How Uncle killed Pontiac
 

Interesting perspective in the Spectator:

http://spectator.org/articles/61238/...killed-pontiac

"And it would prove lethal. Not to Chevy-which was still Chevy.
But to Pontiac, which had become Chevy-in-drag." :jumping:

Great article - Pontiac's Turbo engine program if allowed to develop would have been a Corvette Killer - imagine it even with Twin Turbo's - intercooler etc. here's a 80 301 Turbo T/A Winning Stock in NHRA Class Racing @ Vegas running low 12's :)

That is a good article. And I agree. Was funny to read some of the typical trolling comments from morons below the article as well.

I'll agree..... to a point. Cadillac, GMC, and Buick seemed to survive with corporate engines.

Besides for the Trans Am Pontiac stopped making anything worth buying starting in 82, with maybe the exception of the 2+2. All the cool cars disappeared. Couple that with cheap imports that were reliable and cheap invading the land its hard to compete. I don't thing Pontiac ever really found its market after the 2nd gen birds stopped production. I would have to say Olds did the same thing. Buick really honed in on their customer base, as did Cadillac and GMC.

I actually have a 1994 Pontiac dealer brochure in front of me and besides for the T/A everything in it looks terrible. Obviously the 90's weren't kind to any auto manufacture, but everything looks bland and has no direction on what market it caters to.

That year (1982) Pontiac also stopped production of the (real) Bonneville and Catalina, (B body), and rebadged the Lemans into the Bonneville Model G:gag: Buick did get to keep and develop their 231 V6, and Cadillac got their own engine most of the time (4100 was crap, however).

Interesting take on GM corporate politics and government interference in the auto industry BEFORE the GM/Chrysler bailouts.

So true!


I remember reading an article, maybe in C and D or MT, about the new 1982 firebirds. The quote that still sticks out in my mind about Pontiac in general, was screaming chickens and air dams don't really square with where Poniac is heading, which is to be your all around European car company. I remember that their big "euro sedan" was the 6000STE, which was a warmed over Chevy celebrity. Yeah the 80's and 90's GM cookie cutter cars helped kill off Pontiac.

United Network Command for Law and Enforcement

The Japanese made some great cars in the '90's, which widened the gap even further.

I should have said "any American auto manufacture".

To be fair I think Pontiac was coming back in the late 2000's with the G8 and Solstice. They were finally building something that fit their old brand image, but it was too late.

And they all rusted out very quickly. :D

Fair read for 2014. Great read for encapsulating History across that 1979-2014 window.

Thanks.

I always imagined how much better and more interesting the 1986-87 Pontiac "2+2" would have been with an injected turbo 301/2004r instead of that POS Chevrolet 305 they installed in there. Another case of Pontiac needing their own engine in the '80s.:2cents: or a 1994-'96 "B" body car like the Impala SS. Could have been called a Catalina 2+2.

Interesting read, no doubt. Possibly even some truth.

I personally have been convinced for at least 30 years that todays vehicles would be cleaner than they are, would have been cleaner much earlier, and wouldn't cost nearly so much as they have/do had the government NEVER passed a smog emissions law!

Jon.

X2! And people talk about the "merits" of newer cars. :gag: I personally am most unimpressed. They should be a lot farther along than they are today. Look at the difference between a 1915 and a 1965 car. Now look at the difference between a 1965 and a 2015 car.

Yeap: the Sparkplug hasn't changed.

My point being that their have been no "groundbreaking" innovations in a very long time with the basic automobile. :2cents::focus:

Thank goodness for that LOL. Didn't want to look at those any longer than I had to. :D

alright who's going to be the first one to source a stock turbo 301 and drop it into a 3rd gen? Sounds like it will be mind blowing.....

Interesting that this conversation came up tonight at our local car show.........

Only in the rust-belt states.

There's plenty of '90s Camrys and Corollas and Civics running around here.

They were and still are good reliable cars.

Can't remember the last time I saw a '90s Cavalier or Tempo, they didn't need to rust out to be taken off the road. It's not worth it to keep them running.

