Fordracing200

the thing is, my grandmother had a taurus for 8 years and her 2nd husband is a retard and after several thousand miles he had never changed the oil and ti never died :shock: the older taurus like your 91 were junk. the only true way to compare is a new cmary versus a new 500. neon, focus, cavalier, sunfire are college kid cars, not a good reliable daily driver, tiny junks, the 05 focus is the only reliable one so far from what the people i no who have owned them as company cars say.

Fordracing200

one more minor thing with qaulity, my uncles truck has never EVER let him down, the company focus, well, thats a different story. Compare a titan vs. F-150, which can handle a bigger plow? which goes further in truck pulls? both of those are the 150, i havent found anything a import truck can beat a dodge or ford in. please prove me if i am wrong.

Vermillion98

So you had the following problems, most of which sound like owner care and maintenance problems:

* Body Rust (they put salt on the roads in your part of the country, correct?)
* Electrical Problems (lights not working)
* Doors not opening (broken handles?)
* muffler fell off (probably due to rust)
* engine using oil( oil leaks? bad valve guides? previous owner just beating the crap out it?)

Not knowing the full background of the car, these problems sound like they were caused by owner neglect. Was the Taurus maintained like the Camry? Except for the engine using oil, these points don't really support your statement that the engine will in a Camry will outlast a Taurus. Taurus using oil could be caused by neglect

Quote:

Originally posted by Red Star@May 2, 2005, 12:07 PM
Intrepid had many smaller problems and few big onec (like water pump that died on 50,000 miles on the car). Intrepid almost got me killed last winter. I was driving 55 mph on the freeway during the snowstorm and windshield vipers stopped working. I was just lucky there was no one in front or behind me.

In my opinion, those don't sound like really big problems. It sounded at first as if your Intrepid's engine had blown up or something. But they are annoying.

Quote:

Originally posted by Red Star@May 2, 2005, 12:07 PM
I disagree that driving domestic car is not cool factor. How do people react when you tell them that you're driving a Mustang or Camaro or Firebird? How do people react when you tell them you're driving Civic?

It depends on who you associate with and what part of the country you're in.
In Silicon Valley and most of the west coast, the people I associate with, mostly people in I/T , don't drive domestics and look down on them. There was a guy who worked in the same building as I did, who had a late model Trans Am and they would mock him behind his back. Another guy had an Intrepid which was a fine car and always drove domestics. He had moved to California from New Jersey. After all the comments he got from people about his pro-domestic stance, he traded in the Intrepid and bought an Infinity. Since I've moved to Portland, OR, I've noticed a lot of people I work with own VW's although they are known to have a lot quality problems.

Younger people (high school age), seem to think that Civics and other imports are "cool". While classic Mustangs are cool, late model ones are not to most of this age group. Ask them what a cool, fast car is and they're more likely to say "Skyline" or "WRX", rather than "Mustang" or "Camaro"...

<!--QuoteBegin-Red Star@May 2, 2005, 12:07 PM
Hey, if people had better experience with domestic cars, Taurus, Five Hundred, Impala, Grand Prix and Magnum would be best sellers, not Camry, Accord, Corrolla and Civic.

Quoted post

[/quote]
There's a lot more to it than that. Here are just some of the factors that go into the car buying decision. Some these are subliminal in that people don't consciously think about them.

* styling (example: the 96 Taurus was pretty radical)
* image or the "cool factor" (--how your choice of car reflects on you-- "You drive a domestic? They're so unreliable and ugly!")
* perceived quality (example: imports)
* actual experience (example:"My Taurus needed brake rotors! darn domestic quality! I'll never buy a domestic again!")
* input from peers (example:"My uncle's neighbor's friend's father had a Chevy Vega and nothing but problems with it! Buy an import instead.")

Zastava_101

I never said anything about trucks or SUVs.

Doug, 05 Focus just came out (5 months ago), not even biggest junk in the world would start having problems that soon.

mmoonshot

The long detailed posts in this topic are detailed and debateably accurate to some degree. lets keep in mind a few points not discussed, US companies are being killed by our own governments taxation guidlines for import and export of goods manufactured here this does not make our companies competitive in the international marketplace, labor, millions of cheap laborers enter this country illegally every year taking paying jobs from US born workers.

