FrankoLaMoya wrote:One of my friends had the Focus ST for about a month before he blew up the engine. I always hear/heard a lot of negative comments about Ford, Dodge, Chevrolet and Jeep... but never about Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Subaru, Hyunda... you know where I am going with this... don't buy american. I saw a guy wrote on a forum ''My Cruze is pretty reliable so far except I had the water pump replaced twice already''. the Cruze was a 2012 with 35 000 miles on it.... I mean common man, you really thin that is normal? People sometimes...That is one of many stories I've read over the internet.
I both agree and disagree with this notion.
The Japanese are well-known to make the most reliable cars, but it's not like getting one insures problem-free ownership. Moto has a Forester which is a made-in-Japan Subaru yet it's been problematic as his first post stated.
Also, domestics have got a lot better in the last decade. No doubt that domestics tend to have lower reliability than Japanese brands in general, but it should really be viewed model vs. model.
I've personally only owned Japanese cars, many of which were made in Japan. I haven't experienced any major failures and would say these Japanese cars were very reliable. However, keep in mind I've never owned any of the "big three" Japanese brands: Toyota, Honda, or Nissan. Yet, it's these three that usually get associated with primo-Japanese quality/reliability and not others like Suzuki, Mazda, Subaru, etc.
I think that these days, many people disregard domestics unfairly because of their past while favoring Japanese cars that are arguably now resting on their laurels.
Some "domestics" are also unfairly viewed such as the Chevy Cruze you mentioned. That's actually a Korean car. Its origins and design are from GM Korea, formerly known as Daewoo. In fact, all of GM's small cars are from them including the Sonic, Cruze, Spark, Captiva, and Buick Encore. While the Cruze is made in the US, it was designed in Korea. It's essentially the descendant of the shitty Suzuki-badged Daewoos that were the Forenza, Reno, and Verona. In fact, foreign markets even had a "Suzuki Cruze" years ago which was a Daewoo-designed vehicle.
That being said, I don't really trust Ford's EcoBoost engines. Ford is new to turbocharging compared to the Germans and Japanese and their EcoBoost engines have proved to be rather problematic across the entire fleet. They need time to work out the kinks and make them more reliable. Even their fuel efficiency has been called into questions as their real-world figures have been below estimates. Despite the acclaimed performance of the Focus ST, its reliability is rather low and same goes for many Ford models with any form of the EcoBoost turbo engine.
However, the Focus RS is new... to America. It's been in Europe for a while now and is even designed and made in Europe. It's not like some brand new car that Ford is creating for the first time. While I expect its reliability to be lower than Japanese models, it's not like it's an entirely new vehicle that Ford will be learning from. In some ways, you can expect it to be better than some of its rivals performance-wise.
In essence, it's wiser to judge model to model, powertrain to powertrain. The Japanese brands have had recall after recall for problems and Honda executives in Japan even had a pay-cut due to consecutive quality issues with their products. Nissan's CVTs are problem-prone and models with them now end up on the "least reliable" lists.
Meanwhile, some domestics have surprisingly good reliability ratings from sources such as Consumer Reports which has long favored Japanese brands. Despite Ford's problematic EcoBoost turbocharged engines, their hybrids are among the most reliable vehicles on the road. The Chevy Volt also enjoys stellar reliability, surpassing most Japanese cars out there. Basically, it's not the brand or country of origin at fault for reliability, it's the model and its powertrain.