Let's face it, the American car companies created their own troubles by building too many inferior unreliable cars during the '80s and '90s. They'll never catch up now, too many people learned their lessons and will never go back. Their children will also buy imported cars too.

A coworker just bought his 7th Lexus in a row. I was curious and wanted to understand why he was such a loyal Lexus buyer, so I asked him if he had owned any American cars during the '80s. He said yes a Ford Taurus when they first came out. Even while it was new it constantly broke down leaving his wife and kids stranded. He's never had any issues with any Lexus he's owned, so he'll keep buying them.

Now back to the article, GM bean counters killed Pontiac. Uncle didn't do it, they did it to themselves. :(

I don't know that I'm really that much of a fan of the 301t. I had an 81, and there were many aspects of the car that I liked, but the motor was terminal to me. I sometimes wish I still had that block, but it's because of one build on this site, and I don't know that I'd be able to follow through with that build.

But as far as the 301 as a whole - that motor had no future to me, not in the 80s, not anywhere.

As far as the 1915 to 1965 thing; I think there was a war in there that really pushed mechanical advancements.

I think if I find anything impressive from pontiac in the 80s, it's not really pontiac, but cosworth head for the 4-valve iron lung. I think I would prefer that in a third gen over the 301. But looking back, I wouldnt have thought that way then, and prefferd a v8, and I think that was the thinking of most buyers at the time.

I for one only partially blame the government on the woes, but it's the larger chunk of the blame I think, the other half was the consumer and the manufacturer. GM I'm sure woulda tried to sell a cosworth-4 T/A at some obsurd price and promptly killed it. Between the gov, the consumer, and the manufacturer - it woulda went down just like the cosworth vega.

Pontiac was being push out by chevy. chevy no longer wanted to have the compation with them & when that happened chevy had more of the market share so GM corp. said well lets go with the ones who are selling. The a last ditch effort they brought in all those Alustrain cars like the G8 the G6 , those were all built down under & had been air tested for use here so they said let try to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people again & lets see how it goes. Gm had been trying for 40 years to get out of High Performance & with Pontiac gone they got there way. Most everyone saw Pontiac as high performance & with them gone they ddin't have to live with trying to make another line go fast. Next to you have to look at it by GM eyes. They like having a car line thats kinda expensive & 2 more that are expensive & then really expensive. That way if your a GM person & you want to stay that way you'll have to spend big bucks just to get a cheap POS. That way GM makes more profit & don't really have to worry about making a car that people really want they caan just make what they(GM) wants & if you don't like tuff. But theres a lot & they've proved it you will buy at any price. Wgo ever thought they would be buying & paying 35K for a car you can get 4 people in it unless there all 6 years old. I know I didn't, & won't. I'll drive my old cars until I die. No new cars for me for the rest of my life.

Since Lexus has only been around since '87 or '88, I'm surprised he's needed 7 of them. My dad bought an Acura Legend in '90 and replaced it with a Lexus in '99. It's still going, and looking good too.

As for GM - how did those idiots get killed by gas prices a second time? "too big to fail," but too dumb to live.

I am not missing out by not buying anything new either. Don't want any new GM, FORD, CHRYSLER/FIAT,or any of the foreign makes. I don't like any of them, and I don't need any of them. Much easier (and cheaper) for me to maintain and drive my pre-catalytic convertor iron. Paying off my house is much more important to me than the latest POS in the driveway. May not work or be the preference of most people, but I work on late models for a living, and don't want to get in one or come home to one at the end of the day. In a few years, this generation of newer vehicles will be gone as well, because the general public simply doesn't maintain anything. Besides, I am simply "brand loyal" to my old Pontiac and Oldsmobile V8 powered cars from the '60s and '70s.:) when GM was run by real "car people":2cents:

The 301 Turbo should have been a 400, or at the least the Poncho 355...yah they should have done another engine casting run for those cars. I would imagine they would be allot more valuable today if they had done that.