When will we stop bashing the unions and start electing politicians who work for the will of the people of the country, and not the funds from a multi national conglomerate, wake up people ! :bang:

Zastava_101

Both Taurus and Camry were used when I bought them. Yeah, they do put salt on the road in Wisconsin and that may be the biggest reason why Taurus had rust, but then how do you explain the fact that Camry does not have any rust at all. Nothing on that car worked correctly. I mean, fact that I sold it to junk yard for $50 tells you everything about car.
Having problems at 50,000 miles on top Intrepid offered by Dodge in 1997 is a big deal. I mean, back home my dad had 1984 Yugo Scala 101 and even Yugo didn't had as many problems as Dodge did. Most of those problems are minor, but I don't wanna have $1,500 worth of problems on 50,000 miles car. Before we moved to Wisconsin in 2002, I drove Dodge to dealership to check everything on him and they found almost $1,500 problems.
People may make fun of Escort or Cavalier, but no one, who knows anything about cars, ever made fun of my car. People who are making fun of muscle cars such as Mustang, Camaro, and/or Firebird are usually onec who can't afford them, the one who keep saying "even if I had a chance to buy Mustang I wouldn't do it". Jealousy my friend.
Styling does play fact in sales numbers, but Japanese never had good looking cars. I'm mean, Camry was always ugly, Civic too. But those 2 cars were always in top of sales.

Vermillion98

I agree with you on the points you make about trade policies and politicians. We need to encourage the creation of manufacturing jobs here in the US with tax breaks for companies that manufacture goods here. If there was an incentive to manufacture here rather than overseas, there would probably be lot more stuff being made in the USA.

While I think there is still a place for unions, the UAW is a perfect example of when a union has too much power over the employers. The UAW needs to work with the big 2.5 for their mutual survival.

dke

mmoonshot, I agree that U.S. companies are being killed by our regulation/taxation, and it hurts us overseas/elsewhere. Simplify the tax code is #1. Just like 14-18% flat tax, either personal or corporate. Viola. (That is progressive by it's very nature -- rich pay more than poor, and rich buy more expensive things, so pay more than poor).

We shut down legal immigration (because Unions wanted to slow growth/competition), which helps drive illegals. Quadruple the number of legal immigrants each year, and all illegals caught need to help work on a chain gang, building a wall (between us & mexico) for 3 months, before being sent back.

But I agree the Politicians should keep being replaced until they start following the will of the people instead of the special interests (like the Unions, or Corporations).

Badsnke98

You posted, I answered. Maybe that was my first mistake here. :scratch: We all all have opinons. And ours differ a lot. All we can do is agree to disagree. Still no need for a flame war.

Anyway.

I think you should not be telling me what "I should try doing". :nono: Because you do not know me or about me at all. Or is that you are just copying most of your replies text from somewhere? A lot of it reads that way.

Nice to be very rich of course, but I don't envy anyone. Someone has to win that lottery!

The difference here is my home, my four vehicles and all of the things I own are paided for. No credit card debit either. And I lost my rear end in the Stock Market to boot these passed four years.

No one gave anything to us. All thanks to Union Work. So put that in your anti-union pipe and smoke it.

Not everyone can go to college. And if everyone did, what good would it be? Not everyone can have the best jobs anyway, there is not enought to go around. Is that a reason to step on others? The compensation gap is to too large, that is my point, but that will never change. :worship:

You Sir, by your posts have a much larger distaste for Unions, than I have for Billionares, in my opinon. Funny though that the richest Americans, reap 17% of all income, but only pay 2% of total taxes. :scratch: Loopholes, right??? Big SUV wright offs among others.

Wait a minute, I have two SUV's, why no write offs for me? Must be my Union did not negotiate good enough.

Remember to buy "MADE IN THE U.S.A."

