Buying American Made

Fowldreams55398 wrote:

American quality isn’t what it once was anyway.

Unless you’re 70 or 80 years old, I completely disagree with this. Over the past 20 years vehicles have gotten much more reliable. End of life for a gas engine 20 years ago was 100-150k. Not this is where they recommend gear and tranny oil changes.

I figured this thread would get some people riled up but that wasn’t the reason i wrote the post. i was driving around and just thinking about Toyota trucks and how often i hear from people that they will only ever own American and it occurred to me that ive never really heard that side of the argument beyond the fact that the company is an American company and there seems to be a good argument to be made that Toyota actually puts more money into the pockets of Americans than the others.

I appreciate the comments so far. I’m not sure I’m closer to understanding that side of the argument but i appreciate the discussion

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Look at the JD Power rankings.

A little info on awards.
https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/can-you-trust-those-awards-you-see-in-auto-ads/

Sounds more like a marketing firm. Biased opinion yes but it’s probably not that far off. It makes me laugh every time Chevy brags about it’s JD power awards in their ads.

I only buy Ford because it’s made in the USA. Shame on you.

I find it funny someone points out rusted frames on Toyota pickups. I’ve been a GM guy from 1993 until 2014. I’ve owned multiple pickups and Yukons. I really enjoyed driving them. Maintaining them was another story. I compare my vehicles to my wifes 2003 Honda CRV. We got rid of the CRV in 2018. Her CRV had very minor rust. I wish I could say that for my GM vehicles. My 2007 Yukon had more rust in 7 years than her 15 year old Honda.

At some point in the near future I need to get another pickup. It will be a slightly used vehicle. I’m having a hard time convincing myself on Ford, GM or Dodge. I see way to many of them (2010 and newer) that have severe rust issues.

crappie55369 wrote:

I appreciate the comments so far. I’m not sure I’m closer to understanding that side of the argument but i appreciate the discussion

Again, most of them are assembled here. There may be a small margin parts made here more than other American companies but it’s a small margin and probably doesn’t make any real difference. Being a Japanese owned company sends a lot of the marketing and overhead jobs overseas. I’d be pretty skeptical to say Toyota benefits Americans more than an American company.

One of Toyota’s production strategies revolves around its suppliers. They leverage their suppliers to have short lead times which in many situations requires them to be here vs overseas.

If you want to know more you should read “The Toyota Way”. I have a short version of it if you want to borrow it.

bzzsaw wrote:

I find it funny someone points out rusted frames on Toyota pickups. I’ve been a GM guy from 1993 until 2014. I’ve owned multiple pickups and Yukons. I really enjoyed driving them. Maintaining them was another story. I compare my vehicles to my wifes 2003 Honda CRV. We got rid of the CRV in 2018. Her CRV had very minor rust. I wish I could say that for my GM vehicles. My 2007 Yukon had more rust in 7 years than her 15 year old Honda.

At some point in the near future I need to get another pickup. It will be a slightly used vehicle. I’m having a hard time convincing myself on Ford, GM or Dodge. I see way to many of them (2010 and newer) that have severe rust issues.

I agree big time newer vehicles rust fast. They were using steel from China. Crappy grade. But fenders rusting and frame rot are so far apart.

Toyotas are great, I don’t care where they come from as long as they work. I still like buying American made as a general rule because a lot of products from places like China and Vietnam are just cheaply made and don’t last.

I always thought the reasoning behind ‘buy American’ was twofold.

1. USA = quality. Dangit, we just make a better product.
2. Support the US economy – create/keep jobs, etc.

Unfortunately, #1 isn’t really true for many products. There are as good or better quality products from Japanese or other foreign companies.

And #2, well, as people have said here, I think there are quite a few ‘American’ vehicles being manufactured elsewhere.

SO, if Toyota makes a better product, AND buying it supports just as many US based jobs as buying a Ford. Then what’s the big deal?

As with most of these things, the people who are loudest about this type of thing are often the most hypocritical. ‘Buy American Billy’ may have a sweet lifted Chevy with a confederate flag on the back, but that ‘buy american’ mantra starts to fall apart when you look around his garage or house.

The point about quality is interesting. It’s true that Toyota and other Japanese companies were on the forefront of this (The Toyota Way is a good suggested read, biggill) but their approach has more or less become universal now and American manufacturers are catching up. I would never even consider buying an American car in the past due to quality concerns but from what I hear they’re closing the gap there and the automotive industry is so competitive that no manufacturer can afford to put out consistently poor vehicles and stay in business.

As a counter-argument to what I said earlier, there are obviously practical limitations to sourcing the lowest cost solution 100% of the time. I mean, obviously things are being built here in the USA so it’s not strictly a matter of labor cost. If it makes you feel better to buy an “American made” vehicle then more power to you. I just think you’re being naive. If my brother worked at the Toyota plant in Huntsville, AL then maybe buying a Toyota would make me feel better than buying an American OEM vehicle?

