Excellent points. But surely you know that 'love' is a fickle thing.
First of all, my first three Japanese vehicles were very nearly flawless. The only mechanical failures, and there was one major one, was totally, 100% my fault. (Read : abuse) I won't go into that, suffice it to say that I used to
play and play hard in some of these.
But that still doesn't account for the 'love' factor. I think it has a lot more to do with small than anything else. But 'tight' is another word I'd use for these Jap trucks. Everything is tight, from the steering to the handling to the ride to shifting to the fit and finish. I hate being 'protected' from the feel of driving. I want feedback from the road/earth. And then there is the tough factor. My gosh these little trucks were tough....I say were because my last one was a '96. And it has to do with
enjoying driving. I used to enjoy driving those vehicles. My Ford is a great truck. I'll remember it as a good tool, but not fun. Not a joy to drive.
You also admit to "expecting the worst" when going in. With that, it is no surprise that you found something not to your liking, is it?
Well, the last vehicle I has before getting my first Jap truck was a 1976 AMC Jeep Cherokee that my Dad bought new in 1976. As a young man I loved it because it was mine and it was a truck. Outside of that it may have been the worst vehicle ever made. Every window knob fell off/broke (you've seen it, vice grips in place of window roller upper). Every window fell off its tracks, including the back window. Kept a pair of forceps handy to fish them up out of the door. Windshield leaked from day one. It ate u-joints and water pumps monthly. The headliner fell out. Radio died almost instantly.
Card board glove box last how long? That truck left me stranded in more strange places than I car to remember.
And it was the '70's so I saw similar problems in all my friend's and parent's cars.
Then I finally got a red Nissan King Cab 4x4 and I'd never seen or felt anything like it. Love at first drive. At that moment I made my wife swear to hit me in the head with a bat if I ever tried to buy another American vehicle.
My point is that the American automakers generated a lot of ill will in the 70's and early 80's. A lot. After that sort of experience why would I not have low expectations? Yes a lot of time had gone by but the Japs are still here with great stuff. I finally bought American because they had what I needed and the Japs did not. Chalk one up for USA. (If they had, I'd be driving a Nissan Titan right now....for better or worse...more on that later.)
Don't get me wrong, there is room for improvement at Ford. But that is the very nature of engineering...incremental improvements.
Well you know that does not have any bearing on what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about technology. I'm talking about common sense. The stuff the Japanese understood in the 1980's and that took the Americans 10 years to figure out. The Japanese did not bring any technological breakthroughs to this continent in the 1970's. They brought quality and ergonomics.
