My last Nissan - 1998 Pathfinder was superb. I gave it to my Daughter when she was still in college. At the time it had over 300k miles. She kept it through college and grad school and then gave it to her ex. He got rid of it when it was approaching 500k miles. Sold my 1990 Pathfinder with about 320k miles. Both were very trouble free. No major repairs, just normal maintenance. Both had timing belts which I replaced myself so they weren’t much of an issue (pretty easy job when the engine faces forward).
I live in a city of about 70,000 with a university with an enrollment of 18,000. The Nissan dealer, the Mazda dealer, the Subaru dealer and thecm Volkswagen dealer all closed.
When I was in high school, I worked for a mechanic mowing the grass around his house and shop. He advised me when buying a car to stick with Ford or Chevrolet. I didn’t take his advice. I owned a Rambler when I went to graduate school at major university. There.was no American Motors dealer. I.hsd a problem with the manual transmission. Parts had to be ordered from a dealer 50.miles away. The same thing happened when the gas tank.had to be replaced.
I replaced the Rambler with a Ford Maverick. The Maverick rode.like a wheelbarrow and had an interior.that made.a school bus seem luxurious, but the parts were readily available. I think I spent more on Preparation-H from having to.ride in the.Maverick than I did on maintenance of the car, but I had a car where.parts were available and every mechanic knew how to repair the Maverick.
I think my mechanic friend today would say “Stick with Toyota or Honda”. I drive a Toyota Sienna. It does the job and the dealer is only a mile away. Like the Ford Maverick, it’s not an exciting ride, but it is reliable transportation and I don’t a have a bill for Preparation-H.
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Can’t blame manufacturers for equipping economy cars with automatic transmissions here in the US because that’s what buyers want. Unfortunately CVT is the common choice, and Nissan makes terrible CVTs. I only buy manual transmission cars (for reliability) and the pickens are getting slim.
+1
Manufacturers will market products that sell in sufficient quantities for them to make a profit. Having unsold vehicles sitting on dealers’ lots won’t benefit the mfr, or the dealer, or the employees of both.
Clearly, auto manufacturers don’t see a lot of demand for manual transmissions at this point, and customers will have to adapt to a changing marketplace.
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There is a total of one new car for sale within 200 miles of me with a MT under $25k - a Versa. 8 more $25k - $30k, Tiguans, Miatas, Wranglers, and Civic Si, most at $29,999. Folks might just want to forget about manual transmissions in cheap cars.
… especially if they are interested in the best gas mileage, as modern automatics frequently beat manual transmissions when it comes to fuel economy.
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Just a little fun fact: Nissan doesn’t make there own CVT’s, JATCO (Japanese Automatic Transmission Company), makes them for Nissan and the company also provides CVT’s for Chrysler, GM, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki with 49% of the world’s gearless gearboxes.
Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Hyundai, and Audi all produce their own CVTs (maybe more)…
However Nissan does own 75% stock in JATCO and works hand and hand with them on the design…
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Looks to me like the car industry is in decline except for the Chinese. Even Toyota is having problems with more and more complex and higher priced cars with lower quality cheaper parts. Prices are out of reach for many people and wages aren’t keeping up. Tariffs will only make cars more expensive. I expect to see more mergers and bankruptcies over the next few years as China takes over the market.
China might be able to gain a significant presence in the EU market, as a result of the EU imposing only a 10% tariff on Chinese-made vehicles. However, The US imposed a 27.5% tariff on Chinese-made vehicles several years ago.
More recently, the current administration imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs, thus doubling their price if sold in The US, and making it impossible for China to compete here with their EVs. While Elon Musk mysteriously opposes that protective tariff on Chinese-made EVs, I tend to doubt that the incoming administration would lower the tariff.
Maybe he wants to sell the EVs that Tesla builds in China in the US.
Let me guess…
The importation of his Chinese-made Teslas would be tariff-free.
The 27.5-100 % tariff would only apply to other vehicles made in China.
Do I have that right?
I expect Liddle Donnie uses tariffs to draw attention to himself, and invite bribes. All one needs to do is buy his cryptocurrency and never withdraw it. Justin Sun bought $30M worth. Let’s see what happens to the SEC’s suit against him.
I thought Honda worried that if they didn’t partner with Nissan that Toyota would roll them over - I’m no expert.
no paywall.
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It seems like a big difference in size of the companies and the health of the smaller one may have a lot to do with success. Daewoo was in serious trouble when GM took them over, changing the name to GM Korea. Daewoo had a lot of quality problems and a lot of those went away after GM took them over completely.
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I’m more worried Mitsubishi and Nissan could drag down Honda, if this “merger” isn’t executed well
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IMO Honda and Nissan want to avoid being gobbled up by a much larger car company in a better position to dictate terms. They do have complimentary product lines. Nissan has large trucks (Titan, Armada), EVs (LEAF, Arita), sports cars (GT-R, Z) and inexpensive cars (Versa, Sentra). While Honda has very popular products in cars (Civic, Accord), the Odyssey, and several SUVs. Honda can also help improve Nissan’s quality. The problem will be getting along when they start streamlining cars and SUVs. I imagine that won’t come for a while though.
+1
Again, +1
There could actually be considerable positive synergy resulting from the merger… as long as Honda’s quality isn’t dragged down in the process.
At the monthly meetings of the NADA chapter that i chair, all of the dealers present report their sales of the previous month, inventory levels, and a bunch of other statistics. At our last meeting, in early December, they reported strong sales, and inventory was turning over over fairly quickly. Of course there was a lot of variability between brands. The Tesla dealer was basically selling “every unit i can get”, the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram dealer was selling mostly Jeeps and he had to discount those to move them. None of the others made a great impression in my head.
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US car sales totals for the first half of 2024, as compared to 2023:
1.Toyota 1,019,429 - Up 16%
-
Ford 1,003,726 - Up 4%
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Chevrolet 838,697 - Down 1%
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Honda 626,266 - Up 12%
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Nissan 461,433 Up 3%
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Hyundai 399,523 Up 2%
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Kia 386,461 Down 2%
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Subaru 322,443 Up 6%
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Jeep 304,182 Down 9%
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GMC 281,882 Down 2%
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Mazda 202,486 Up 9%
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Ram 200,792 Down 25%
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Volkswagen 182,900 Up 26%
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Mercedes-Benz 179,489 Up 6%
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BMW 175,724 Up 3%
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Lexus 167,411 Up 12%
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Audi 93,282 Down 14%
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Dodge 92,737 Down 16%
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Buick 89,774 Up 11%
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Chrysler 74,574 Down 8%
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Cadillac 73,904 Down 2%
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Volvo 62,882 Up 5%
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Acura 53,371 Down 27%
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Mitsubishi 51,133 Up 12%
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Lincoln 48,817 Up 26%
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Land Rover 32,717 Up 15%
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Porsche 32,323 Down 11%
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Genesis 31,821 Up 3%
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INFINITI 28,027 Down 13%
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MINI 12,239 Down 18%
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Jaguar 5,093 Up 17%
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Alfa Romeo 4,479 Up 2%
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Rolls-Royce 925 Up 5%
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McLaren 535 Flat
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Fiat 470 Up 68%
The same could be said of Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin when owned by Ford and to some degree Volvo. You can’t say that today for Jag and LR under Tata’s ownership!
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