Pressure to not buy foreign

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Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: redhat
Does anyone else get flak from family, friends, colleagues, etc. about buying or having interest in foreign cars?

Case in point -- I've been looking up and researching different SUVs lately. I like the new 4Runner a lot. I get a lot of pressure to hate foreign makes from different family members.

Perhaps I'm a bit reserved and not the first on the list to make a snide remark about someones car. Or maybe at the next family dinner I should ask them how well that dealership service department queen of a F350 tows their ghost trailers?
smile.gif


Though, at the end of the day, I should get something I like, something I'm comfortable in and something I feel is capable of what I want out of it -- after all, I am paying for it.

Just a bit frustrating when I'm somewhat certain I won't hear the end of it.


Perhaps it's because some of us don't like being unemployed. Personally I don't have an issue with other people buying foreign cars, I just think that people who do that shouldn't be elidgeable for any taxpayer funded welfare program.


I'm a little lost here, are you assuming I am a welfare recipient or disregarding the fact that I pay taxes just like anyone else?
 
No. I think for the vast majority of car buyers these days, COO is actually pretty low down on their priorities list. I haven't really heard of anyone who flat out refused to buy a Japanese car because it was Japanese since probably the 1990s. One of my friends is Jewish though, and many members of his family will not buy a German car, period. Ironically, they do buy Fords despite Henry Ford's beliefs.

I work for a multi-brand car dealer and employees here own all kinds of cars from lines we don't even carry (including myself).
 
Originally Posted By: MalfunctionProne
Do YOU get the lecture about how Mitsubishi made the Zero bombers that bombed Pearl Harbor, too?


Probably not because it was the Zero fighter or Zeke that took part in Pearl Harbor. It wasn't a bomber, but a very good fighter, had a 12 to 1 kill ratio in the early part of the war.
 
Originally Posted By: MalfunctionProne
And I wonder if that 4Runner is assembled right here in the U.S. of A. It just might be.

The new 4Runner is made in Japan. It has 10% of US/Canada content in it.
 
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
No. I think for the vast majority of car buyers these days, COO is actually pretty low down on their priorities list. I haven't really heard of anyone who flat out refused to buy a Japanese car because it was Japanese since probably the 1990s. One of my friends is Jewish though, and many members of his family will not buy a German car, period. Ironically, they do buy Fords despite Henry Ford's beliefs.

I work for a multi-brand car dealer and employees here own all kinds of cars from lines we don't even carry (including myself).





Kind of silly in a way as many Jews are still German and live there. I'm sure many work in the BMW, Audi, and Volkswagen plants as well.

The war was a long time ago...and Germany paid for it dearly.

It's too bad some folks still feel the way your friend does, but that's human nature for you.
 
With respect to writing a book, just read Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit To Brooklyn (1964).

With respect to buying American, I prefer to think of America as a place of Capitalism, with strong consumer protections. You can buy from whomever you want, whatever you want, and you have a market-based society that makes producers more efficient than any form of government does.

See I, Pencil My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read for such an example.
 
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: redhat
Does anyone else get flak from family, friends, colleagues, etc. about buying or having interest in foreign cars?

Case in point -- I've been looking up and researching different SUVs lately. I like the new 4Runner a lot. I get a lot of pressure to hate foreign makes from different family members.

Perhaps I'm a bit reserved and not the first on the list to make a snide remark about someones car. Or maybe at the next family dinner I should ask them how well that dealership service department queen of a F350 tows their ghost trailers?
smile.gif


Though, at the end of the day, I should get something I like, something I'm comfortable in and something I feel is capable of what I want out of it -- after all, I am paying for it.

Just a bit frustrating when I'm somewhat certain I won't hear the end of it.


Perhaps it's because some of us don't like being unemployed. Personally I don't have an issue with other people buying foreign cars, I just think that people who do that shouldn't be elidgeable for any taxpayer funded welfare program.


Hopefully nobody on welfare is buying a brand new car anyway. Hopefully.

But as far as employment, foreign owned brands contribute to mine (along with GM). Many of the Hyundais I sell parts for are assembled right here in AL, with parts sourced from all over of course.