The 301 as Pontiac made it needed some wholesale revisions to be a real performance engine. It needed a better crank, rods and heads. But if they had continued I know those revisions would have been made. That 301 would have become a killer combination in the early 3rd gens. But "Big Brother" Chevrolet would never, ever let that happen. Out perform their precious Camaro, let alone their precious 'Vette??? OMG, what would we be thinking????? Chevy always feared Pontiac and always (through help from corporate GM) held Pontiacs head under the water. Until Pontiac finally died. I would not put it past Chevrolet to have caused the 2007-2008 recession to just to kill off Pontiac.

Mark

The 303 "low deck" block for 1970 would have been cool with a turbo.:D

Both my mom & dad and I special ordered '80 turbo T/A's. Dad sold theirs in '81, as my mom was selling real estate and she couldn't haul a normal sized adult in the back seat of an Fbody when out with couples looking at prospective houses.

Kept my '80 Turbo SE and continued to modify it, street raced it, autocrossed it, even drove it to the strip nearly 2 hours away several times. In stock shape, the '80 turbo 301 car was a product of the times, could only muster a low 16 in the 1/4 and low 8 sec 0-60's. Quite a few I worked on when only a few years old couldnt even muster that. Over the course of the next 4 years was able to whittle the 1/4 mile times down into the 14.50's-14.60's. Nothing astounding, but on the street at the time, in my adopted home town of smug preppies running about in late 70's dualed out 2nd Gens, early 3rd Gens, and 300 ZX turbo's, the modded '80 turbo car had respectable performance and would corner with anything short of trailered RX7's when I took it a few Sat am's autocrossing. After installing an adj custom 150 shot NOS setup in the winter of '82, was able to get the '80 into the very low 13's. Ran a best of a 13.09 hampered by the way the suspension was setup... no slapper bars, having to walk the car out before hitting the spray. Otherwise, just blew away the 255 Eagle NCT's. Looking back, with the 1 3/8 front bar removed and & cheap slapper bars bolted on, should have easily been in the 12's.

In right under 50k miles of use and a lot of abuse, had to replace a rear main seal and set of main bearings. The 301 crank did not like the top end charge of 5200-5300 rpm I took it to once on the turnpike with my Corvette buddy in the passenger seat. In '88, I parked the '80 and stripped all the nice interior out of it so it wouldnt cook in the metal building I had it stored in. Everything nice interior wise I bubble packed or boxed and put in what in the 90's became my soft trim room at the house. The '80 has been mothballed since, as my earlier Pontiacs projects have been getting attention. One day, it will get its due, if not, it will get sent down the road.

As far as the 301 engine went, with further development, in many opinions, needing a fully counterweighted crankshaft & traditional Pontiac heads for higher rpm use, the 301 could have really been a very venerable building block for Pontiac through the '80's. Unfortunately, the "NON CAR guys", the bean counters were in charge at GM. Bart said it well in his post! For such bean counters it was very easy to AXE the Pontiac V8, and for the '82 T/A's to get the same terd 305's as the Z28's. When that happened, Pontiac lost a BUNCH of us that had ties to the traditional Pontiac V8 and even the 301T's.

Looking back, my early to mid 20's aged friends that did buy new '82 and 83 T/A's & Z28's, one even buying a new black MSE, all had traded them off by '85. None went out & bought new Corvettes, nor were they married w little kids and buying the first minivans. Its my own belief, the corporate 3rd Gen performance Fbody just didn't have the charm of the performance 2nd Gen T/A's. A few of these old friends even searched out in the mid & late 80's & bought clean '78 & 79 400 4spd T/A's to own as occasional drivers. It's simple they knew what they wanted and the General wasn't building it. This Fall at one of my son's HS football games, I ran into two old friends and both asked if I still had my black T/A. Its somewhat hard to relate "sure still have it" when its mothballed & your hobby budget is going into restoring earlier built and much more collectible roundport cars. No regrets, though.

The 301 was the last almost designed engine by Mac McKeller, because Pontiac stopped the 301 redesign because the start up tests for it showed that It was stronger then the junk that chevy was going to put into the vette. If they would have let him continue to refine the 301 turbo it would have made the vette look as if it were going bacwards. The fuel milage was better & the HP to weight was great. Mac was stopped from the refinement of the 301 because chevy started to whine about Pontiac getting all the good stuff again & it was hurting the sales & future sales of the small block & their preious vette. So the 301 got just enough to keep it going through the warr. period & then it was gone. Along with our brand Pontiac. Again chevy got it's way.

