Is it Un-American to drive a foreign car in the USA?

Question

So many workers (Auto workers) out of a job. for example, the Wixom plant in Michigan closed in May 2007. Gone are two shifts (4,500 workers) Yet the town of Wixom has only 8,000 people and 56% of them buy foreign cars. Why?

Answer 1

If Americanism can be summarized in a concise statement, I think it would be embodied in the dictum that the market that is truly free serves the people the best. So to me the only un-American thing would be to tell people not to buy a Japanese or German product because it is foreign, even though they produce a better product for the most part.

People should buy what suits their fancy. Such competition by foreign carmakers is what has impelled American carmakers to improve their quality of workmanship in the late 90s and the early part of this decade. It will take time for American carmakers to improve their methods of production, but the competitive forces of a free market, unencumbered by prejudice, will make their improvement an inevitability. With the resuscitation of the American car manufacture, new jobs will be created. Even if the American carmakers can never catch up with their Japanese and German counterparts, since most of those companies are doing the bulk of their manufacturing on US soil, it will only be a matter of time before those laid off autoworkers find work in Japanese and German run plants.

To me it is a win win situation. Americans get a quality product, and in the end, as long as there is pressure exerted on foreign manufactures to keep their plants in the US, we will have more jobs for Americans.

Answer 2

I can only go from personal experience.

First car owned - brand new Ford Escort, at 77k miles, the transmission went out and the engine started acting up. Traded in on a new Ford Mustang GT, at 65k the transmission went out. At that point, we had 3 children so I traded it on a newer Plymouth Voyager, at 60k miles guess what, the transmission went out. See a pattern here?

Finally I got a used Honda Civic for my long commutes. It had 99k miles when I bought it and I drove it worry free until 165k miles when I sold it. I then bought a Toyota Camry that had 120k miles on. It ran until 158k miles before it started having problems. My wife bought a brand new Honda Accord which is still going strong at 80k and has never had a problem. Right now I have a Hynudai Elantra with 58k miles and it's yet to have anything go wrong with it.

To me it's really simple, make better cars and I'll buy American. They are slowly getting better in reliability. As proud as I am to be American it's hard for me to justify spending my hard earned money on cars that have so many problems. This is just my experience and my opinion. Also, Consumer Reports does an annual car review and many American cars make the list...the bottom of the list unfortunately.

Answer 3

Most foreign cars are made in the US with American workers. The companies are owned by stockholders all over the world. Many American car companies have cars or parts made in other countries. There is now a very fine line between what is American and what is foreign.

Answer 4

LOTS of people drive these rice burners and euro -luxury cars and they are not un-USA -- I would say that un-American are these workers that joined the unions that drove up the wage scale and price of the USA built cars and that is the reason that cars are built in foreign countries and the competition for the USA markets and created dealerships for non-USA cars ....it looks grim that unions are allowed to shut down plants of all types --not only cars --- most of the home appliances are made in china, japan, mexico ---the list goes on and on .... what about clothes,, good luck finding anything that cannot be made cheaper out-side of the USA .... sad ain't it .....

Answer 5

I think at one time this was true especially if you worked for the unions or someone in your family did. Now foreign car parts are made in the USA. Even though they have foreign names, some are made in the US and some US car parts are made overseas so I guess it really doesn't matter anymore.

Answer 6

I buy foreign because I'm not gonna pay $20,000 on a piece of junk that does not hold its value, also most good American cars are gas guzzlers and they cost $40,000+ so that may have an impact on these plants closing down.

Answer 7

At one point I would have said, that it was un-American, but the quality and workmanship has degraded in Detroit, and the cars are not competitive. Detroit auto makers have done this to themselves.

Answer 8

Maybe the UNIONS are to blame.