Our Jetta ain't cheap to work on...dealer wanted $750 for the catalytic converter...got it elswhere installed for less, but dissappointed to find it had a PLASTIC dip-stick tube which ROTTED down to the engine...fun car to drive...5 speed...just drove it at the beach...but our camry w/TWICE the miles is a much more SOLID car...doors still close like a BMW..Personally I wouldn't buy another VW...we've already had the transmission rebuilt @ < 100,000 miles

Charlie...get the Subaroo!!...

My son had a Jetta Had to be the bigest POS I ever seen! I have another with a outback, he likes it but its getting up there in age now and he has fixed a few things for $$$

Yep....I completely agree Reel. The Camry is to Toyota what the Accord is to Honda.... Both are top of the line and are built like I wish American cars were built. My wife drives a 2004 Accord with just over 100k miles...only thing we've ever done to it is normal maintenance...

Charlie, ....Given only the choice of the Subaru or the Volvo my choice would be the Subaru every time.:head:

I guess this is the annual "Charlie wants another car thread" I'll stick with my recommendation from a year or two ago, 97-99 Tahoe/Burb. You can find them all day long for $3500-$5000. My wifes 99 is now my 99, she's got an 02 now. The 99 has 234k on it, runs great and is cheap to keep running, gets better mileage than the 02. I will admit, the 02 drives a whole lot better

It always bugs me when I read and hear things like this. I work on em for a living, and I would MUCH rather have an American car come in VS an import. The newer Amercian cars really aren't what people rememebr from the 70's and 80's. The imports give just as much trouble, but cost 2-3 times as much to fix. It hurts me as people don't want to spend that much money to fix em. Not to mention some of there designing is a real bear to work around and get parts for.

I hear what you're saying Ferm, I had the 99 burb in to have the front end aligned, the tech came in and told me it had some slop in the steering box(nothing wrong with the box, just his alignment, but that's another story)=, I made the comment that with over 200K on it, it deserved to have a little slop. They was a lady standing there that commented, wow, i has over 200,000 miles, what kind of car is that? I told her it was a Chevy. She commented that she didn't think American cars would last that long. She had her Lexus in for over $1000 in maintenance. I told her the burb was just getting broken in good, I expected at least another 100K out of it, then I told her my van has 340K on it, she couldn't believe it. The majority of the American buying public has been brainwashed into thinking you have to have a foreign car to have a good car. There are good and bad cars from all manufactures. A good friend of mine is a service manager at a Honda dealership, I asked him if the cars were really that good. He said the difference is, most Honda owners do what the manual says to do, if it says you need to spend what ever on the front end at what ever mileage, they tend to do it, if the manual says you need to have the dealer change your oil at what ever millage, they carry the car to the dealer to have it done. That dealer ship does a lot of oil changes, tune ups and brake jobs, most people who own domestic cars either do the work them selves or take it to the quick lube on the corner. The fact that a factory trained tech looks over those cars at the dealer ship goes a long way towards preventative maintenance. If you start out with a solid car and take care of it, regardless of what brand it is, you should get good use out of it

I hate to see and hear the negative about domestics as well, but it's pretty undeniable the American mfgrs did it to themselves...at a time when the imports were shipping in better quality than the general public was accustomed to, the quality of domestics was on a pretty noticeable decline...the one exception was trucks...
I have a good friend who's father bought a Nissan/Chrysler dealer in the early 80s...as they were losing money selling/maintaining Chryslers, he dropped the Chryslers like a hot rock in '86...I'd love to have a recent Mustang or an early one, but there were years I wouldn't have thought of buying one...about the only domestic holding up a good standard was Buick that I remember...that's just my cut at it...

Spare and Ferm... I respect both of you for your vast mechanical knowledge, but this is one time I'm gonna disagree. You have to understand that I've been a proponent of BUY AMERICAN for most of my adult life... I would never own foreign born iron...

But in 2002 My wife bought a brand new Dodge Intrepid, with a 2.7 V6 engine in it..Great car, plenty of power, etc etc etc. It was great right up until, with less than 65,000 miles on it, the engine blew up. The dealership would not repair it under any sort of warentee, but would be happy to put in a rebuilt 2.7 for just over $4,800. I did a little searching and found out that this engine, which was the first ever 100% computer designed engine, had a long history of baking the oil because it ran so hot...and it had tiny oil galleys...so the oil galleys sludged up and got smaller and smaller until it ran out of oil. Oh, and they put the water pump inside the engine behind the timing chain.. so if that broke (and a lot did around 40,000 miles) all the water would mix in with your oil in the pan and again no lube and the engine blows. Chrysler denied ANY responsibility to everyone that complained (Do an internet search and see how many thousands of complaints there are) I took a financial bath with that hunk of garbage. It was right about then that I decided to buy an Accord for my wife, based on the opinions of various people that I talked to that had them. Best purchase decision I every made in my life regarding a vehicle.

So you can tell me that American made is just as good... and I'll agree since most of the Hondas and Toyotas and Subarus that we buy are, indeed, made right here in America... but American made does not necessarly have the same corporate mindset as foreign made... They care about their reputation. There's a reason that Ford, GM and Chrysler almost went bankrupt. The reason is that they were turning out ****ty cards, people saw it and started buying better quality from overseas makers. You want me to start buying American owned company vehicles again?? Let them change how they think and let them start making great cars again and I will. But till that time I'll stick with my Honda.

Not to sound cynical or anything, but your going to base your opinion of all domestics off of one bad apple? It would probably shock you to know that the POS engine(yes the 2.7L was a POS from the get go as I worked for DODGE when it came out and the techs all pointed out the faults from the get go and CHRYSLER did nothing) you quote was built and designed in a paretnership with MERCEDES BENZ? If you think back MERCEDES and CHRYSLER joined forces in 95, and in 96 the POWERTECH series engines started to come out. The 2.7L was one of them along with the redesigned 4.0L JEEP, and the 4.7L DODGE engine(used in the JEEP first). And not all 2.7L engines died, the majority of failures with them were due to extended oil change intervals plugging the oil galleys(that engine NEEDED the oil changed every 3K miles). I've seen them run well over 100K miles, and still look brand new inside. In the 70's the imports were far and away better than the domestic made cars, I will agree with this. But by the early 90's the domestic cars had become every bit as good if not better than many imports. Yes there are bad apples with any manufacturers as I could go on and on pointing out bad apples in ALL of them. Push comes to shove though as a whole, the domestic made cars are every bit as good now as any import.

hey ferm, maybe the newer americans can compete with the newer "imports" but i'm looking 10 or so years old. in my opinion the older (10-15 years) jap cars cant be beat. i just got rid of a 94 camry with over 175k and the motor and tranny were like brand new. i'm sorry i got rid of it but the boss wanted it gone. as far as i'm concerned you simply cant beat a 10 or 15 year old toyota. spare, i'm looking for something dependable for the wife to drive and something we can use for road trips. i'll be looking to replace my dakota soon at which point i'll probably look for a tahoe or yukon or suburban but for her i need something with good mileage especially since our regular just went over $4.05 per gallon. i'm as patriotic as the next guy and try to support american products and businesses when i can but i refuse to buy an inferior product to prove a point. if the days of the $50. dollar cars were still here i would run right out and buy a 78 caprice for $250. but if i can get a camry for the same price i'm going toyota all day long.