Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

When you are going anywhere in your car or truck, start counting the number of foreign manufactured cars versus American manufactured cars. I have done this just out of curiosity several times both in Houston and the Austin area. I have never come up with more than twenty five percent U.S, made cars.
You may logically argue that these foreign manufactures have plants here in the U.S. and hire U.S. workers to build their cars and trucks. Yes, and that allows them a higher profit margin and all those profits are sent back to their home! Remember who is now calling the shots. The decisions, designs, and all are in the control of foreign corporations headquartered in Japan, Korea, France, England, and Germany. What will happen when and if World War III starts. Can we depend on these foreign firms be willing to switch over to building needed war material for the U.S? Who knows? China could attack Taiwan at any time and our president had said we will defend the island.

While I was either a junior or senior in college at the University of North Texas in Denton, there was an opportunity to work the midnight shift at the Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, which was about 50 miles away. So, four or five of us were hired and began working from around 10:00 PM until 6:00 AM. We were all in the accounting department and had the assignment to create payroll records for all the new hires for the third shift. In those days before computers, all records had to be imprinted on metal plates of an Adressograph Multilith machine. The actual checks were printed out on another machine that was about eight feet tall and regularly ate checks, and we had to find all the pieces and tape them on a blank sheet of paper.

My contact with workers on the assembly line was just when I would take all the employee timecards back to put them near the time clocks in different sections. I knew some of these workers and had gone to high school with several. They, to a man, exhibited strong hatred for management and the company.
After about a month, I would fall asleep in my classes and my grades were showing the job was taking a toll. I resigned just ahead of G.M. deciding they really did not need the third shift and shut it down.
When the new workers got their first paycheck, there was a line of workers with their union representatives complaining about some detail. We rookies had to listen to each of these complaints, write down all the details for each case and tell them any errors would be corrected. Given the attitude exhibited by both workers and management, I would rather strap on a ‘tin bill and peck sh/t with the chickens’ than work on the assembly line in such an environment.

Before these foreign car manufactures learned that the U.S. was wide open for their entry due to the shoddy workmanship of American-made cars. As an example, several times the truck o delivering new cars to dealers, it would have to take them back to ‘re-furb’ because they were falling apart on the truck! In another case, my first wife and her mother picked up a new Pontiac at the dealer and were going shopping in Sherman, about 30 miles from Gainesville, home. On their return, the brand-new Pontiac with a full tank of gas ran out of gas! Later the mechanics at the dealership discovered the gas line was loose and was leaking more gas on the engine block than was being burned by the engine. It was a potentially dangerous situation.

One thing missing in this tragedy was what did American citizens who would be buying these new cars think. Well, they v**ed by their action, by buying more and more foreign-made automobiles, so much so that now around 70 to 80% of all new cars wear a foreign name tag!

When the American car manufacturers don’t care and push shoddy work and automobiles just thrown together, the car buyers will rise and rebel, just as they have, and with good reason. American car buyers have demonstrated their choices of automobiles. U.S. Car manufacturers have thrown away a very large and important industry through carelessness.

One final jab. I buy and drive American cars, SUV’s, and such because I want to keep the jobs here. It may not matter to anyone else, but it does for me! Just Sayin…RJS

UncleRob Loc: NE Maryland

My last US made car was made in 2004. I got tired of shoddy workmanship and reliability. We now have a Toyota truck and Subaru SUV. I worked at GM Baltimore for a time and saw how trucks were sent out and my dad worked there for 38 years. I doubt we'll ever go back to American cars unless GM ups their game considerably.

plumbob Loc: New Windsor Maryland

I have a F 150 and a Rav 4 sitting in the driveway and at this age quality and $$$$$ will determine their replacements. I prefer American made it's just like buying from our local stores, but when someone can save me big time for the same results that's food on the table.

dbed Loc: POMME DE TERRE LAKE MISSOURI

I have never owned a foreign vehicle and have never had a problem with my American vehicles we drive them for over 200000 miles

Jeremy Loc: America

Originally America was the greedy ones. Wanted better mileage and cheaper cars. So all this is our own fault. Take responsibility for your own actions.

Actually many cars you assume are imported like Toyota’s are built in the US. They may have originally been manufactured over seas but are now constructed here by Americans.

Frank romero Loc: Clovis, NM

Every American car or truck I have bought new had problems. I have started buying Toyotas and haven’t had any problems.

FixorFish Loc: SW Oregon

Totally "American Made and Manufactured" hasn't been in existence for decades.
I was waiting on my Dad to finish talking with the service writer about the work he needed on his Lincoln town car, while back home in Kansas in the early '90s. As I strolled around the showroom I came upon a chart, issued by the Ford Motor Co. that listed the percentage of each Ford product's domestic parts and assembly vs. foreign-made and assembled.
ONLY the Lincoln line was 60% USA, the rest was far less. Even though we often claim "Made in America", if they were being totally honest, it would only EVER claim "assembled" 100% on American soil. There are many parts that for one reason or another have NEVER been made here.
From fishing gear, to car, to many building supplies, to you-name-it, the manufacturing of anything is a worldwide project, these days.