I am for manufacturing products in the US, but it's not cut and dry like it used to be.
 
Nobody in my family cares, the only car maker in my family that nobody owns at all is Ford. We've got mostly GMs, Jeeps, and Toyotas with a few Volkwagens (Mostly TDIs). My car was made in Mexico but everybody thinks it is a German car. Many Chevys are made in Mexico as well, but everybody thinks they've got American made vehicles.

My great-grandfather was huge on American made things and his TV burned out in his cabin years and years ago. He asked my grandmother to bring him up one and she grabbed some brand that was Japanese (Toshiba or something). He hated it at first but grew to love it from its amazing picture and that it lasted about 20-25 years.
 
Long term production cost forecasting makes companies choose to move into or out of the US to make "foreign" owned vehicles.

Recently, Honda took the production of their Goldwing back to Japan. For many years (25?) it was much more American made (in total content) than a Harley. Having owned both a few Harleys and many Hondas, I can say I'll still by the Honda regardless of where it's made.

Same goes for cars and about anything else I spend my hard-earned money on.

I did have a guy at Ford once try to belittle me for buying my Frontier. I asked him if he wanted to sign the loan note for me to go get a Ranger; he declined. That's when I quit worrying about what he wanted me to do.
 
Originally Posted By: andrewg
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
No. I think for the vast majority of car buyers these days, COO is actually pretty low down on their priorities list. I haven't really heard of anyone who flat out refused to buy a Japanese car because it was Japanese since probably the 1990s. One of my friends is Jewish though, and many members of his family will not buy a German car, period. Ironically, they do buy Fords despite Henry Ford's beliefs.

I work for a multi-brand car dealer and employees here own all kinds of cars from lines we don't even carry (including myself).





Kind of silly in a way as many Jews are still German and live there. I'm sure many work in the BMW, Audi, and Volkswagen plants as well.

The war was a long time ago...and Germany paid for it dearly.

It's too bad some folks still feel the way your friend does, but that's human nature for you.


My friend and his siblings are able to look at the present, but when he considered shopping Audi, he caught a lot of flack from his parents and other older relatives about it, and it was enough that he decided to get a different brand of car. Not because he agreed with the anti-German sentiment, but he didn't want to deal with relatives having an attitude about it.
 
I usually mock people who come at me with that.

Thankfully there are no close family members who care enough to say anything about it.
 
No pressure from family here but it's funny, the overall social pressure here is to buy foreign. 1/2 hour north it's a different story.
 
Toyota is generally a good vehicle but keep in mind they DO have engine problems i see them all the time in my engine shop and there have been some class action lawsuits because of their problem engines both 4 cyl and v6
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
I like to buy the best quality. I have never found made in China to ever be the best quality though.

It is very much true for auto parts and many other products, but there is at least 1 thing that Chinese was and is better than anybody for more than hundreds if not thousands years.

Can you guess what it is ? I give you a hint, the product name is the product itself.
 
If a company has first world costs associated with its operations, I have less of an issue. Yes, foreign-based first world companies pay tax elsewhere, but despite all the to-do about corporate tax rates, many of these large corporations pay very little if not 0% corporate tax. Many of the low/no tax entities pay little or none due to real estate and other write-offs. But some are product-oriented. Example:

chart.jpg


My major concern is more about my countrymens' jobs. Buying stuff from other nations which gives them jobs at the expenses of our neighbors. This is the case with first-world items too, don't get me wrong.

So then it comes to uniqueness. Can I get the product I want from the USA in equal or better form than I can from other first world vendors? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Buying from alternate first-world producers rubs me much less than buying cut-rate stuff from a third world vendor with far different operational costs.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: CT8
I like to buy the best quality. I have never found made in China to ever be the best quality though.

It is very much true for auto parts and many other products, but there is at least 1 thing that Chinese was and is better than anybody for more than hundreds if not thousands years.

Can you guess what it is ? I give you a hint, the product name is the product itself.


Contraceptives?
crackmeup2.gif
 
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