I think the interior looks far too much like a Fisher Price toy... great big ***** and such. I'm just not a fan.

It's a nice enough truck... I'm not going to fan the flames; just not my first choice.

 

No thanks. Mechanical fans are gay, and that interior is wayyyy too bland.

 

Yes, but where does the money ultimately go?

LMAO!!!

BAAAAA....HAHAHAHAHA!!!

X2. Unfortunately with this current economic landscape that we have created (or allowed to be created), that's becoming more and more challenging.

 

You remind me of a local radio DJ who’s a die hard “buy American” guy too. He announced on the air a few months ago that he’d bought a new (Chevy) pickup because he wouldn’t buy any “foreign crap.” Somebody called him up and took him to task on the true American content of his new truck. The caller did a great job of explaining that almost nothing is totally made in any one country anymore. His reply was that “I removed all of the foreign parts.”

OK, I had to do it. I called up and asked him when he wanted me to stop by with the flat bed. When he asked why, I told him “To tow your truck back to the dealer because it obviously won’t run now.” Without getting into the details, let’s just say that he got himself pretty well wrapped around the axle as he tried to wiggle out of his lie.

The sad truth is that it’s a global economy whether we want it to be or not. For many years, Americans enjoyed a standard of living well above many other countries. Well, the other folks want a piece of that action and are willing to work pretty darn hard for it. In fact many of them are willing to work much harder to get it than we are to maintain it. (I saw that when I was in China.) In fact if you want a real wake up call, go to China (or India, or Thailand, or …) and see why you’ll never compete with them on certain products. They flat out work their tails off for what for them are darn good wages.

Do I like buying American products whenever I can? Yes – if it’s cost effective, I happen to have a 2010 Ford F-150 (with 33,000 miles on it) and a 2006 Scion xB (with 103,000 miles on it) sitting in my garage. I bought each of them because I wanted to. The Scion has required minimal normal maintenance and the only problems have been a stereo head unit (replaced under warranty) and an Oxygen Sensor that went last month. I flog the snot out of it and it’s been the most reliable / best resale value car I’ve ever owned. The truck? Let’s just say it’s been back to the dealer 4 times for various little things that should have never broken. From an overall quality standpoint, the Scion has it beat hands down.

Finally, I’m sorry if you think the Japanese stole your job. If the Japanese visitors that went through your factory were from Toyota though, I can assure you (from personal experience) they were not “stealing your processes.” They were laughing at how inefficient you were and figuring out how to do it better. And those better processes very likely now employ American workers in modern factories that pay American taxes that don’t have to fight a union steward every time they want to improve a process.

And remember, the computer that you’re going to type out your angry reply to me on is virtually 100% made overseas.

 

That actually brings up an interesting question. Why is it OK for "American" companies to make money overseas, but it's wrong for an overseas company to make money in America?

I work for a very American company. For the last 15 years, most of our profits have come from overseas. Nobody's yelling at us for it. In fact if anything, they're yelling at us because we don't make enough.

 

Since it is built by American workers, the money goes into the American workers wallet!

 

In looking at pickup reliability for Chevy, Dodge, Ford, and Toyota from Consumer Reports, it backs up what you have said.

In Summary, out of the American 3, Chevy has the worst reliability (as expected) and Ford has the best. However, Toyota has the best reliability of all 4:

 

I just noticed that the new "Ford" 6.7L diesel is doing very well! Much better than Chevy, or Dodge diesels.

 

If anybody wants to direct their anger over lost jobs in the US against anybody, I'd suggest that Japan is about the most unworthy target. At least Japanese companies have built huge manufacturing facilities here in the US and hired thousands American workers to staff them. And the wroking conditions, pay and benefits in these factories are very competitive.

Want to know who public enemy #1 for job losses is? China. Not only do they not have any worker safety or environmental regulations to speak of, they completely flaunt US patent laws and blatantly copy US (and other) company's products. That's where the real job losses are coming from. And don't try to find a Chinese company building a factory in the US to hire Americans. It just isn't happening.

 

+1 ....... One exception being Lenovo. They bought IBM's entire PC division (including people) and they are still in NC.

 

I stand corrected. Thank you. But they bought an existing business. They didn't build a new facility from the ground up like Toyota has - many times over.

 

They bought IBM's PC division, but they built a headquarters and research facility from the ground up in Morrisville, NC:

http://www.lenovo.com/lenovo/us/en/our_company.html

However, I agree, nowhere near the number of facilities Toyota has built.

 

OK you're a Japan groupie and that's awesome we all get that no need to keep it up.

It was Toyota and they wanted to see how we were manufacturing our product with a one part per million reject rate that satisfies Ford's Q1 rating, a feat that was extremely rare at the time. We SIR were laughing at them!!
We incorporated full robotics and laser gauging that fed to the CNC machine controls. Our engineers designed and we created 99% of it.

They wanted a supplier for the "new" factory they were building that would take advantage of Southern low wages and great hands on skills and would sidetrack all tariffs imposed on imports. We were chosen for that task. Every visit was the same duck and cover all of our methods.

Toyota was very smart (read underhanded). We had to use their materials and tooling. I bet you can guess the outcome of this one....in no way what they gave us could remotely work. They were looking for a peek inside to copy that's all and when it didn't bear fruit they set us up plain and simple.

My company embraced JIT (just in time) and Demmings method of manufacture. We not only embraced it we dominated in it. The fact you think they (Toyota) were there to laugh at us with zero information tells me your an engineer, they make decisions based on ego and misinformation.

I am no longer with the company but they are thriving. Toyota gave the work to Moog Sankie. What a shocker. Japanese company.

You have me beat for years in the industry though I'll give you that. I only have 26 years.

I will not be responding anymore to this thread. We are on different side of the fence on this one.

 

You are obviously not an engineer, based on your comments.

I suggest you read this :

http://www.school-for-champions.com/..._reduction.htm

 

Sure, it keeps some Americans employed, but that's not the point I was trying to make. Where does the profit from the vehicle sales end up?