Foreign cars

A buddy of mine sent me a link to this article about foreign cars, and how the line is blurring between what a foreign and American-made car is.  It seems like more and more foreign car companies are setting up plants in the United States.  On the other side of things, it seems like more and more domestic car companies are setting up plants in Canada and Mexico.  So really, is there such thing as a true American-made car anymore? 

Both my father and my father-in-law now own Toyota Camry’s, something I never thought I’d see happen.  I think that my dad started changing his mind about Toyotas after my brother-in-law did an internship at the Toyota plant in Kentucky.  That, coupled with the reputation of a quality car for a fair price, really made the Toyota appealing.  I know both my dad and my father-in-law have been very happy with their Camry’s. 

I always thought I’d buy a domestic vehicle as well, but I kept an open mind when I started researching mini-vans last year.  I narrowed my choices down to the Ford Freestar and the Toyota Sienna.  The Ford dealer in Rochester is also a Toyota dealer, so that made it easy.  We made the mistake of test driving the Toyota first.  After driving that, the decision was easy.  The Freestar was smaller, louder, and handled more like a truck.  We’ve had our Sienna for about a year now and absolutely love it.  It has the most interior room, best fuel economy, and some of the best features of any mini-van on the market.  I consider it one of the best purchases we’ve made.

The past couple of years, my dad has said that if you look at the cars that are broken down on the side of the road, there aren’t many Japanese cars.  Last week I got a good testimony to support this.  My mother-in-law came up last week and while on the interstate, she hit some debris on the road.  She drove the rest of the way to our house, but it turns out that the debris punctured the pan holding the transmission fluid.  So when she went to leave, she noticed that all her transmission fluid was running down the curb.  I called a tow truck and when the guy showed up, he seemed surprised that he would be towing a Toyota Camry.  He said he rarely tows Japanese cars, and when his wife was looking for a car, he told her to buy a Honda or Toyota.  I figure a guy in the towing business is a pretty good source of information on car reliability.