotive industry at times.

Italian is the way to go... for bicycles

I haven't watched Top Gear since I dropped satellite TV about 5 years ago, but I do keep up on cars by virtue of spending 10 years in the shop and having friends working for various manufacturers. I could name off about 30 other models that meet the same requirements, but I think I made my point.

In any category. SUV/Luxury/Economy/Supercar/Sports/Coupe/Utility

I'll admit the explorer was a great car in the 90's. That one slipped my mind. However, 1 or 2 or even 3 decent cars doesn't mean the majority of American cars are garbage.

edit:@tigerwoods oh man... i dont know what to say lol

You sound defensive. I was merely interested in why you feel the need to make these threads. Surely I'm allowed to post in them? This would only be my 3rd time, so I hope it's not too much of an intrusion for you.

To answer your question, I come to FFXIAH to get a small fix of a game I used to be addicted to, and remind myself why I no longer wish to play it again. My presence in this thread would be tangentially related, as seeing it and its rather off-topic nature piqued my curiosity. Not that FFXIAH isn't rife with off-topic threads, but that an auto recall isn't something I can imagine maintaining a conversation about, as the vast majority of them don't even involve risk of fatal injury.

At any rate, thank you for the PSAs. Has anyone ever thanked you for this service?

Not as good as competitor's cars doesn't make them garbage. American companies have made their fair share of crap, but to say that the majority are "garbage" is patently false. I don't even like American cars, but I can list off dozens that are better than the competitor's cars that I have owned. I will say that American cars, as a rule, feel cheaper and usually rank lower in several categories, but they aren't necessarily bad cars as much as they are built and marketed to a different consumer.

Well, Jass already answered you, and I gave you another. The Sonic and Fiesta are both economy-class.

Luxury cars/SUVs and other high-end stuff you're probably not likely to top some of the European products.

In the non-luxury line of SUV the Jeep Grand Cherokee is constantly pretty highly rated and -- if sales and clientele influence you -- is a frequent pick among multi-millionaires/billionaires as an everyday vehicle.

So, for the TL;DR version, I'd say luxury/supercars you won't compete with the uber high-end European makers, but in the category of everyday vehicles, there's nothing foreign with which U.S. automakers can't compete.

Total vehicles affected by a recall is basically all cars sold in the US. VERY few cars don't have at least one minor recall or service campaign. You'd also have to base it on % of cars from a manufacturer or parent company as some companies sell larger volumes than others and some cars are sold under multiple brand names. All-in-all, the largest major safety related recalls in the last decade are Toyota, GM, and VW (depending on how you quantify safety related). And those ratios are hard to pin down as well since many recalls will encompass vehicles that are far outside of the known issue simply because they MAY share some architecture or a part supplier.

If you're talking about reliability in the economy category, the south Koreans and Japanese have the Americans beat. Even some French and German cars are better.

In SUV category - Japanese and German

Utility - British, Japanese and German.

Sports Cars - American and Japanese are the worst. Some Japanese exceptions like the GTR and the Skyline which are *** amazing cars. Dodge Viper is a peice of ***. Corvette is the sportscar you buy if you cant afford a real sportscar and have no other choice.

I've owned a lot of american cars - dodge charger daytonna, mustang selene, mustang gt, chrysler 300c, Denali, Ford explorer and once I went German I never looked back.
American cars break down, fall apart, degrade fast.

There IS ONE American car that to me is king above all others and mine is treated like royalty - the 1981 Cadilac Eldorado.

The feel of that car is something i can't describe.

The Corvette and GT are among the most competitive and awarded models in their respective categories. The Cadillac CTS/V and Chrysler 300 are routinely at the top of their respective classes as well. Nothing touches American cars in some classes like heavy-duty trucks and SUV's. The Ford Ranger was at the top of it's class for light pickups for 25 years, they even kept making it for almost 5 years after they planned to end production because the market demanded it even though there are VERY good imports in it's class.

Anyway, that's plenty of examples, I guess.

Eh. Again, most of my experience with spendy vehicles comes from things like Top Gear and web sites of a similar nature when the mood strikes me to go window shopping.

Expensive cars are not in my future. I'm a motorcycle type of guy, eventually.

Objectively false, they may have the perception of superior reliability. American cars generally have better fuel efficiency than their Japanese or Korean counterparts for a very good reason: CAFE. You should read up on it.


This is not a category, there are half a dozen unique categories under SUV, American cars are superior by far or by omission in at least 2 of them.


I'd like you to more clearly define this category. If you're talking about heavy equipment, Mercedes is right up there, if you're talking about passenger light trucks or commercial vehicles, only the Mercedes/Dodge cargo van could be considered an import being top notch.


Again, this is a VERY diverse category with dozens of descrete subcategories, in many of them, American cars are at or near the top of their class. Only in the roadster and hypercar categories do American cars lag behind imports by any margin.


This is very telling of your understanding and personal attitude usurping facts.