I'm looking at the Recession deals for cars. I wondered if anyone had opinions on Domestic vs. Foreign? People tell me don't buy foreign because repairs are always more expensive.
I'm curious about Toyota vehicles. What kind of caught my eye on them was the Toyota FJ Cruiser, but I also hear comments on Toyota for reliability.
Here is the mind set that people in general have:
- European: Expensive to fix, higher quality feeling interiors, expensive and not as reliable as Asian cars
- Toyota/Nissan/Honda: Average to fix, highest quality, average interiors, average price and the most reliable cars
- American cars: Cheap to fix, lowest quality feeling interiors, average price, and the least reliable cars
- Korean cars (Hyundai/Kia): Average to fix, average quality feeling interiors, average price and about as reliable as European cars
But in reality...from my perspective....American cars are just as reliable as the Toyota/Nissan/Honda cars now....finally after nearly 30 years of pure crap. They have reverse engineered what the Asian car makers have done. Took their cars, took them apart and copied them. American cars now enter the most reliable cars list pretty often.
Kia/Hyundai have drastically improved and are right up there with the Asian cars.
European cars, while improving in quality, are still expensive to repair, but need repairs much less often than before.
Asian cars are Asian cars. They have a quality control that seems to set the bar, with exceptions of course. Some will argue that Toyota isn't like they used to be as far as quality goes. I can't confirm that, but I haven't seen an mass media downplaying Toyota.
I am an American, and I bleed American cars all my life. However, I just bought a new 2019 Toyota 4Runner last year. I wanted a truck based SUV, body on frame, midsize, that is reliable, and was still in a current gen where the bugs were worked out. None of my American manufacturers seemed to hit the sweetspot for me, with the Jeep Grand Cherokee being one of the runners....but it wasn't as capable as the 4Runner.
I guess what I am saying, this day and age with safety, reverse engineering, competition, you really can't go wrong with European, Korean, Asian or American vehicles. They are all producing solid vehicles these days.
Please note that my comments here are purely my opinion and perception and are NOT being projected as fact.