Japanese cars reliability - true or myth?

Why can’t we offer free college education to top qualifying students in the form of tax credits ?

Um, that’s easy. We are no longer allowed to put top qualified students ahead of various affirmative action applicants. And, on many professional tests, they no longer are allowed to release test scores of top scoring applicants, because most top scorers on technical examinations tend to be white males. This discriminates against other groups, so it has been stopped.

No, there is no way top qualified students will get any help. Think about it.

They are often lucky to even get a job.

Those are some severe accusations. Do you have references for your assertions?

Wow interesting statements…
Now check this out… my kid (in the local middle school) is good at math but the teacher won’t teach him at his level. He’s now bored. Almost all his classes he can pass easily and he knows quite a few other kids like that. They are mired in a system that caters to the lowest commom denominator. That’s not a slight to the lower performing student, there can be many reasons why that is so, I was one of them so I am able to speak of both sides… But why stunt the ability of your best? He will now go to a " Magnet" program in a high school out of his district. But I still can’t get over the fact that they are not allowed, in the public school system, to call a rose a rose and teach based on the ability of the student rather than the foolish notion that your feelings might get hurt. Then you would have a system that could take the bright kids and teach them correctly and the not so bright kids would get attention and so on. I grew up in a system that rewarded work. You got it right , your test scores showed. There was a 3 tier system A, B &C classes . A was top . You could work your way up ( or down for that matter) and the teaching was different because it had to be! It focused on taking a group of like minded kids and moving them in the right direction. In the system here, you have a group of kids with a spectrum of abilities and a Teacher not allowed to cater to those abilities,(I know because I’ve asked many different teachers in my kids schools…) and you wonder why the system fails? Then they go out in the word of work and realise that feelings don’t usually count it’s the WORK RESULTS that count. But they’ve spent so much time in a system that didn’t teach them that! It’s just too hilarious sometimes…

I will have to strongly disagree with your statement about “if a Japanese engineer had done it, it would have worked in the first place”.
As a lifelong tech and predominantly “foreign car” mechanic (mostly SAAB, VW, Honda, Nissan, Subaru) I can tell you for a fact that techs run into idiotic Japanese engineering all of the time that makes them wonder what in the xxxx the engineers were thinking.

Consider early Subaru automatic transmissions for example. An entire floor full of engineers in a large building determined that a plastic govenor drive gear will operate a steel driven gear while under high fluid pressure without failing. Guess what happens? The plastic gear fails soon meaning the transmission has to be completely diassembled to replace it with yet another plastic gear. After 4 years, a light clicked on and the engineers decided this gear should be made of steel. However, the DRIVEN gear was then made of plastic and the failure was in reverse. The only good side then is that is was a 20 minute fix. After a year or so they finally decided that both gears should be made of steel. Go figure.; it only took them 6 years to figure this out.

One would think that one of those Japanese engineers would have said “Hey guys, is plastic really going to hold up on this”?
A lowly mechanic can look at it and assume quickly what is going to happen so why not dozens of degreed engineers?

That’s just one example of many unless you want me to get into overloaded electrical circuits, wet sleeve engines, poorly designed trans shifter shaft seals leading to transmission destruction, etc.; all of which were Japanese engineered. The Asians build good stuff, but they are not fault free and the cars are not infallible.

Good points.
But with the advent of special education (necessary IMHO), No Child Left Behind recently, the $ just isn?t there for homogeneous grouping. Keeping everyone in school and providing everyone the same educational opportunity, does more for crime prevention than service the top students. When money is an issue, the first to go are the AP classes and PE. Both ends of the educational spectrum that service society well.

Offering vouches and privatizing education doesn?t work. Each soldier in Iraq cost $180,000 to support per year, each private contractor cost over $400,000. There are some things that govts… do better. National security is one of them, and education is an integral part of it. Until we accept that, we?ll keep falling behind other countries that do.