Have a nice day. I'm moving on.

dke

badsnake -- Sorry, I wasn't attacking you. At worst I was attacking the philosophy that you stated, "people need to steal". I replied with generic you, not personal you -- I don't know you well enough to saying anything about you specifically.

As for envy/greed -- that is the primary motivator for the unions. They vilify the rich/managers, and then use that to empower themselves. That's the excuse for their existence (as you and others have stated) -- the greedy evil managers would screw the common man for a buck, if it wasn't for the noble unions taking the downtrodden's side. (Which ignores that managers/owners are humans too, and often take great pride in employing people, giving to their communities, the noblesse oblige, etc.).

I'm glad that you personally manage your finances well. But envy is still the primary motivator of unions. (Their reason d'etat'). Your post attacked management, the rich, and tried to say they make too much, etc. (Standard union party lines). If you're doing well, you should be satisfied, and lay off the vilification.

Actually, anyone can go to college in America. It is an amazing country.

You are completely mistaken on your tax numbers.

The top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes, and earn only 31.99% of all income.
The top 10% pay 64.89% and earns 43.11%.
The top 25% pay 82.9% and earns 65.23%.
The top 50% pay 96.03% earns 86.19%
The bottom 50% pays 3.97% and earns 13.81% of all income.

Now who is getting screwed again? This is why tax cuts help "the rich" (which means the top 50%) because they are paying 96% of the burden -- so by definition, cuts help them more than those paying 4%.

So you have two choices when presented with facts. You can learn them. Or continue to spout ignorance/misinformation. (The former assuming you don't know the facts, the latter assuming you don't care). I'd try to be more careful where I got my numbers in the future.

Fordracing200

so then why did u say domestics arent selling due to qaulity?? u never specified cars, u said DOMESTICS
you would be shocked, ever hear about the 99 chevy trucks?
people do have good expierence with domestics, ask em, how many hear have blown up their 03 cobras or Gts? or even V6s?


i am 13 and have loved mustangs since i was eight.

so why do u own one????

Zastava_101

so then why did u say domestics arent selling due to qaulity?? u never specified cars, u said DOMESTICS
you would be shocked, ever hear about the 99 chevy trucks?
people do have good expierence with domestics, ask em, how many hear have blown up their 03 cobras or Gts? or even V6s?


i am 13 and have loved mustangs since i was eight.

so why do u own one????
[/b][/quote]

Yeah, I said domestic CARS not domestic VEHICLES.
Cobra and GT are in "good cars" group. But then again, what about junks like Neon, Sunfire, Focus or something similar? Like I said, if people had better experience with domestic cars, Taurus, Five Hundred, Impala, Grand Prix and Magnum would be best sellers, not Camry, Accord, Corrolla and Civic.
Why I own Camry even though its ugly? QUALITY. That's why. I would rather own ugly car that can last for a long time (example Camry) than to own beautiful car that can only last few years without problems (example Taurus). Looks ain't everything about cars. That's the reason why Big 3 are going down more and more each year. In the past Big 3 could sell cars just because they look good (and 0% interest rate), but bad experience with 1 or 2 of those cars and people don't care about looks anymore; they wan't cars that can last longer. And Japanese do win that battle. I would be more than happy if I could find domestic sedan that can last me 250,000 - 300,000 miles without any major problems, but that kind of domestic sedan simply does not exist.

Fordracing200

my uncles 91 GMC (POS imo) has 203k miles and idles like new, no shakes or anything, runs great, daily driven, and his friend has a 90 Chey with 303k miles. Fords do the same.

Zastava_101

Trucks yes, SUVs maybe, cars no.

Badsnke98

David, I'm only useing blue for my reply to make in easier to pick out. I think a reply is needed because I seen a mistake I missed in a recheck of my reply. It will follow.

Yes David, I made a simply mistake and you were kind enough to point that out. Thank You. Also, please take the time to read all of the following text. And I strongly reiterate, you Sir do not know me.

Why the Right's Wrong On Taxes

by Matthew Miller
April 14, 2004

It's tax time, which means it's time for conservatives to roll out their perennial complaint that the well-to-do are being asked to pay too much. They're dead wrong, as every reasonable citizen will conclude in a moment, but first let's hear them out.

