The Imperial Storm looks bad as well

John Brown wrote: ... Well the Imperial armour is not impenetrable...

Didn't Nissan prove this almost 10 years ago with it's near bankruptcy (when it was Japan's second largest automaker), only being saved by teaming up with Renault? And Mitsubishi proved it again with their near collapse a few years ago, only being saved by an infusion of a few billion dollars from the rest of the Mitsubishi group, who couldn't take the embarrassment of having a Mitsubishi company go through bankruptcy.

Bob

hey bobzilla, i happen to like buying toyota! why? beecause it puts money into detriots economy more then buying a domestic.
my brand loyalty is to whats good. for all toyota haters, please see top gears destruction of a toyota. then tell me domestic is better.
there are some domestics i want, the berreta gtu/gtz ho quad 4, neon acr, chevette, and all manner of merkur xrs, but for the most part i hate domestics and their smoking chugging loose tolerance oil chugging antifreeze eating headgasket spitting pieces of crap, cause the sad fact is that those engines were built on worn tooling before my mother was even conceived. sorry, i buy and believe in quality, and the big three don't deliver. toyota does

After reading Jensenman's post this thread has become nothing but people whining and complaining about other manufacturer's problems. Isn't this about Toyota? Jensenman, I have a nice plate of Christmas cheese sitting here next to me, your whine complimented it very well.

And all LSx motors make lots of noise, they still kick @$$ and take names, if you can't live with it then you aren't worthy of having it.

tuffburn wrote: hey bobzilla, i happen to like buying toyota! why? beecause it puts money into detriots economy more then buying a domestic. my brand loyalty is to whats good. for all toyota haters, please see top gears destruction of a toyota. then tell me domestic is better. there are some domestics i want, the berreta gtu/gtz ho quad 4, neon acr, chevette, and all manner of merkur xrs, but for the most part i hate domestics and their smoking chugging loose tolerance oil chugging antifreeze eating headgasket spitting pieces of crap, cause the sad fact is that those engines were built on worn tooling before my mother was even conceived. sorry, i buy and believe in quality, and the big three don't deliver. toyota does

See recent Top Gear episode of running a new Ford Fiesta through about 3 feet of water with the Royal Marines.

See LS1 and other LS variants from GM. What about ECOTEC?

Interior build quality on American cars blows, but new VWs shakes, rattles, etc. All I hear are horror stories from them. Two people I know personally have traded their GTI and Jetta GLI in just because the interior was making so much noise and dealerships couldn't or wouldn't fix it.

This thread has all the purpose of Bob Costas arguing with Paul Tuttle Sr, one gets frustrated and the other gets annoyed

aussiesmg wrote: This thread has all the purpose of Bob Costas arguing with Paul Tuttle Sr, one gets frustrated and the other gets a hole punched in his face

fixed it for you..

tuffburn wrote: there are some domestics i want, the berreta gtu/gtz ho quad 4, neon acr, chevette, and all manner of merkur xrs,

And I'm to believe your case for Toyotas?

DirtyBird222 wrote:

tuffburn wrote: hey bobzilla, i happen to like buying toyota! why? beecause it puts money into detriots economy more then buying a domestic. my brand loyalty is to whats good. for all toyota haters, please see top gears destruction of a toyota. then tell me domestic is better. there are some domestics i want, the berreta gtu/gtz ho quad 4, neon acr, chevette, and all manner of merkur xrs, but for the most part i hate domestics and their smoking chugging loose tolerance oil chugging antifreeze eating headgasket spitting pieces of crap, cause the sad fact is that those engines were built on worn tooling before my mother was even conceived. sorry, i buy and believe in quality, and the big three don't deliver. toyota does

See recent Top Gear episode of running a new Ford Fiesta through about 3 feet of water with the Royal Marines. See LS1 and other LS variants from GM. What about ECOTEC? Interior build quality on American cars blows, but new VWs shakes, rattles, etc. All I hear are horror stories from them. Two people I know personally have traded their GTI and Jetta GLI in just because the interior was making so much noise and dealerships couldn't or wouldn't fix it.

I fully intend to buy a 2009 ford fiesta, or a 2009 camaro, or uhhhh...yeah i want both of those, and a sky redline

Oh please...you know as well as I that the '09 Fiesta is gonna be the darling of the GRM crowd in 2014. haha...