Take one carrier or bomber fleet and put that $$$$$ into charter schools for the top students and provide FREE college education for qualifying students (like many of our industrial competitors do) and we can take a step in the right direction. Our military industrial complex syphons off some of our best students…we have enough to go around only if we invest in the education of all.

Some of you will call it throwing money at a problem. I would argue for a NATIONAL invest ment in our security instead of putting it all on our local tax burden.

Education is part of our national security…until we GET IT., we keep falling behind. Poorly designed automobiles is a precursor,. What will it be next ?

“Why can’t we offer free college education to top qualifying students in the form of tax credits ?”

There are scholarships for top qualifying students, aren’t there? If they need the money, they can get a scholarship or take out a student loan. Or do what my kids do: get Dad to pay for it. Maybe a needy student can’t go to any college they can get into, but they certainly can go somewhere.

The question isn’t “can a needy student go to college” it’s can he afford to go into a field that won’t give him the best return…
We spent $60K for each of our childen"s college education (state uni did not offer their program choice), back in the early 90s and they still had scholarships, work study and loans to pay off.

JT, do you really know how much college costs these days ? It’s unaffordable for quality students w/o money in FIELDS THAT WOULD BENEFIT US MOST IN THE AREAS OF NEED. And “going somewhere” is not the point.

Many of these 100,000 km cars are NOT JUNKED; they go on to live for another 10 years in countries where they drive on the left side of the road and where there is no active car industry. New Zealand, Ireland, many African countries, most SE Asian countries, etc.

I worked in a city in Malaysia where the entire taxi fleet was made up of the hand me down Japanese cars, lovingly cared for till they accumulated nearly 1,000,000 kms. A Japanese car with 100,000 km or ten years old is considered as good as a locally assembled car.

My 91 Accord, 95 Honda Civic and 02 Acura RSX have all been very realiable cars. I still have the RSX and even though it has only seen a mechanic 2x for maintenance I prefer not to do like brakes (all others were done by me) is far more realiable than our 06 Benz ML350 which had squeeky V-belt(replaced), faulty brake sensor (replaced) and intermittent squeeky brake. On a recent trip from NorCal to SoCal to NV I was surprised our ML350 did well, the only issue I got was every day it kept reminding me to check the oil level…i’ve checked the level at least 4 times and it’s good.

From my experience, Japanese car reliability is Not a myth.

A couple of years ago…if you son/daughter was accepted into Harvard or Yale AND your income was $100k or less then your child will receive a FULL GRANT. This is NOT a loan. Full tuition covered for free. Harvard has a $20B trust that keeps growing and growing. Yale I think is second with about $5B.

I owned a Chevrolet,Chrysler and ford and had problems with them all.I now own a Toyota 05 rav4 and i love it and had no problems with it.I hate to say this but i will never buy another American made car or truck again.

MikeinNH.

What does Harvard or Yale have to do with the vast majority of college participants that we depend upon. I can likewise name heavily endowed colleges that make entrance an automatic participation in scholarship programs.

Big deal ! We still havn’t addressed the vast majority of college bound students. THEY are the ones that design our cars…and I still read posts the skirt the issue because it’s money they don’t feel they have to invest.

“JT, do you really know how much college costs these days ? It’s unaffordable for quality students w/o money in FIELDS THAT WOULD BENEFIT US MOST IN THE AREAS OF NEED. And “going somewhere” is not the point.”

Sure. I have one child in college right now and two on the way in a couple of years. I’m a regular expert on the subject. I don’t share your socialist desire for universal college education, paid for by the taxpayer. Ooooh! I sound like Beefy Norm!

Students can go to an affordable school. After all, isn’t it more what you make of the opportunity than where you go? Students can also get loans, scholarships or internships. They can even use the GI Bill if they join the military.

