Those who call us brainwashed cattle for holding a different opinion seem to be the most brainwashed and easily influenced among us. Here is an example where all it took was an ounce of anecdote and a pound of confirmation bias to convince Joe Dirt here that any car manufacturered under a Japanese brand is crap.
I bet he worships at the feet of an orange god with a camel toe neck and a 
####.
Mea Culpa. Iâm the one who flagged the profanity containing post by @UsedEconobox_2_UsedBMW. I was trying to reply to suggest he edit to tone down the bits of strong language, since this forum is supposed to be family friendly. I hit the flag button instead. Now I cannot âunflagâ it despite what I try.
So, my apologies for my error. But I do suggest to @UsedEconobox_2_UsedBMW that while your strong opinion is yours to have that editing your language would be preferable.
Donât apologize. In addition to the swearing and trolling, âJapâ is a pejorative that has no place on these forums. If you hadnât flagged it for @cdaquila to deal with, I would have.
I flagged it, too.
Marnet, I flagged Econobox on purpose . You do not need to apologize at all . It is time for the moderators to close this thread anyway.
Thank you gentlemen. I totally agree with you. The reason I apologized is because I am always sensible of my position here as the only (as far as I know) female regular in the group aside from our wonderful moderator Caroline. I try always to conduct myself as a lady. At the same time, I recognize this is something of a âboys clubâ. Almost always, you regulars are very much courteous gentleman even when mixing it up in occasional heated arguments and are great about self policing. So I try not to be a goody two shoes. That said, strong opinions can be stated without profanity or perjoratives such as @UsedEconobox_2_UsedBMW employed. So although I apologized for flagging his post, I do not regret having managed to do so.
Some of us who are loyal Japanese auto followers use to be loyal American auto followers. Brainwashing had nothing to do with it. Very good observation of financial cost of owning a GM or ford compared to the Japanese vehicles weâve owned. Cost has been considerable less.
Though I will say this is the one of the least âboyâs clubâ car organizations Iâve ever participated in. My old import car club had some women in it. It was always kind of amusing when people would assume they were our wives or something. âUh, no, Jaime just swapped her engine last week solo in less than a day, which is more than most of us would be able to pull offâŠâ
Donât apologize for flagging. Looks like John addresses the flag already, but @UsedEconobox_2_UsedBMW I have deleted the post that was flagged because of the inappropriate language. And donât let Mr Econobox bring the rest of you down into the muck.
@cdaquila Why not just close this ? 290 posts does not leave much to add to it so it should be read only thread. Of course who would want to wade though all this anyway.
Same reason I donât close most other discussions. One guy tried to derail the discussion with some profanity and at best outdated and at worst racist language. Everybody called him out, and aside from some speculation about his political affiliations the discussion proceeded as normal. Sure, itâs long. But thereâs nothing really wrong with it.
The late Tom McCahill who tested cars and wrote in Mechanix Illustrated discussed brand loyalty back in the 1960s. He claimed that often car buyers stuck with a particular make and would trade the car in for their next car and buy the next car from the same manufacturer. Tom McCahill said it would take a real lemon to get a person to change brands. The same was often true of purchasers of appliances.
What has happened to kill brand loyalty in my opinion are the automobile group where one owner has dealerships under one name that sells different makes at multiple dealerships under the same name. There will be a Joe Smith Chevrolet, a Joe Smith Mazda and a Joe Smith Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep. A big box store such as Lowes sells several different brands of appliances. Brand loyalty has disappeared for many customers including me.
Yeah the same brand loyalty went for tooth paste, soap, deodorant, etc. What people started with and got used to they tend to stick with throughout their lives. Drives me nuts when the pull brands or change the formulas.
Part of the issue with cars now though is the sameness. One looks the same as the other and you even need to take a magnifying glass to see the name plate. So there isnât the same brand differentiation that there used to be. Whether they use the same design firm or interior vendors or component manufacturers, I dunno but not much difference in any of them from first glance. So unless you really have a negative view of one or a positive view, it doesnât seem to matter as much anymore.