DirtyBird222 wrote: After reading Jensenman's post this thread has become nothing but people whining and complaining about other manufacturer's problems. Isn't this about Toyota? Jensenman, I have a nice plate of Christmas cheese sitting here next to me, your whine complimented it very well. And all LSx motors make lots of noise, they still kick @$$ and take names, if you can't live with it then you aren't worthy of having it.

The great thing about the Big 3's lack of long range planning: it has certainly put the groceries on my table. You really got to scrabble to make a living off of import service.

There are too many cars on the road and not enough buyers.

There, I summed it up in one sentence.

tuffburn wrote: hey bobzilla, i happen to like buying toyota! why? beecause it puts money into detriots economy more then buying a domestic. my brand loyalty is to whats good. for all toyota haters, please see top gears destruction of a toyota. then tell me domestic is better. there are some domestics i want, the berreta gtu/gtz ho quad 4, neon acr, chevette, and all manner of merkur xrs, but for the most part i hate domestics and their smoking chugging loose tolerance oil chugging antifreeze eating headgasket spitting pieces of crap, cause the sad fact is that those engines were built on worn tooling before my mother was even conceived. sorry, i buy and believe in quality, and the big three don't deliver. toyota does<img

I LOVE this. complete generalizations, no facts, and nothing specific. You buy toyota becaus of it's name. Exactly what I said. You hate "domestics" as a whole for non-specific reasons. Sounds like another brainwashed sheeple getting pissy when someone points it out.

I've owned Domestics adn imports. My favorite car of all was an 89 Caprice 9C1, closely followed by my wife's Suzuki Grand Vitara. I'm not sure how I got labled a Domestic Lover when I own ONE domestic and 3 imports. I own 2 Hyundai's, a GMC and a non-running Swift GT. How that makes me a domestic lover I'll never know. . . hell I catch enough crap being a Hyundai fan. I get bashed daily because of that, now I'm gonna be the pinnacle of a domestic attack?

Nippon is NOT immune to problems. Mitsubishi had a huge scandal a few years back when there were front hub separation problems on some model or other of their midsize truck range, it took someone getting killed by a runaway hub/wheel assembly to break the code of silence on that one.

http://www.accidentreconstruction.com/news/may04/051904a.asp

Then Toyota had the problem with the motorized seat belt modules. The problem was that drivers would spill coffee, Coke, etc into the console, it would get into the seat belt logic module and all kinds of weird stuff would happen, up to and including wiring fires. The top honcho for Toyota said that was because American drivers were pigs and touched off a media storm.

From: http://www.dealerrater.com/recalls/Toyota/CAMRY/

Item Affected: SEAT BELTS Date Announced: 3/3/1992

Description of Recall: LIQUID SPILLED IN THE CONSOLE AREA CAN PENETRATE TO THE HOUSING OF THE ELECTRONIC CONTROL UNIT FOR THE FRONT SEAT AUTOMATIC SEAT BELTS. LIQUID CONTAMINATION OF THE ELECTRONIC CONTROL UNIT CAN CAUSE FAILURE OF THE UNIT SIGNAL NEEDED TO ACTIVATE THE MOVEMENT OF THE MOTORIZED SAFETY BELT ANCHORAGE.

Action Needed To Fix It: INSTALL A PROTECTIVE COVER TO THE ELECTRONIC CONTROL UNIT OF THE AUTOMATIC SAFETY BELT SYSTEM.

My 1996 Honda XR400R was an early production bike, those had a nasty habit of the clip for the air filter coming off of its hook in the airbox. When the engine was warmed up, the plastic airbox would get pliable and when you whacked on the throttle the vacuum would bow the airbox just enough for the clip to get sloppy and come off. Honda fixed mine under warranty, no questions asked, 8 months after I bought the bike and the original warranty was 6 months. It's necessary to understand that they did a whole top end due to dirt getting sucked past the air filter. They also modified the airbox to keep it from happening again.

A few years ago Ford came out with a brilliant idea of incorporating the thermostat into the intake manifold on the 4.6, only one problem it was a plastic manifold which the heated coolant erroded in almost every case.

