Not guilty, but close. I've owned three Ford F150's. My '94 was second on my favorites list (behind a '68 Torino). My '04 F150 is by far the worst of the bunch.

Lemme see I was in high school...soo 1978 - 1982 some time...we had always had big American station wagons...and my mom and I bought a car from a rental fleet, a Toyota Celica. No research here, we knew nuthin', it was just on the lot in our price range. After 250K miles, time for another....Toyota! A Cressida, another 300K miles. All this happy driving was occurring during the years of exploding gas tanks and rapid rust out on Big 3 cars. I have a 99 Camry now and I expect to get another 10 years out of it unless I trade to a hybrid. It's an interesting situation where "patriotism" did a lot of harm in the long run, because most of the people I've talked with driving American-made sedans were "buy American brand-faithful" and were therefore making brain-damaged purchasing decisions, IMHO. Detroit should have and would have died and been reborn long ago if individuals shopped in their own best interests as opposed to those of UAW members.

We are Guilty as Charged!

My wife has owned an 86, 93, and 97 Taurus. All three vehicles made it to at least 130,000 miles. All were reliable transportation.

I'm on my second Ford Explorer. The first one, a 98, made it to over 100,000 miles. The first one had two factory recalls and no major problems. Very reliable.

My wife also had an 01 Seibring convertible. We only had that one for about 50,000 miles. Traded it in on an 04 Mustang convertible. She traded the Mustang in on a Lexus!

Enjoy the journey.
eal51 in western CT

Bought my Ford Pinto new for $2,800 on the road. Besides paying for a busted timing belt, it lasted 110,000 miles but ticked like a timebomb when I traded it in on a new Jeep AMC Eagle. Had that car for 6 months & found out that AMC was having labor problems and my car was probably sabatoged on the line. (before the Lemon Law). Was so fed up, I traded it in on a Toyota 4x4 and have been with Toyotas ever since.

Hubby special ordered a Chevy truck in 1985 and waited months before being told they weren't going to build it. Went to a Ford dealership and drove our brand new F150 truck (still have it) to pick up our deposit check on the Chevy.

I have NEVER been treated this way by Toyota and have no sympathy for major corporations that go out of their way to alienate and mistreat their customers.

My mom actually bought a Chevy Impala that had a rag stuffed in the rear quarter panel. When she later complained, she was told that cars often left the factory with severe defects and that "the dealers were supposed to handle it". These stories go back 40 years so the so called big three have had plenty of time to make things right.

I had a 2000 Taurus SHO. I loved the heck out of that car. It had a Yamaha 6-cylinder engine and a 5-speed manual transmission. It was my first car as a working, employed grown-up. But it did have a distinct half-life to it. At age 7 the driver's seat looked terrible, the clutch rattled irreparably, the A/C had gone out and the headliner was starting to let go. I bought a Japanese car after that and haven't had another American car since then.

Nope - never had any of those. Closest I came was my first car - a 73 Ford Mustang. Then the oil embargo hit and I got a brand new five speed Datsun (Nissan) 210 that got 45 miles per gallon. Have not bought another American car since. I rented a lot of them when I traveled on business which gave me a nice opportunity to try them and decide I didn't want one. I can remember often getting a Pontiac Grand Am and the steering wheel was always positioned right across my sight line - bad design - probably by a large man. My mom always had Chevys and I never liked how they kept running after you turned them off - kind of sputtering until they finally conked out - and this was even when they were relatively new. That just didn't seem right to me and I didn't want a car that did that.

Love my Prius!

Actually, I loved our 1995 Taurus. Big, comfortable, held six people (we were the only people we knew who still had a car that could do this), got 22/mpg, and a better load rating than the average small pickup. Utterly reliable and one heck of a lot better than the crappy 1996 Buick Regal my MIL gifted us with last year.

We had that Taurus from 1997 when we bought it for $10K with 54K miles on it. Drove it until 2007 when it got up to 121K and switched it out for the Regal. There is no comparison as to the quality - the Taurus beats the Regal hands-down. Drives, handles and brakes better, and the Regal uses crappy components under the hood compared to Ford models (we've also owned two Escorts and a Contour).

Much as I'd love to go back to the Honda/Acura line - we used to own an Integra - they cost too much for what they're worth. We bought a Hyunda Santa Fe with the extended warranty instead in 2003. Not quite up to Honda's standards but very close, and a bargain at less than $20K.

We currently own a 2005 Jaguar X-Type VDP. Bought it in 2006 -- dealer titled, low miles. We love this little car! It's our fifth Jaguar since 1983. It's all-wheel drive, beautifully finished interior (missing in all US cars and some foreign makes), very peppy. No problems -- something not always true of our earlier, larger Jaguars. LOL We hope Tata has good plans for Jaguar's future. I'd buy another X-Type any day.

Do I think Ford made money on this car? No. I'd guess it was what the supermarkets call a loss leader.

As for the Hummer, it didn't just get gaudy now; that was the whole point of it. I never met anyone who owned one who wasn't a jerk.

We owned 2 Saturns until my 11 year old konked out last May. To repair would have cost a fortune and even though we had been what I would term 'valued' customers, the dealership made no real attempt to keep our business, even though they knew I was prepared to purchase another new car from them initially. So I simply walked across the road - literally - and bought myself a little Toyota Yaris.

The Saturns were good. Notice the word 'were'. They were good in the days of the polymer panels. Great for a Canadian living on the east coast who has to travel on salt covered roads in the winter. Mine, even after 11 years was in great shape except for that thing under the hood known as an engine... But I must add that as a courier, I did put well over 170,000 miles on the car.

DH has decided he'll be going to a Toyota as well when his Saturn gives out. He's hitting 185,000 Miles at this time.

As I said, in our case it wasn't really the car but the dealership. There's a lot more of them (dealerships) and those who think that buying a car from them once means you'll repeat in the future had better think again. On the street where I bought my first Saturn in 1996/97 there used to be only three dealerships. Now there are 10.