ralex's Blog

The recent management / labor talks at G.M. have raised the issue of quality in American made auto's brought out on milesdavis recent blog. My experience is the quality has risen over the decades in most all vehicles. My first cars I owned were 60's models and it seems they required an overhaul if the mileage was over 100,000. At those miles they tended to smoke, leak and lose power. Now it seems auto's log well over 200,000 and still perform adequate. I know they have become more efficient and the horse power attained with fewer cylinders was unheard of three decades ago.

But, when a problem does arrise with a newer vehicle, the repair and parts costs are quite large.  I haven't driven a new vehicle off a lot since the 80's, as their costs has risen to a point that I choose to buy 2-3 year old trucks which cost half of one with no miles on the odometer. But when I see that alot of the price of a new vehicle is to pay the workers benefits, I just don't feel that much sympathy for people who get their health insurance paid after retirement, as most of us Americans will struggle for that. I understand this will be a hot issue, but lets discuss the meret of this.