"You're getting to the point where there are more people on this side of the see-saw not paying any income taxes," says Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "and the burden is simultaneously increasing on the smaller and smaller portion of the population."

John Cogan, an economist at the Hoover Institution who helped write President Bush's original economic plan and who now advises California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, put it to me this way:

"If you ask most Americans, 'Do you think it's proper that the bottom half of the population from $50,000 and below should be receiving grants from the government and the top half should be paying for those,' they'd say no."

If what Cogan and Josten laid out were the full picture, it would indeed be cause for alarm - how can we have so few Americans pulling the cart and so many riding in it?

But the instinctive way conservatives have come to reason and argue about the federal tax burden is misleading and incomplete - as a look at the big picture on federal taxes shows (this will take a few numbers, but they're guaranteed to change your worldview, so sit tight).

Conservatives love to cite facts like these: The top 5 percent of taxpayers pay over half of federal income taxes; the top 1 percent pay more than a third all by themselves; and the bottom 80 percent of earners together pay less than 20 percent.

If these facts are all you carry in your head (and all that the people you spend time with all day carry in their heads), then it's obvious that Ayn Rand was right: We're a nation of freeloaders who enjoy the blessings of liberty thanks to a handful of generous giants.

But this is not the full picture. Any fairminded person should want to know two other things: What percent of total income do these different slices of earners actually earn, and what share of total federal taxes, not just income taxes, do they pay?

The conservative worldview inexplicably ignores the payroll tax (as well as excise taxes on things like liquor) that take their biggest bite, proportionally, from lower-income Americans.

These regressive taxes have quietly (and shockingly) reached near-parity with the income tax as a source of federal revenue. This year the income tax will account for 42 percent of federal revenue; the payroll tax will come to 41 percent (up from 16 percent in 1960).

If you count the portion of the payroll tax paid by employers (which economists agree effectively comes out of workers' wages), four in five workers pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

When you add these necessary facts to the incomplete conservative analysis, America doesn't look like an Ayn Rand novel after all.

Consider: The top 1 percent of America's taxpayers earn 17 percent of the income and pay 23 percent of federal taxes; the top 5 percent earn 31 percent of the income and pay 40 percent of the taxes; the bottom 80 percent of the earners make 41 percent of the income and pay 31 percent of the taxes (and those numbers are from 2001, the most recent such data available; President Bush's tax cuts have since made the burden on top earners lower). In other words, in aggregate, we have a modestly progressive federal tax system.

Which brings us to the obvious question: Why do leading conservatives stress only part of the picture? There seem to be only two options: Either they're not that smart, or they think the rest of us (especially in the press) aren't that smart.

I'll let you make the call. But the conservative advocates I know tend to be very smart people.

Matthew Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Seeing how you like facts and sources so well a few more for you.

Labor
Median weekly wage of full-time workers in 2003: $620 ($32,240 annually)
Percent increase from 2002: 2% [Source]
Median annual compensation for CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in 2003: $4.6 million
Percent increase from 2002: 27% [Source]
Taxes
Number of zero-tax* income tax filers in 2000: 29,900,000
Zero-tax filers as percentage of all filers in 2000: 23.1%
Estimated number of zero-tax income tax filers in 2004: 44,000,000
Zero-tax filers as percentage of all filers in 2004: 33% [Source]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tax deduction for businesses that buy a Hummer H2 that gets under 10 miles per gallon: $34,000
Tax deduction for businesses that buy a hybrid car that gets 55 miles per gallon: $1,500 [Source]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Percentage of households that currently pay estate taxes: 2%
Percentage of value of estates worth more than $10 million that come from unrealized capital gains (e.g. appreciation of real estate or stocks or bonds): over 5 %
Amount these estates are taxed on these gains: 0% [Source]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Percentage of Americans who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of the 2003 tax cut: 88%
Average amount (in dollars) these Americans will save: 4% [Source]

Kind of why I call it like it is today. See any facts can be worked to lean either right or left. The Rich give Tax breaks to the rich and tell the poor how good it will make things for them. I justify it by the extra dollars in my pocket. Just my opinon.