My biggest disappointment in over 50 years of playing with automobiles was the 301T!!!

My son had purchased a 79 non-turbo 301 in 1981 which cornered well, but was a complete bow-wow! Previous owner had slick-50ed the engine, and when it blew, I helped my son locate and install a 1980 301T. Went completely through that engine, including a Competition Cams cam "specifically built for the 301T".

As I had purchased a 1979 turbo 4 Mustang we were both looking forward to the 301T installation.

As a performance comparison, I had slightly modified a 1969 Toyota Corona 1900 for him when he turned 16 (insurance). The mods consisted of replacing the Power-Glide (known as a Toyo-Glide) with a 5-speed manual, and a wee bit of carburetor work ;).

The Toyota would beat the non-turbo 301 in the 1/4 mile STARTING IN THIRD GEAR!

After the 301T was installed, and had over a 1000 miles, tried again. The Toyota still would blow off the Trans-Am, but now had to start in second gear. First gear still was not needed.

I seem to remember posting here that I thought the problem was not with the 301, but rather the transmission. The 301 ran great from 2800 to 2850 RPM. What was needed was a 28 speed transmission to keep the 301 in the "power :) curve"!

And comparing to the 4 cylinder Ford turbo was no comparison. The Ford beat the T/A by maybe 15 car lengths in the 1/4.

MAYBE, with several tons of work..........

My son traded the T/A in on a 300ZX. Another potential Pontiac enthusiast lost!

Jon.

This is a great car????? People believed the hype about foreign cars and that was all. How would this small corolla compare in ride quality,looks and power with a Caprice not to mention cavalier,citation and the like. I had plenty of friends who wore out foreign car transmissions not to mention the CV shafts



http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...htqn08bo6b.jpg

That's a mid 1980s Corolla, not 1990s (plus, it was built in the NUMMI plant in California - it was the same thing as a Chevy Nova at the time.) Not really pertinent to the conversation.

I said '90's - that's a mid 80's car. I'm not sure that comparing it to a Caprice is very accurate - why not use the Cadillac deVille or Mustang 5 liter? That's definitely a better car than a Chevy Citation, and it looks like a recent picture. When's the last time you saw a Citation?

The guy compares a taurus to a lexus and the lexus wins. Talk about apples to oranges comparisons. Gee which one cost more and would be expected to last longer?

Sorry I don't see any logic in the guys thinking.

Obvious I'm not a ford fan nor a lexus fan but let's be reasonable when comparing the two.

BTW I had a 92 Cavalier Z24 3.1 V6 that was not babied nor particularly taken great care of that went just a tick over 200, 000 miles before the timing chain went. I used it many times to tow bar and tow dolly cars around OH and PA. The transaxle and half shafts were fine when I scrapped it even with high mileage and towing duties.

I bought it at 110,000 miles and paid $200 for it and ran it 90,000 miles with little repairs other than tune up parts replaced brakes and oil changes and tires. When the timing chain went it bent some of the valves in the heads so economically it was not feasible to fix it, so I scrapped it and got $400 for it. At 200,000 miles the rings and bearings were still fine and the engine ran well and got great fuel mileage. If the timing chain had hung in there it would have made probably 250,000 miles. Y'all can make all the derogatory remarks about US vs foreign, but I've seen junk from both as well as good from both.

Also G6s are not made in Australia by Holden/GM, G8s and GTOs are and so is the new chevy SS. Holden/GM makes very good quality cars for those of you that would never own one your missing out. However GM will never get another dollar from me for killing off, or allowing Pontiac to be killed off.

The regular 301s had butter blocks and at 60- 80,000 miles the ridge was so bad that you had to cut it out to remove the pistons. The cranks were a joke as well as lacking any significant nickel alloy in them same as all cast iron of the late 70s early 80s. Accountants again won out by cutting the more expensive alloys out of the GM castings making them wear quickly. I have never worked on a T301 so I have no knowledge if they received better alloy cast iron than the NA engines did.

