We've had/have one from every continent

'98 Cr-V and 98,000 on it when we traded it. It still ran good with no major problems - we just wanted something different.

'02 Volvo S80 - bought used last August with 39,000 on it and paid about half what a new one would cost. It's fancier than anything we've had before. No major problems yet.

'98 Grand Cherokee - bought brand new with 83,000 on it. Mostly general maintance items have gone on it. I'm going to drive it until I don't trust it any more.

After that I'm thinking like you, Japanesse or European. I like the BMW X5, but I don't know if I can justify paying that much for a car.

Mac... I like the post #1 here....

very true,,,,, suger works better and that is only learned with age,,,

I've always been a "buy American" man myself until recently. I've had a nightmare 3 yrs with my Chevy truck and just dumped it for a foreign vehicle (Hyundai).

Both me and my brother work as suppliers to the American auto industry (in different fields) and see what goes down in the plants first hand. Guess what, we're both going foreign. He's been saying it for a while and I'm now just coming around.

I hate to do it but the American auto industry needs to pull their head out of their ass. The quality sucks and the Customer service is worse.

Edwards Deming (a quality managment guru) lists one of his Seven Deadly Diseases of Management as (paraphrase). "The cost of an unhappy customer is unknown and unknowable." Meaning, you will never know how much buisness you lost by losing one customer. How many return customers walked away? How many recommendations did you lose? How many are bad mouthing you and you don't know it?

Unknown and unknowable.