Got Chewed Out Today

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if there was "jap" sourced parts on that truck. Besides the foreign car manufacturers setting up shop here so have the foreign parts manufacturers.

I used to work for an American parts manufacturer. Back in the 70s we only had domestic competition but by the late 90s the foreign companies were here. These days there are major parts companies from Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere fighting for and getting a piece of the action.

As for domestic content, I believe that a Honda, built in Ohio, has the highest percentage of parts made in the USA. However, some of those parts were made by a foreign company.

As for older stuff being made better, yeah right, don't make me laugh. I bought a Dodge B300 van new in 74. Build quality was terrible, it was a major piece of ****. After having it a week I took it back to the dealer with a big list of problems, such as developing a half turn of play in the steering. Some of it's problems were uncorrectable, such as the rear doorway being about half an inch too wide so the rear doors didn't seal. I ended up keeping it though because I liked it in spite of the problems. I drove it 12 years and put 160K miles on it but had to junk it because severe rustout made it unsafe to drive. At 80K I had to go through the engine because it was sucking oil like mad. Even when new it used a quart every 1K.

I now have a 2000 Dakota I bought new. Build quality was excellent. No problems. It now has 225K on it, uses very little oil, virtually no rust in it. I hope to keep on driving it for a while.