The 151 Iron Duke rods and bearings interchange into the 301 so they are not high strength items from the get go. 151 X 2 = 302 or 301, lots of parts are very similar if not interchangeable. Bore and stroke are the same as is the old chevy 302 Z28 engine. Those had to be wound pretty high to get any power from them and the bottom end and the heads sure aren't conducive to high RPMs. I'm not seeing a bunch of good points in the design to be a high winder, even with a turbo to move the curve lower it's just an economy weak engine never really being deigned for high performance work.

Lexus form the 90's were just luxury version Toyotas. They're basically the same now, but back then they truly were re-branded Toyotas. So while the Lexus' price tag was a lot more than a Taurus, if you look at the Toyota equivalent they match up pretty close. The underpinnings are all the same.

Nobody was comparing a Taurus to a Lexus.

The point was American automobile quality was at pretty much an all-time low, which caused many people to switch to foreign makes after suffering through ownership of poorly built American cars

My coworker told me today the Taurus was a great car to drive, it was well engineered but simply unreliable. After $13K in repairs both in and out of warranty he was done, the final straw was at 80K miles the need for a transmission repair to the tune of $4K.

The 7 Lexus cars have been split between him and his wife, he gave one of them (2000 SC400) to his son and it now has 230K miles on it with no major repairs. His mechanic says it'll go another 100K.

The American automakers gave away the farm, sad but true. :(

Jon, all I can tell you on your experience with the transplanted 80 301T is you didn't get something right. that's not hard to do. Bone stock an 80 301 turbo car should in no way get outrun by 15 car lengths by a terd 4cyl turbo '79 mustang pacecar(?) . The trouble you refer to as the transmission, never ran across that. I threw well over 500 ft lbs of torque at the stock T350 on my '80 and when i had it rebuilt it never shifted at the same points under WOT. Ended up installing a '70 PQ T400 in the car, and though it banged 2nd as hard as ever, I had to manually shift it in to 2nd at WOT, otherwise it would not upshift.

On these cars the first trick to getting a turbo 301 to run well was to build a power band. On my '80, I had 9 lbs of boost in at 2800 rpm, the ESC will pull timing out and stock, the power band was over by 45-4600. If the engine is only making but 5 to 6 lbs of boost and it's not in until 3500 rpm, the power band hardly exists, there is your problem. When I lived off campus in college, had quite a few friends with '80 and 81 turbo cars that I worked on from time to time. Nearly all after a few mods would run nose to nose with nearly any fairly stock, even a few dualed out 78 W72 400 T/A's with 3.23's. I'd estimate we knocked a good 3/4 of a second off these turbo cars in the 1/4. The very worst performing one was a loaded '81 that the owner had installed nearly 400 lbs of crap including three amps, a subwoofer, one of rhe first kenwood disc changers, a police scanner, CB radio, alarm system, extra battery, & even a a rack attached under the trunk lid for a riot shotgun and a rifle of some sort. Even with all that weight, we got it down near the stock performance of a moderately loaded '80 turbo, in my experience the 81's were always a tad slower than similarly equipped 80's. If I had ever managed to gain 1/3 of the experience that several folks have working with the C4 system and the 81 E4MC , am sure could have got those 81's to run a little better

Both my old cars were built before they really started to get "cheap" on the lightweight castings and Mickey Mouse transmissions and gimmicks in cars, but my '74 Olds Cutlass Supreme's 350 Olds engine went for 500,000 miles (just shy of it at 492,000), and it started to have a little "miss" that wouldn't go away. No knocking, no smoking. This thing just went on forever like the Energizer bunny. I finally bit the bullet and "freshened it up". the only thing that was worn was the valve springs had become weak, and it had a valve that was sticking open a tad on number 7 exhaust. The 326 that came in my '66 wagon had 290,000 on it when I pulled it out (still running pretty well with just two new timing chains over the years, and a gasket here and there) in favor of the more entertaining 455. I ran both of these cars up and down the East Coast and through the mountains for years. I wish the American manufacturers could have skipped the '80s altogether. The '80s mess is why I decided a long time ago to just keep on driving my '60s and '70s iron. They rewarded my maintaining them with good service. (Major "modern" upgrade being limited to HEI). And I never could bring myself to "switch over" to foreign makes. I would rather walk down the street carrying an old Pontiac hubcap than drive a new Japanese/Korean/European car lol.:D I work on enough of that sort of mess at my job.