Assembly only one part of the “made in the USA” equation. Where was the engine built? The transmission, etc. Where was it designed. Where is the corporate HQ and those jobs? American University did a research project on this and made the results public.

While Toyota does a good amount of assembly in the US, their overall contribution to the US economy is less than 1/2 of a Ford or GM vehicle.

American University Kogod School of Business Study – American Made Auto Index

I think the mantra specifically related to vehicles was true a number of years ago, but I don’t know if I’ve really heard people favoring a domestic vehicle over a foreign vehicle for the same reason in the last 10 years. Quality seems to be pretty even today and people seem to favor more of the amenities, style, and price of the vehicles over where they’re built or where corporate is located.

I also think this was an attempt to stir the pot.

blank wrote:

I also think this was an attempt to stir the pot

You’re free to think that but believe me I know how to troll and if my purpose was to do so I would be subtly injecting controversial comments in here which I am not. On a related note, controversial subject matter would probably be less controversial with more discussion – hence the post

Thanks for the suggestion on the toyota way biggill. I will look into that

moustachesteve wrote:

but their approach has more or less become universal now and American manufacturers are catching up

Agreed. A lot of their philosophies are pretty standard in the entire manufacturing industry now. Not just automotive. To that point, Toyota really no longer has an edge in the market that it once had.

So to answer your question, it really doesn’t matter.

A little tidbit from Wiki.

Automotive

For years American car brands have used this as a differentiating point. Supporting companies such as Ford was thought of as patriotic. Twenty-eight percent of Americans have said they would only buy American vehicles.[8] There was a large push from domestic automakers after foreign competition entered the market in the 1980s. Ford placed ads to all Americans highlighting that they made quality cars.[9] Chrysler also needed to reclaim market share from foreign competitors. They created commercials about American cars that were made by Americans with American parts.[10] In recent years, the trend has changed as Cars.com’ 2016 American-Made Index for that year showed that many Hondas and Toyotas are among the top “American-made” automobiles.[11]

Food for thought. I own three Cat excavators, a Cat tractor backhoe, 4 Ford pickups and a Mack semi. Doesn’t get any more American than that right? All three excavators were made in Japan. The tractor backhoe was made in England. Three of the Fords in Canada and Mack is owned by Volvo.

Come on we all know what ‘Made in America’ means in the auto industry. It means ‘Made by UAW’. Cars built in Southern state might as well been built in Mexico.

sji wrote:

Food for thought. I own three Cat excavators, a Cat tractor backhoe, 4 Ford pickups and a Mack semi. Doesn’t get any more American than that right? All three excavators were made in Japan. The tractor backhoe was made in England. Three of the Fords in Canada and Mack is owned by Volvo.

It’s funny you say that because all of those countries are known for high quality products.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>sji wrote:</div>
Food for thought. I own three Cat excavators, a Cat tractor backhoe, 4 Ford pickups and a Mack semi. Doesn’t get any more American than that right? All three excavators were made in Japan. The tractor backhoe was made in England. Three of the Fords in Canada and Mack is owned by Volvo.

It’s funny you say that because all of those countries are known for high quality products.
[/quote
Not knocking the quality one bit, they are all superior equipment. My point is they are all American company’s that keep there money off shore

I’m guessing the total membership here pays more in taxes than a Fortune 100 company does.

Dutchboy wrote:

I’m guessing the total membership here pays more in taxes than a Fortune 100 company does.

This idea the US companies don’t pay any taxes is just plain wrong. There is a reason large companies are moving HQ’s overseas. It’s to shelter money from the high tax rates here. The US is about middle of the road globally for effective corporate tax rates at 21%. Sure there are incentives for companies offered by federal, state and local governments but every country does that.

Here are tax rates globally:

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corporate-tax-rate

IF you want to dig into look into the incentives offered by countries like Ireland, Costa Rica and Singapore.

Back to Crappie’s original intent. The bottom line is we live in a global economy. For complex manufactured products like vehicles there will never be a “made in” component. Assembled yes….made in no.

Dutchboy wrote:

I’m guessing the total membership here pays more in taxes than a Fortune 100 company does.

Not a bad point. What does it really matter if we “buy American” if those companies, aided by politicians, pay little to no taxes and therefore put far less back into our system as they get credit for?

I believe there is a Law that states a vehicle must contain a certain percentage of American made parts to claim it is made in America.

Now with that, there should also be a notice with each model of vehicle that states the percentage of American Made parts and where the vehicle was finally assembled.

Thus, some of the Big 3 Automakers have plants in Canada that are made with a higher percentage of American made parts than those assembled in America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobiles_manufactured_in_the_United_States

Here is the best link, table on vehicles and parts, Made in America up to 2018

https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/autoindex/2018-autoindex.cfm