Then as far as lawn equipment goes, whether Cub Cadet, Troy, MTD, etc. they are all made by the same company. They use the same parts and just the color scheme is different. Many of the brands have just plain soiled themselves by putting out junk. Some I still trust like Toro, but they are more focused on the pro. So I try to keep my stuff going.
Hereâs what I donât like about carâs looks at the moment
The severe slope and pathetic trunk lids, which make âsedansâ look like liftbacks
Those of you whoâve lived abroad will know that term 
And as far as brand loyalty goes . . .
As Iâve mentioned before, weâve driven Toyotas for decades . . . there were a few Mazdas, Nissans, Hondas and Benzes, as well . . . but weâve continuously owned at least one Toyota for a long time now
And there werenât enough problems to justify a switch
Now if we get 2 Toyota lemons in a row, that might change, but that day hasnât yet arrived
Speaking of switching brands . . . before my parents started owning Toyotas, they had several VWs in a row. Beetles, vans, even a Karman Ghia
But after some time, my dad wanted something more reliable. After getting his first Toyota, he never went back to VW. I think that first Toyota was a rwd Corolla liftback. I clearly remember the horrible rear seats. It was like sitting in a hole 
We have owned Chrysler products (2), Fords (2), GM products(4), Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Mazda.
I have no particular brand loyalty, but in appliances and electronics Panasonic has a reputation for quality as did Frigidaire when it was owned by GM.
General Electric was once a mark of quality, but has slid in all areas.
Consumer Reports has no hang ups about shooting sacred cows, and is very objective in quality reports. We have been reading it since 1968 and it has helped is selecting the right products for our needs.
Tom McCahill almost made fun of the first Japanese car (a Toyopet) he tested. I was made fun of in my college camera club in the 50s for having a Japanese 35mm camera selling for about half of that of a German or US model (yes, Kodak, Bell & Howell, and Argus made such cameras once). I did win a photo contest with it.
I even have a Kodak Retina Ia, IIb, and IIIc. Great cameras in my opinion.
I think what happened to brand loyalty is that brands arenât loyal to us.
People were loyal to GM until GM screwed them over by charging them full price for rolling boxes of junk.
People were loyal to Craftsman until Craftsman screwed them over by changing over from making quality tools to making cheap junk, but charging people the same amount of money.
Itâs kinda like employer loyalty. Iâve heard employers complain that employees arenât loyal to their employer anymore. Well⊠Yeah! Employers arenât loyal to their employees. Times get tough, or the owner decides one private jet isnât enough, and 5,000 people get their walking papers whether they do a good job or not.
You want people to show loyalty to you, youâve gotta show loyalty to them, and screwing them over is not going to cut it.
Brand loyalty really doesnât make sense to me. No one brand is better across the board, so why confine myself to one brandâs vehicles? Each purchase is a one-off: what the best choice, based on my needs at the time? For me, thatâs been a Plymouth, two VWs, a Jeep, a Chevy, a Lexus, and two Lincolns. Each has worked out fine.
Well, I see it as natural tendency. All animals learn from pain or pleasure. The more of either, the stronger and longer the reaction to it. You pay a boatload of hard earned cash for a car and it turns out to be a hunk of junk, the less likely you will ever buy anything from that company again. Conversely, if you get decent results, the more likely you will return and expect the same result.
Back in the day, all you had to go on was the experience of people around you. Today, the number of people you can essentially tap for their experience is orders of magnitude larger. It would be foolish to blindly believe that because you didnât have problems with XYZ from Brand X that the same will be true years later with XYZ, or more importantly ABC, from Brand X. But avoiding human nature is very hard to doâŠthatâs why companies invest so much into brand identity/recognitionâŠ
Well Texas - youâre NOT the norm. GM, Ford and Chryco have given me any family significant more problems then Honda, Toyota or Nissan. I was a very loyal GM fan until they kept screwing me with extremely unreliable vehicles. My brother-in-law is an EX Chryco plant manager and even he admits it. Thatâs why he drives Hondaâs. My other brother-in-law was a loyal Ford fan for decades. Couldnât believe how much more reliable his Toyotaâs and Hondaâs are compared to his Fords.
Your experience is far outside the norm of mine and everyone my age or older who is now buying Asian vehicles.