Bart, My extended family's experience mirrors your friends. My parents had it with GM vehicles. My Dad worked for GM for 36 years but couldn't drive the 80's fullsize GM junk anymore as a personal vehicle. By the mid 80's dad put my mom in a new 300SD Mercedes. One tiny problem over the years with AC controller, that's it, drove it nearly 15 years, the rest just regular maintainence, sold it for strong retail money in one day. Then bought their first Lexus mid sized SUV, they have had 3 now. Each one of them, exceptional quality vehicles, nothing but regular maintainance, and the first two sold for strong money used. Another family member has two 90's full size Landcruisers and a mid 90's Lexus full size SUV, very minimal problems over the years with any of them. In '07 we bought our first new Toyota product, a new 2wd 4Runner. Has 160k on it, now, great vehicle, only repair needed has been me replacing the rear brake calipers. If I'd flushed the brake fluid out at 100k , doubt I'd had the internal corrosion. Until we bought that 4Runner, had my wife in several 90's American built front wheel drive Gms and Fords and was always working on something on them. Never again.

OPH - could well have been something I did wrong, don't know. We built it absolutely stock with the exception of the Comp Cams cam.

Worse was it was my son's car. Bad enough when its your own that doesn't turn out well; but when it's for your son and it comes out bad, just makes you want to chew nails!

The Mustang wasn't a pace car (heavier), rather a turbo option on the standard fastback. Still have it to this day, and it will still outrun stock 302's from that period. Never had it through the clocks, so don't know what 1/4 mile it will run.

Jon.

I could outrun the 1979 302 on foot.:D

All Decals, Lights, and Pose; my 301T experience was no "Luv Fest"
 

Can still see it like it was yesterday, even though it was a 1983 summer night:

I'm sitting at a light in my '78 TA w base 400/Th350 2:56 gear WS6, "test-tube pipe" replaced cat w stock single into 2 exhaust and cross-flow muffler. Opened shaker scoop, other than that it's Stock-Stock-Stock.

What pulls up next to me, but a sweet looking '80 Turbo SE TA. As the multi "Turbo" hood lights let me know "Mr. Turbo" wants to run, I smile from the multi display "power" :rolleyes: show and know: "I got this" and smile.

I take off from an idle; Shifting my "low performance" 180hp 400 coupled Th350 like a manual from 1st, 2nd, 3rd; we leave the light and we barely get 1/2 a length and I'm already walking this guy - bad. So bad - I can still see his expression as he turns with surprise to see me driving past. We go about an 1/8 mile and I'm so far ahead of him I back out and let him catch up. He punches it on a roll, I answer the call and walk him bad again...adding insult to injury.

At the next red light I'm stopped in the same left lane I'd been traveling and he - "Mr. TurdBlow TA" - pulls up and makes a quick rolling right on red to avoid eye-to-eye contact and more embarrassment.

If it makes any of you 301 Turbo Lovers feel better - L-82 Vettes got handed the same - by a lowly "base" 400 auto w a 2:56!!!! :pound:

The taurus broke down constantly since the day it was bought, and all 7 lexus were perfect and never broke down ever, Okay I can see that's not a comparison........................:rolleyes:

I worked as a line mechanic at a Buick dealership from 1982-1985, I am quite well aware of what GM was selling then. I owned an 81 Bonneville diesel, supposedly one of the worst engines GM ever made. Mine ran over 150,000 until I sold it without any problems with the engine or transmission, 20 MPG in town and as good as 32 MPG on the road.

One of the biggest problems with the 5.7 diesel is no one including GM dealerships knew how to properly maintain it. Wrong oil, most dealerships used gasoline engine oils. No one ever cleaned or replaced the breather elements in the valve covers. Crankcase pressure builds up and ruins the ring seal as well as blows the front and rear crank seals.

