I should have worded my statement better--the Japanese are slipping in the US market. JDM is still JDM good as you've pointed out.KuroNekko wrote:The Japanese aren't slipping. They are simply building more in the US. The quality of US-built cars and their parts suppliers are good, but not Made in Japan good. I'm rather particular about this so I like my Japanese cars made in Japan. It's actually one of the aspects about the Kizashi that attracted me to it. Many rivals in its class are made in the US.
While I believe that Koreans cars are getting better, I still think they need a ways to go. Don't mistake initial quality with long term durability. I mean, have you heard of Hyundais with 250,000 miles yet? Not very much. You barely see any Korean cars on the road that are older than 10 years old. Yet, it's not hard to find late 90's/early 2000's Toyota Camrys with 230,000 miles owned by girls with no idea how to fill oil in an engine.
While I agree that many products in the US are not as good as their foreign counterparts, I'd disagree that Americans don't care. They do. That's why so many gravitated to foreign brands. While some Americans prefer domestics, many want the best for their hard-earned money, regardless of who makes it. The Japanese have been the best at offering quality cars for a good value for decades.
Even today, the best selling midsize and compacts are Japanese brands.
Domestics do offer quality, but they focused it on very specific segments like full size trucks for a long time and neglected others like compacts and midsizes. They are now finally investing money into developing competitive cars and people are taking notice.
But it is the initial quality and quality components that lead to those durability numbers. While the Camrys of 1988 are still on the road, those from 2008 can't hold a candle to the Japanese 'goodness' that was in those cars of old. There just haven't been enough Korean sales of their better products to say that they won't be the 1988 Camrys 20 years from now.
While Americans do appreciate quality, it's not like a decision is made to buy or not buy based on it. In other markets and parts of the world where money is harder to come by, people will simple not buy a car that isn't quality. And that's the difference.
(actually OK mechanically) and a two F150s.
We know how difficult a quick life-adjustment is--we packed up and moved from NYC to MKE in 2 weeks for my wife's job. 
The decision was already made!
