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dandak
Dodge Dakota
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2/26/2007
16:39:57
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 Subject: US cars lose more ground
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February Auto Sales Seen
Falling, Led Again By Ford
February U.S. auto sales are expected to be lighter than a
year ago, primarily due to persistent weakness among domestic
manufacturers. Citigroup estimates that entire industry
light-vehicle volume for the month will fall 4% to 7%.
Customer research firm Edmunds.com predicts Ford
Motor Co. (F) sales will plummet 23% compared with the
same period in 2006. Sales are seen slipping 5% at General
Motors Corp. (GM) and 9% at DaimlerChrysler AG's (DCX)
Chrysler Group. GM's performance likely will be lifted by
generous incentives in February.
Top Asian producers are seen posting gains, with Toyota
Motor Corp. (TM) coming in as the big winner with sales
gaining 16.6%.
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LeaseMO
Dodge Dakota
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2/26/2007
17:55:36
|  RE: US cars lose more ground
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SO!!! And why should I care??? Its GM and Fords faught that they waited 20 something years just to start producing good cars! I'll rather have a Honda Ridgeline than that crappy Gen 4 Dakota or what Ford and GM offer! Just Awfull! So buy Jappanesse people! At least it won't fall to pieces like American cars and truck do once you go past that 50K milestone
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doh
Dodge Dakota
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2/26/2007
19:52:29
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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US cars are designed to fall apart after 50K miles with the thinking that you'll go out and buy another brand new US car.
WELL THEY'RE WRONG FOLKS - THEY are BUYING BRAND NEW TOYOTA THEN AFTER 200,000 MILES, THEY BUY ANOTHER ONE.
stupid american auto companys.
even mercedes wants to unload dodge and the UAW
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Super bee
GenI
2/26/2007
22:00:19
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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the biggest problem i have is not falling apart after x miles
they rust out and i want a new shiney vehicle
i hardly ever run into major problems
1990 sport RC SB, 1995 318drivetrain, 3.92 gears (came with truck) Powertrax "traction system", 95 dash/steering wheel, hearthrob exhaust, headers, cutout after y-pipe, necessary electric fan add-a-leafs, 30x9.5 mud tires, cranked T-bars, AR 39 15x8 rims, grill guard, roll bars
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GraphiteDak
GenIII
2/26/2007
22:13:43
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Dudes, all cars have problems and break.
Not every single Toyota goes 200k miles without something brekaing down. They have plenty of problems.
Almost ALL of the Dodge 1970's LA V8 engines would do 200k miles EASY. And back then people who bought the American vehicles bought them to DRIVE HARD and WORK HARD pulling trailers, motorhomes, etc getting 200k miles!!!
Same went for some Ford products as well, (302, 351, etc). And I bet my 4.7 gives me good life and I drive it like I stole it!
When American's starting buying the Jap stuff in the late 70's early 80's it was for ECONOMY REASONS ONLY and were driven nicely when someone bought them for that purpose.
When the Jap stuff was driven hard or used heavily it broke down like non other!
Funny how people believed the Jap was better than American myth!
The bad thing is over here Americans always wanted top dollar to work in the plants. (and why not).
Back in the Jap early days they paid their workers like SLAVES and could sell for less.
That's something to be proud of, NOT!
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little jer
Dodge Dakota
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2/26/2007
22:40:08
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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And the Japanese live in very crowded conditions. Their apartment rents in Tokyo are outrageously high and they are like one or two rooms - kinda like efficiency apartments here but at 4 times the rent. Their workers hve to work like hell just to afford to live. Traffic and congestion are horrible in Yokyo. Do u wonder why they are coming to America in droves to live?