I have two data points. Both owned since brand new and still owned today. 2006 Mazda5 is an excellent design configuration, very pleasant to drive, very inexpensive for its capabilities, and as Consumer Reports just pointed out in the 2008 April Auto Issue, absolutely the top-ranked UNpopular vehicle available in the US today (i.e. it deserves to sell better). However, its reliability in our two years of ownership has only been medium, not excellent. We’ve had an electronic key fob fail, an airbag warning circuit fail, a suspension noise problem, and an engine stumble that has been a repeated problem since day one and only was addressed successfully by a Feb 2008 Mazda Service Bulletin. The other data point is much more in line with the “Japanese Superiority Complex” point of view. To my increasing amazement year by year, my 1997 Acura Integra GS-R (yes, the buzzy 8000 rpm boy racer model) has required virtually zero repair in 11 years and 145,000 miles. Virtually the TOTAL list of repairs are 1) graunch noise from tailgate hinges I’ve learned to ignore 2) seat track jammed once during warrantee 3) timing belt and water pump done together at 90,000 miles and 4) new radiator at 10 years. Right now this car is ready for its daily 45 mile commute sitting in our driveway with its original clutch, alternator, starter, engine, transmission, shocks, muffler, a/c system, stereo and all other electronics functioning well. Even bragging about it hasn’t seemed to cause any “curses” (yet).

I still don’t think you (plural) can make a statement such as “If a Japanese engineer had done it, it would have worked in the first place”. That’s an unproveable, unsubstantiated statement. Are Japanese engineers superhuman, never make mistakes, and always account for every possible situation that a design might be subjected to?

Jad, I never said anything like that. All I said was that Japanese corporate culture is very different from American corporate culture. Their values are different from ours. It just so happens that they have outdone us in direct competition based in quality and sales trends. You are right. It might not be because they make better cars than we do. It could be some mysterious force that we don’t recognize other than corporate culture. I can’t prove a cause and effect, but I have yet to see you prove the negative either.

Why has tuition increased at a rate far exceeding inflation over the last 30 years? Is it incompetence or indifference?

Tuition has increased at public colleges and universities because public funding has not kept up with enrollment. For the first time in history, there are now American states that spend more on prisons than they spend on higher education. If state legislatures won’t make higher education a prioroty, only the voters are to blame.

Um, that’s easy. We are no longer allowed to put top qualified students ahead of various affirmative action applicants.

What state do you live in? Here in Florida, need-based scholarships are hard to come by. Merit-based scholarships are widely available. Not only that, but the shift from need-based scholarships to merit-based scholarships is negatively effecting our median income. It is contributing to the cycle of poverty and increasing the crime rate.

Several years ago I believed that the time for affirmative action had passed. I was wrong. A few years ago, a group did a study at the University of Chicago where they sent out resumes with identical work history and identical education. Some resumes had ethnic names and some resumes had homogenous names. The resumes with ethnic names were less than half as likely to be contacted for an interview. Affirmative action is still necessary. Bigotry still exists in many forms and until it is completely wiped out, affirmative action will be necessary.

It is nice to know that the gap is closing. American large pickup trucks are generally well built and last a long time, especially when not used as trucks. The new Malibu and Ford Fusion are very serious efforts to compete with Honda and Toyota.

The lower priced American designed cars are still much lower on the quality scale than Japanese designed compacts. US companies treat these as an afterthought but that will change with rising gas prices. It will be interesting to see how the Belgium-built, German-designed Saturn Astra (Opel)will fare. Opels in Europe are known as solid, but somewhat boring cars. I like that designation.

What does Harvard or Yale have to do with the vast majority of college participants that we depend upon.

MConn…I wasn’t addressing the Vast Majority of collect participants. I was simply stating a FACT that there is college MONEY out there for MANY students who can’t afford it.

I can likewise name heavily endowed colleges that make entrance an automatic participation in scholarship programs.

Great…so now we know of more colleges that offer scholarships.

Big deal ! We still havn’t addressed the vast majority of college bound students. THEY are the ones that design our cars

For now. But what about 5 years from now when the GM/Ford and Chryco engineering campuses being built in India come on line. They’ve already started to shift many engineering jobs over there. MIT has MANY students from India majoring in Mechanical engineering who already have jobs lined up back in India working for AMERICAN companies.