Badsnke98

David, So if you read the obove, the Top 1% will now be paying alot less tax, but I'm sure that will the % will remain the same thanks to Mr.Bush. And with the $740 that I should reap from the tax cut, well I guess I could buy more mods, Not! I will need that money and more just to keep up with the Big Oil Companies prices. But the CEO's worked hard for right?

What about the lower 50%, how will they pay for gasoline. Maybe they will just drive off at times. But that's not right, is it?

Oh, in Europe and Great Britain the high cost of fuel is around 75% Goverment taxes. So we are not paying any less for the gasoline itself than they are. Just a different tax structure.

78Mach1

The problem is with the public and the media, there needs to be more bashing of rice burners and cheap korean and chinese cars. The big three have to go back to there roots and start building muscle cars again, not four door sedans with retro name plates! The gto should be a real GTO, and the charger a real CHARGER! Bring back the Camero and firebird and start pricing these cars inline with the import compitition. And have Hybrid versions of these cars optional, we don't want another gas crisis to kill our muscle cars all over again. But Keep performance the goal.

Fordracing200

so a 04 cobra is lower qaulity than your camry? thats what your saying. :notnice:

Zastava_101

I'm gonna assume that you're asking me if 04 Cobra is lower quality than 04 Camry, because its really not realistic to compare 2004 $34,000 SVT Cobra with my 1994 $5,000 Camry, don't you think?
So, yes, 04 Cobra is lower quality than 04 Camry, and yes 04 Cobra is better quality than 94 Camry.
I never owned Cobra, but they can't last 300,000 miles without major problems like Camry can.

dke

We disagree on college. I believe 95% of the population could go to, and graduate from a college. That's partly a reflection on the state of our education, partly because I think people are more capable (and lazy) than we give them credit for. But I knew people far dumber than me, doing far better, because they were more committed to the outcome.

So you know, I'm not that conservative. (I'm actually pretty socially liberal). I'm more moderate libertarian.

As for you article: it is irrelevant that some taxes are regressive. Arguably all taxes are attempts by groups to selectively attack other people (and dodge responsibility). We show that the Rich and upper-middle are paying a regressively large burden, even adjusted for income, and the response is to obfuscate and claim "they should be paying more". The truth is we should pass taxes that makes us all bear the burden equally. Either flat rate taxes, or VAT/sales tax. "Sin tax" is a regressive judgement. (BTW: I don't drink). The problem is trying to socially engineer in the first place. Trying to vilify one group ("the other guy") is the issue. Make taxes that are fair, and apply to all.

it is ridiculous that if you ask 3 different CPA's or tax accountants to do your taxes, you will get 4 different results. I have an MBA, and couldn't do one well. It all started with the liberal attitude, "let's make the other guy pay more" -- instead of the American attitude, let's all pay an equal percentage of the tax.

Realistically, since the poor use more services, and get more benefits, they should have to pay more in taxes. (socialism for the under-class, since that's what they advocate). Then let the upper classes have capitalism, since they want to be free to help the economy thrive. How come "liberals" (and socialist) don't talk about that side of the coin? (realistically, I think fair is fair for all, and trying to micromanage fairness, and rewarding failure, means we all fight to be on the bottom in order to get screwed by the system less).

Think how much better you'd be if you made 3-4 TIMES what you make now (without government taxes), and things cost less than they cost now. (Remember, 30%+ tax burden, but add in employers contributions, that after you're taxed on your earnings, you're taxed on everything you buy like real-estate, cars, gas, etc., and so on). Again, the solution is NOT more government micromanagement and complexity, and more efforts to screw the other guy, but cleaning the slate and starting over. Simple, flat rate tax, or trade based taxes that hit everyone equally.

Your point about all the stupid laws, is because people stopped trying to be fair, and started catering to special interest. This started when FDR figured out he could buy votes with special programs catering to special groups. The solution is to eliminate as much of them as possible.