Ford refused to acknowledge a problem although the $600 replacement item was manufactured with a metal thermostat housing. It took a group lawsuit to get them to issue a recall including those who had previously paid for the repair.

Why would they do this damage to their goodwill when the problem was obviously their mistake. I was repaid for two such repairs on my 98 P71s.

Oh and I am a Ford guy.....I still own 6 of there vehicles.

http://www.lrolaw.com/manifolds.jsp

whateve, i'm not going to sit here and argue anymore, and i realize i was wrong for shoving my ideas done your throat. but i will staunchly buy toyotas based on my experience with them. i love my wagon and hate my truck. i believe that the domestic camp has they're flaws and they are too serious for me to accept and buy.
the xrs however, are awesome, i don't even care. i hate the 2.3 and t9 they came with but that car makes me smile.

The most fun car for acceleration that I have ever driven was an SVO Mustang. That sucka was QUICK! They had all of the mid '80's indifferent fit and finish flaws and they went through turbochargers like they were made of spun sugar but man it would haul AZZ. It also handled pretty well, to me it's like a Brit car: the good outweighs the bad to the point where I wouldn't mind having one.

LOL! You guys are hilarious.

Toyota Corp (all divisions combined) is making $550 million this year. I'm sure they are taking opportunity this year to take write downs from their Auto division with anticpation of downturn next year. Toyota is sitting on $18.5 million in cash from the over $20 billion in profits they made last year! Toyota is smart and knows stockholders are going to be sympathetic this year to less earnings.

Now compare that to GM. They are holding nearly $50 billion in debt. GM has lost nearly $100 BILIION since 2004. With downturn they will be lucky if they dont lose $40 Billion this year. Thier stock is worthless and they are headed to bankruptcy. So one division of toyota loses 1/20th what GM is losing this year yet their parent company is still making money and people put them in same league of failure as GM? What most people fail to realize is that GM was on road to bankruptcy in good economic times. Bailout just gives them time to restructure into a much smaller company in the next couple months.

Toyota is just feeling effects of economic times. ...any manufactuer is going to have some losses when demand drops so quickly. I'm sure they made decision to take hit this year so they can remain profiable next year. Toyota sold 20000 more cars than GM in the US last month,

GM Market capital is $1.8 billion. Toyota's is nealy $100 Billion!

GM makes cars that need to be highly discounted to sell units to US consumers who perfer well designed Japanese cars from Toyota and Honda. They are really stuck in a tough place. GM built their limited success on profits from SUV's when tastes changed to cars and they have been losing money hand over fist ever since.

Xceler8x wrote: I read posts on this board every day talking about how people want a cheap, no frills, lightweight, RWD car with an economical engine. Toyota is quite possibly working on it but it's not here now.

They had it 25 years ago, it's called the Starlet..

I loved mine.

Shawn

http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com//media/il/news/2008/0409/21.rsr.scion.tc.500.jpg

boxsterbuddy wrote: LOL! You guys are hilarious. Toyota Corp (all divisions combined) is making $550 million this year. I'm sure they are taking opportunity this year to take write downs from their Auto division with anticpation of downturn next year. Toyota is sitting on $18.5 million in cash from the over $20 billion in profits they made last year! Toyota is smart and knows stockholders are going to be sympathetic this year to less earnings. Now compare that to GM. They are holding nearly $50 million in debt. GM has lost nearly $100 BILIION since 2004. With downturn they will be lucky if they dont lose $40 Billion this year. Thier stock is worthless and they are headed to bankruptcy. So one division of toyota loses 1/20th what GM is losing this year yet their parent company is still making money and people put them in same league of failure as GM? What most people fail to realize is that GM was on road to bankruptcy in good economic times. Bailout just gives them time to restructure into a much smaller company in the next couple months. Toyota is just feeling effects of economic times. ...any manufactuer is going to have some losses when demand drops so quickly. I'm sure they made decision to take hit this year so they can remain profiable next year. Toyota sold 20000 more cars than GM in the US last month, GM Market capital is $1.8 billion. Toyota's is nealy $100 Billion! GM makes cars that need to be highly discounted to sell units to US consumers who perfer well designed Japanese cars from Toyota and Honda. They are really stuck in a tough place. GM built their limited success on profits from SUV's when tastes changed to cars and they have been losing money hand over fist ever since.

good post