How do I argue against an anti-foreign car person ?

Believe me, if they're active UAW members they're well aware of it.

 

Ya, that one. Do you want to hand you hard earned money to Japanese workaholics or Arab prince, Chavez (RIP) type, or Iranian dictator? Pick and chose.

 

John, while your comments on the exchange rate are not exactly untrue, they are deceptive because it is a known and accepted fact that ALL industrialized countries (the U.S. included) try to manipulate their currency to some extent to favor exports. The only truly unfair standouts are those countries (such as China) that simply peg their currency to a percentage of another, while the more advanced countries like the U.S., Europe, Japan, etc. do so through legal games (the most common of which is simply pouring more currency into the economy).

To the OP, however: I would not try to argue. If it is your money and you are the driver you should be buying what you want, not what someone else tells you to buy. After all, isn't this the same argument Hummer buyers were giving us?

 

Toyota has invested $24 billion in 14 assembly plants in North America that have produced 25M cars and employ 365,000 people in the U.S. If you want to buy American, buy a Toyota.

My friend driving a Nissan Frontier truck was recently called out for being unpatriotic by the driver of a Dodge Ram truck. The Dodge Ram is built in Saltillo Mexico. Nissan trucks have been built in Smyrna Tennessee since 1983. Attempting to argue with the ignorant and uninformed is always a no-win proposition.

While Toyota builds and exports vehicles, Detroit exports jobs.

On a side-note: Corollas are currently built in Canada, Mississippi, and Japan. Guess where the good ones are built?

 

I'm almost afraid to guess...

but gotta go with--Japan?

 

That does not bode well for Toyota. Are you suggesting that Toyota's engineering, or management produces different results based on the manufacturing and assembly location?

 

You'd be correct.

 

Even for the same car model, there are variances for the supplier base according to production location, and some cultures are more receptive and responsive to training than others. (I'm trying to be kind).

 

With Robotics so advanced now and a part of Auto Production I wonder if that is still true?

 

Ok, I'm gonna take the bait. Do you have any data or references ?

 

Robotics are extraordinarily expensive. A key incentive to open plants in low cost labor markets is that manual labor is cheaper than robots. Operations performed by robots at home are done manually overseas. Robots do a better job more consistently than people.

When automakers introduce the latest tech, robots in their high tech factories at home, the old robots get re-purposed in a start-up plant far from the home island.

The last point is that robotics limit plant flexibility to build multiple platforms in the same plant on the same line. Highly robotized plants are typically model-specific.

 

"The bait???"
Easily demonstrated via IQS data broken out by production plant and actual warranty loss experience.

 

You initially attributed the differences to local suppliers and "cultural" shortcomings, rather than the investment level in capital equipment.

I am not familiar with IQS (Initial Quality Survey ?) do you have some links for the camry model produced at each location?

If Toyota is exporting their second hand equipment to US facilities and turning out lower quality product at the expense of American manufacturing reputation, Toyota needs to be called out on the practice.

 

IMO the key impacts are parts suppliers and people. Less capital investment typically translates into product variation some of which has operational quality impact, and some of which has visual defect impacts.

IMO the best quality cars built in America are built by Toyota. The Toyota Production System is in operation in every one of their plants and it works.

(The other reason to send old equipment to new plants is that the equipment is properly sorted out and proven.)

IQS is a J.D. Power product they assemble from owner surveys taken 90 days into the ownership experience. They provide high level data that is summarized in press releases to publicize their brand, and detailed information broken out over a multitude of criteria that are sold to vehicle manufacturers for a king's ransom. The detailed breakdowns are not public information.

 

So is there any public available information that illustrates the difference between a Camry made in Canada, Japan, or Mississippi?

 

What I indicated was that Corollas are made in Canada, Japan or Mississippi.

As far as I'm aware all Camry's are now U.S. production coming from either Toyota's Georgetown Kentucky plant or the Subaru plant in Layfayette Indiana.

There is no publicly available information to show quality differences between plants producing the same model and that's exactly how carmakers want it. The spectre of customers demanding cars from certain production plants would be ugly.

 

My bad on Camry vs Corollas. How did you arrive at your conclusion that Mississippi produced Corollas are not produced with the same quality as Japan or Canadian production?

 

I'd indicated the the highest quality Corolla's were built in Japan. I'm have no direct knowledge of differences between Canadian or Mississippi-produced cars.

 

The Japanese by and large are a population of workaholic perfectionists all wrapped up in a strict culture of respect for one's superiors.

I remember researching the culture 20-odd years ago when I was in high school. The average factory worker there is expected to have a math through calculus. The Japanese written language consists of three alphabets--hiragana and katakana at 52 or so characters apiece and are phonetically-based, and the full and true written form of Kanji (adopted from the Chinese) which has roughly 10,000 pictograms in use.

Imagine the complexity that the Japanese mind must deal with on a daily basis--just to read the newspaper. Imagine designing a keyboard to produce the typesetting.

Who do you think I would prefer to have my car built by???

 

I was working closely with BMW as they first opened their Spartanburg, SC plant in the early nineties. The state of SC had agreed to train prospective workers and sent the best of the best to BMW for employment consideration. BMW hired one of every two hundred prospects, and I have to tell you that the folks that were actually hired were nothing to write home about. BMW had two days every week they were short staffed at the plant; on Wednesdays and on Fridays. Wednesday was a church day (folks went to church on Wednesdays and Sundays), and Friday was fishin' day.

T-shirts quickly sprang up with a BMW roundel with the text "Bubba Makes Wheels".