Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Sedans Low End Sedans (under $16k)
3820 messages, Last post on Nov 24, 2008 at 9:45 AM
You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
|
|
|---|---|
|
Amen! That VW Passat is looking mighty nice! Drove one last year and came away absolutely impressed!! But you are right... That Passat I was looking at was only the GLS model (GLX being top) and it was already rapidly approaching $30k!!! |
|
|
|
|
When I post about vehicles, I don't feel that I am criticizing a person's choice of cars. I am merely responding to posts where someone makes a claim. I am merely posting facts in most cases. In other cases where I use vehicle satisfaction surveys, I am pointing out the opinions of actual owners. To me criticizing someone's choice in cars is where you talk about how the car looks overall and that I leave to the other guy. |
|
| I'd feel a lot better about magazines like C&D if just once they came out and said....Sorry...we are not impressed enough with anything....There in no Car of the Year this year. Of course, no one would buy the magazine then...and that is the point about magazines like C&D. Read them for fun, not for the absolute truths. Too much reliance on the advertising dollar and the like. | |
|
|
|
A person also needs to understand that Car and Driver is more impressed with cost. A lot of times it seems like the high end cars get more respect from them. As an enthusiast of low end cars, I think that is a shame. |
|
|
|
|
The little Echo probably cost almost what my Leganza cost. The Lexus RX300 cost almost twice the Santa Fe. Camry's reach past the price of the XG300. What happened to inexpensive transportion from Japan? I was personally screwed by Toyota on my Celica. I know their qualiy has improved, but their customer service lacks big time. Most likely, you will get excellent service from your toy. The problem occurs when you get the piece of bacon on the side that's all messed up. This happens to all cars. With Saturn they'll ofer you a new car, Daewoo will go BK helping you, Hyundai provides full coverage for 6/60 & pow/drive for 10/100. If you happen to be the one that got Celica they forgot to lube the tranny on, your screwed. If you crank trust bearing fails, they give you a short block and leave the damaged head suffering oil pressure loss to the timing chain tensioner. Your spun tranny bearing is called, "muffler noise". I hate to break it to you, but there is a lot of pissed off people at Toyota. My upgrade stereo that the cassette never worked was grand. Then my cracked brake drum sure ate the brakes up. Even my scratched windshield on Tercel never got changed, due to the wiper blade slipping on (at 3,000 mi). So here's what you get with Toyota, excessive price, marginal styling, and poor service. With the Korean lineup, you getred carpet service, durable cars, fresh styling, great value. To say the Japanese have some kind of quality edge is no longer real. The Korean factories are way newer, using state of the art robotics. You can complain about the limited selection. That's a real thing, but inferior quality, tha't what the Japanese makers want people to think. All I saying is to go at things with an open mind. Most of us has had a number of years to see the Japanese stuff. The Korean thing is too new to continue to write of as poor quality. All the things that meet the eyes indicate the Korean as the new quality leader. If the cars look better, they probably are. |
|
|
|
| hey, bluffhouse, thanks for the truth in reviewing I just read of yours above. You want to know how I can claim that what you and I are claiming is indeed true? Easy. The Korean cars LOOK WAY BETTER, cost way less, the service department wants you to be happy and all taken care of, your car won't cost you favorite things that you also like. Reading your post above is great testimony to car truth. There is WAY TOO MUCH CONTINUED HYPE FOR THE JAPANESE MODELS. I've driven Korean for 2 years and I only feel stronger towards the Korean cars as each week passes. A close look at their manufacturing processes at their website is very revealing. Everything is designed with the person in mind from the start. Sounds simple? I's rather have a car company try to please my driving needs than be so concerned about snapping up my hard-earned cash. If I start out paying less for a Korean car it stands to reason that I'm gonna get less in trade. Trade-in time is not a factor when I buy a car. My Sephia shows no signs of slowing down at 64,300 miles. Not at all. No need to trade in unless I want to. If I do it'll be on another Kia or a Hyundai. VW's? Sorry, they too feel like they have to stiff your pocketbook to justify their expense at making you one of their fancy-dancy "German-engineered cars". Not nearly enough going for it to look away from Kia or Hyundai. Apparently more and more Americans are pulling their heads out of their, uh, armpits and seeing the Kia or Hyundai solution to the nonsense that they see on sales lots in America. | |
|
|
|