1987 3.8 FWD Bonneville close to 200,000 miles when I sold it because of rust on the body, running gear was still fine. Transmission was O/H at 100,000 miles. 92 SSE Bonneville transmission replaced at 100,000 miles went to 200,000 miles and was wrecked.

I already explained I owned a Z24 Cavalier that went to 200,000 miles until the timing chain took a dump.

My current 93 K3500 dually with Detroit Diesel 6.5 Turbo Diesel 245,000 miles also supposed to be a junk engine. Runs well and saves me fuel over a gas engine.

Foreign and domestic car makers have both made junk as well as good cars. Toyota and Honda were keeping their recalls hidden from the US gov't NHTSA pretty well until recently. The wonderful Toyotas have had their share of recalls both above board and under the table since the unintended acceleration incident showed evidence that Toyota knew there were problems with their cars and were keeping silent as well. Same as GM knew about their ignition switch problems for years and didn't address it head on.

Takata, the Japanese owned air bag manufacturer made millions of defective air bags and won't recall them and is under the eye of NHTSA. Just because it's designed by a Japanese company doesn't make it perfect. They can all screw up and it's proven.

Consumer Reports until recently always gave glowing reviews to foreign makers, now it seems they're backing off of the foreign manufacturers as they have proven they're indeed fallible. Consumer Reports as well as other magazines touted the foreign cars and faulted the domestic cars. Perceived attitudes had help from magazine writers. Not saying the domestic cars didn't have problems and they lost market share from it in the 80s, but the publications during that time didn't help.

For every foreign car success story their are domestic success stories too. For every disaster someone relays about a domestic car there are also foreign disaster stories. If it's mechanical it can break, no matter what nameplate it has or how much it cost new. :focus:

Put a Fork in it
http://www.musclecarfilms.com/images..._V8_engine.jpg

You mentioned the cost difference between the Ford and the Lexus.

Why should the less expensive car be expected to break down more often?

Both should be reliable cars no matter what they cost.

I'm happy that you've had good experiences with your American cars. Unfortunately enough of the car buying public didn't have the same good experiences, enough that many turned to foreign cars.

The American car makers gave it away, they were the leaders and thought that the public would buy whatever they decided to produce. They were wrong, and the great proliferation of foreign brands in the US market proves that.

Unfortunately the same line of thinking killed the Pontiac brand. They decided to cut costs to the point that enough of the car buying public no longer trusted their products. They cut costs to the point where Pontiac completely lost its identity too.

Very sad turn of events.

Way too much use of Body Cladding - aka lipstick on a pig - by Pontiac contributed to final coffin nails

During the times all you guys are talking about I was in a dealership doing something. Wheather it be working on the line , or in the parts dept. or selling them or at the last as service mgr. One of the biggest reason everyone THOUGHT the forgien car were so much better & they weren't, it was that the service dept. & sales dept.'s did there job on selling all the service work that was needed to be done to keep them running like they should. The forgien car dealer beat into there customers that you have to do the REQUIRED maintiance to keep them running good all the time. Most of the American car dealers just said drive them ,,, when they break well fix it thats what the warr. is for. Then when they broke down because the maintiance wasn't done when needed they blamed it all on the car, not the fact that when they needed something fixed , the customer remembered that the saleman siad the warr. will fix it. But the warr. doesn't fix maintiance items & they got mad at the junk car. While the forgien car dealer got it beat into there customer that you have to do the maintiance or it will break down & the warr. wo't fix maintiance items , so they had the items that were maintiance items repaired & kept up with so the car seemed not to break down & they were great cars then. BUT,,, the maintiance cost for just about any forgien car was almost 3 times what the american car was because they weren't schooled like the forgien customers were. But if the American buyer did the same amount of maintiance the cars would have lasted just the same , because during that time ALL the cars were junk & all the car makers wanted at that time was the money. They were no different they just wanted the money & as much as they could get no matter how big the lies were. Any guy on here that has worked as a tech for any time during that time has to know that what I just typed in here is the truth. Most all the cars from 1975 to 1999 were all junk no matter who made them. The all mighty dollor was the king & we were the jokers.