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gen1dak
Dodge Dakota
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2/26/2007
22:43:41
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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From my experiences when my '89 Shelby was puking trannys every 12-15,000 miles, the Japanese were making tremendous inroads in customer satisfaction. A friend of ours was big into 300ZX turbos. When the AC compressor disintegrated, and, by a very bad design, dumped debris downstream and took out a bunch of other stuff, the car was gonna be down for a few days. Anyway, he didn't even need to ask. He dropped the car off and as he walked out to he was met with a courtesy loaner. My Dodge dealer was happy to point out that I had two perfectly functioning thumbs. They also fleeced me on my first replacement front discs at three times their true cost because they were "Shelby" brakes. I later learned they were Dakota Sport pads. The Nissan dealer truly lived up to the slogan, "We want your business and we'll kiss your ass to get it." I suspect little has changed.
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jayb
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
03:13:04
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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i can back up what graphite said. my buddy has a 86 toyota pickup. it had 150k on it when he got it. ran great. as soon as he got it he went through that motor, and 2 other brand new ones. he also went through a transmission,clutch, and now the rear end is going out. the toyotas will definately last 200k, if you dont use it like a truck. my dodge has 132k on it. i suspect i will get 200k from it. i assure you i have pulled and will pull way over the towing capacity with it, over and over again.
i beat on my dodge as much, if not way more than he beats on his toyota.
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Dan M
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
05:53:22
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Well, having just purchased a "non american" car, I can tell exactly why I didn't buy an american car.
We ended up buying a VW jetta for 4 reasons.
1) price - dodge dealers (I tried several) were not willing to deal on price. Example, one dealer only came down 3500 in price. 3,000 incentive from Dodge and 500 for me being on their email list. $500 off MSRP? are you kidding me?!?!
2) poor customer service. I had a sales manager tell me he didn't have time for me and he worked in a retail environment and didn't have to sell me a car. The vehicle we looked at (going back to october 2006) is still sitting on the dealers lot. I hope they never sell it.
3) warranty.
VW = 5/50 standard 60k power train + roadside assistance + rustproof warranty.
dodge = 3/36 .. um.. one of the worst in the industry right now.
4) fuel economy
The jetta we got gets slightly better fuel economy than the mangum/chargers we looked at.
Sure i didn't get magnum size or magnum power, but i also didn't get magnum warranty, magnum fuel economy and magnum price.
the jetta came with all the options she wanted for around 10k less than a comparable magnum.
dodge needs to step up to the plate and offer something worthwhile to attract customers. the historic nostalgia of the "hemi" has worn off.
I'm very disappointed in dodge right now.
Oh yeah, I have around 10 friends/co-workers that have bought new cars in the last 4 months, not a sigle "american" car among them...Most were BMW (twin turbo) or honda/accura.
- Dan M
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razzle
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
06:45:08
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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I've got a 2005 Subaru Legacy GT currently in the shop to replace the turbo a second time, Front passenger tires been replaced three times with the wheel once, the center console stack(radio,a/c,etc.) has been replaced twice, and numerous other problems all before 65,000. Company in process of making me "happy." I'll let you all know how the outcome is.
Till then, still loving my Dakota.
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ben
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
08:11:29
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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friend of mine was in the UAW, now retired.
he built chevys, said in put in more screws with a hammmer than a screw driver. or they only put in 4 of the nine screws required then threw the rest into the trunk wheel wells ( bosses used to check trash cans for tossed screws )
that explained why I fopund all these rusty rotted screws that rattled in the trunk of my pontiac behind the cover in the wheel cavity/sides of the trunk
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mopar4u
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
09:34:53
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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You import lovers believe everything the media feeds you?
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little jer
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
10:04:56
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Seems people are talking from experience. My 99' Dak R/T has less then 46,000 miles and has had the driveshft twist off the 1st 2 weeks, the AC compressor go out, 2 batteries, intake manifold replaced, rear end gears broke, and a few other things, and I have never raced or abused my truck. I wanted it to last a long time. Now that it is out of my extended warranty I may sell it before the trans goes or something else :-( , even though I love it. It must have been put together on a Monday or Friday. lol
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Dan M
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
13:12:01
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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haha loose screws.... that's funny stuff.
built on monday or friday? hehehehe
-Dan M
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Dakotastl
Dodge Dakota
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2/27/2007
21:06:06
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Dan - good luck with the Jetta, but VW has been getting some of the worst reliability ratings in the industry as of late.