Thanks for the laughs, guys. You talk about quality, but you conviently ignore the J.D. Powers' survey and the AutoPacific survey which are the views of actual owners. Bluff, you made some claims about the Leganza and I asked you to back them up. Someone else asked you to back them up sometime before that, but you never have. Care to back it up now? Again, thanks for the laughs. |
|
|
|
|
I am laughing so hard I can barely see straight. I hope you don't misunderstand, but I want to quote some of what you said and respond. I think there may be a language barrier so that is why I say I hope you don't misunderstand. Also, I am correcting one or two misspellings. I am not doing this to poke fun at you or anything like that. It will just make it easier for someone to follow the "conversation." You say, "to say the Japanese have some kind of quality edge is no longer real. [snip].... inferior quality, that's what the Japanese makers want people to think." Try telling that to actual owners of Hyundai, Kia, and Daewoo cars who participated in the J.D. Powers surveys. Try telling that to actual owners who participated in the AutoPacific survey. You say, "All I say is go at things with an open mind." Why don't you think I did? It was about a year and a half to two years between the time I thought about a new car before I bought one. During that time, I read a lot, talked to a lot of people who owned various cars, looked at a number of cars, and test drove quite a few. You say, "most of us have had a number of years to see the Japanese stuff." Just what age do you think I am? To paraphrase a popular song, "I got my license in the day, but it wasn't yester-day." I have been around long enough to see the Japanese stuff. And the Korean stuff. Finally, you say, "the Korean thing is too new to continue to write off as poor quality." Excuse me? I believe in giving people and companies the benefit of the doubt, but your statement is ridiculous. I think the newness (and the past track record) is a reason not to trust them entirely. Note I did not say to never trust them. They just need to earn the trust. It should not be blindly given to them. |
|
|
|
|
I want to explain further why I quoted from your post. It is a habit that I picked up from posting on AOL's message boards. Over there, it is considered polite to quote some from what you are responding so people who are lurking can follow along. I hope you understand. I did this quoting with a letter someone sent me so that they could see what I was responding to and they went ballistic. I think there was a language barrier and they did not understand my motivation. I was not trying to make fun of them either. I could have dealt with your misspellings in one of three ways. I could have used the editor's mark [sic] which basically means this is how something originally appeared, but I was worried you would not understand. I could have corrected the misspellings and not said anything. Or I could have corrected the misspellings and let you know what I had done. I thought the third way was the most honorable. I am sorry that you did not have good luck with your Toyotas and the dealerships that worked on them. You want us to give Hyundai, Kia, and Daewoo a chance, but it seems that you want us to write off the Japanese simply because of your bad experience. Well, having talked to a number of actual Toyota (and Japanese car) owners as well as reading a lot and talking to a number of actual Korean made car owners as well as reading a lot, this led me to the conclusion that there are more unhappy Korean car owners than Toyota and other Japanese car owners. Note that I said owners. I am not talking about auto publication editors or the perceptions of the general public, but owners of the vehicles. Also, Toyota and most of the other Japanese makers have a track record for quality and reliability while Kia and Hyundai (at least) have track records for low quality and non reliability. According to the J.D. Powers surveys I have seen bandied about, Daewoo does better on initial quality. The big drawbacks with them are that they are financially weak, small dealer network, safety issues, and an uncertain future here in the United States. And just because you had bad luck with the dealership does not mean I will. Granted, I have only been to my dealership for one oil change, but I felt very well treated. I brought in my Echo (the most inexpensive currently produced Toyota Passenger car) and got the same level of great attention as the guy who brought in his Avalon (the most expensive Toyota passenger car currently produced) for work. I have had one complaint about "my" dealer and that was they were suggesting the oil changes be done at 3,500 miles, but having talked to many owners of many different makes, this seems to be standard. Even if your owner manual says 5,000 or 7,500 miles between oil changes, the dealer is going to suggest that 3,000 mile interval. My apologies for the long post. Happy motoring. |
|
New? Join Now!
Forum Tools
Search Forums
Browse by Vehicle
2005 Toyota ECHO
2010 Chevrolet Aveo
2009 Kia Rio
2010 Nissan Sentra
2010 Honda Fit
2010 Hyundai Accent
2010 Toyota Yaris
2009 Kia Spectra
2008 Suzuki Forenza
Browse by Board
Browse by Topic
Today's Chats