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GraphiteDak
GenIII
2/28/2007
00:33:24
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Ha ha screws in the trunk. Priceless!
As for VW's, I kinda thought the W8 was an interesting design. I bet the AWD W8 Passat hauls fome a$$ too.
Everybody has their GOOD and BAD experiences.
But to say American is/was junk, is kinda stupid.
So far so good with my Dak. Only thing replaced at near 50k is the Ball Joints. I've practically jumped my truck off road when I was using it offroad for a spell.
I still drive it HARD every time I drive it. That 4.7 sees about 6800 RPM's on about a weekly basis. The rear end has spun silly going over bumps and I would swear it should have exploded when I've caught uneven traction like that, but it hasn't.
Personally, I think Dodge has a screwy line up. The Magnum is plain UGLY in my opinion. Can you say STATION WAGON?
They pimp the HEMI name around like crazy and every car that is RWD only gets a V6 or a HEMI.
I'd still like to see a retro Challenger or Duster with a 4.7 H.O. 6 speed. I bet it would wax a Magnum. Not too mention it's fun driving a V8 that makes some high revs.
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little jer
Dodge Dakota
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2/28/2007
09:39:39
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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It's true as to what day your car was built. Mondays and Fridays have the worst cases of bad fitting panels and other problems. You know Mondays are blah days and by Friday everyone is saying TGIF and are looking to the weekend so their attention isn't as it should be. It also depends upon the speed the line is going. The faster it goes the less time someone has to attch a part, especially someone new to the job. Having worked on an assembly line (not auto) in my younger days I can say it was B-O-R-I-N-G!! Eight hous seemed like 12. I worked for a temporary job service and when asked to go back I said no thanks! However, sometimes you just get bum parts, like a weak driveshaft yoke in my case. Guess the parts inspector at the driveshaft manufactuerer wasn't thinking about his job either when that pretty co-worker bent over to pick up a dropped yoke.
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Jeepbum
Dodge Dakota
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2/28/2007
11:09:29
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Saying that American cars are junk is just plain ignorant. I had a 93 Full size Chevy that I sold with 215000 miles on it, the only thing that went out on it was the GERMAN transmission that GM used at 180,000 miles. The 350 was golden. Also, my parents work for GM and say they have more people they work with than they can shake a stick at that drive GM vehicles with well over 200,000 miles. Bragging about your Japanese cars getting over 200,000 miles is nothing to brag about. Everything can get to 200,000 miles if you take care of it. I hope that some Jap comes over to this country and takes your job from you so I can jump up and down and laugh in your face. AS with everybody who buys foreign cars, you are selfish, unpatriotic, and a traitor.
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dah
Dodge Dakota
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2/28/2007
11:21:34
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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american cars have rattles that I hated and drove me nuts - noticed my dak has little sponges in the dash where to screws go into the plastic.
my honda has metal inserts in the plastic so the screws go into metal and don't shake free.
little sponges are cheaper than metal inserts
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Alec
Dodge Dakota
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2/28/2007
16:06:07
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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Its different for everyone. My family owns only American cars and they are all older than 8 years! (My dad still drives a 1976 Camaro as a daily driver, almost completely stock!). Well, our neighbors are nice people, but they all own cars less than two years old, and theyre all imports! Why do they own all new cars? Because all the old imports "lost their quality". In my opinion American cars still have an advantage over imports.
Also, on a side note, I keep hearing Toyota is going to overtake GM within the year.....not true. Toyota still only has about a 16% stake in U.S. auto sales, while GM has 21%! Its gonna be quite a while longer till they take over......if they ever do.
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lonnie
Dodge Dakota
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2/28/2007
16:50:53
| RE: US cars lose more ground
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alec you overheard wrong - toyota is to overtake GM as the world's biggest car maker.
And it has ---- toyota is the biggest and their stock keeps going up
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