When did Japanese cars get their reputation? I recall much more variation in car nationalities as a child. Now everyone just screams buy a Toyota with a used Camry now costing 10k.
>>28744830First it was in the 70's/80's when they were the cheap alternative to German cars, which were both alternatives for American cars that, aside for trucks and luxury yautchs, we're shit. Then Japan aggressively marketing in places like Africa and the middle east where they went all in on parts-avaliablity which made Japanese cars known as "reliable" (able to last long enough to get cheaply repaired)
top gear and whistlindiesel hilux durability test
First it was the 70s post oil crisis.Then it was after 2008, where all the brands got solidified in their reputation be it valid interpretations or wives tales. Those 2 dates are how the Japanese built a reliability legacy.
I noticed around the recession and cash for clunkers everyone just defaulted to Honda or Toyota. Economic factors make people throw any sense of nationalism out the window.
well if you need a fuck off cheap econobox, i'd be hard pressed to see why you'd get anything else
Toyota had a reputation for dependability but it was not at all true of other Japanese makes especially Mitsubishi and Mazda as they loved indulging in engineering experiments that often didn't work very well. Their cars were fun until shitting themselves at 50k miles.The Jap reliability meme as such mostly came out of Toyota and was heavily spammed by Consumer Reports in the 80s-90s until it became a self-perpetuating meme. CR massively dickrode Toyota (and Honda) back then, though you didn't see them do that so much for other Jap makes. It must also be understood that CR was not a magazine for enthusiasts but rather NPCs and so whatever car was perceived as the most reliable grocery getter got their five star ratings.
>>28745005honestly even the mitsus and mazdas werent that bad. the mazdas were fine if you ignored rust or rotaries, during the 1980s they were better than their badge engineered ford equivalents (tighter more consistent qc + tolerances). mitsus had a long run of bad valve stem seals that turned all their v6s into oil burners (same as chrysler/dodge at the time) hondas were excellent cars in the 1980s-90s that were often favorites of auto journos to the point the running joke was it was either a bmw or honda that was car of the year or 10 best. and for the time they were relatively inexpensive. subarus were the only cars that had 4wd outside of a suv/truck so they were super popular. and the ej22 cars were pretty damn unkillable. nissans were surprisingly underrated. their biggest flaw was rust, but the maxima was a huge car for normies in the 1990s and not acknowledged enough by car enthusiasts, it was the g35/g37 of that time period. the cars were tough as nails think sentra and pathfinder.
My parents bought American for awhile. Good value especially when you needed a big back seat for kids and family trips. It was all gradual as American cars began to suck more and more. Now there isn't even a value aspect to GM/Ford/Chrylser so why bother?Internet has given Japanese stuff the mythical reputation it has today mostly though. I also recall people being laughably bad shade tree mechanics before the internet too.
>>28744830e90 corolla... yep now that was a solid car, they dont make em like they used to
>less than 30d until 2026>/o/ is still obsessed over Toyota winningrent free
>>28744830The Japanese built their engines to much closer tolerances, even if the bodies were nothing but rustomatic shells. The companies were also much more efficient - they never had the legion of retarded, useless mid-level managers that weighed down US industry. That sort of thing didn't exist in Japan. When Cummins was having business problems in the late '70's, they bit the bullet, swallowed their pride and got into bed with Komatsu, to learn their management style and business layout. Komatsu said that Cummins was "the most Japanese" of US companies that they had ever dealt with.
>>28744830White "people" value novelty, fun, gimmicky inventions, etc.Asian people value reliability, long-term thinking, thus are seen as boring safe choices.Cars reflect the culture they're from.
>>28745187In all fairness it was mainly the performance and luxury Mitsubishis and Mazdas that had issues due to the gimmick features in them, the shitbox models were perfectly reliable.
>>28745187Loose tolerances were always a problem on American cars since the 60s and earlier. Not always, but the low end brands like Chevy could often be very janky. Some of this was due to the sheer amount of them built.One may argue that Japan did not have the UAW to deal with since UAW workers have always been absolutely retarded and unmotivated, they get paid huge bucks and can't be fired no matter how shoddy their workmanship is. That was why GM put Saturn production in a right-to-work state, in the hope of improved Q/C.
>>28747844not just engines, but interiors were also assembled much more tightly and you didn't see a Honda with loose or misaligned trim or the thing vibrating like fuck when running.
>>28748127I'll say again that some American cars could be built well when there was motivation. A relative of mine worked at a Chevy dealer in the 80s and he said the Caprices were always pretty nice cars you could tell GM took pride in while the Cavalier was absolutely ghetto.
>>28747844I think the worst thing about 80s Jap iron was the Eastern bloc ugly styling, they were always 100% functional and industrial while American cars at least had some flare and sense of style.
>>28745187But also remember that all USDM Accord/Civic after 1981 were US built cars and not actual Japanese ones.
>>28744830They used to be objectively better. American cars were shitboxes. But you could buy a dirt cheap manual Civic or Corolla and get 500k miles out of it if you took even basic care of it. Those days are mostly gone, Honda is coasting on reputation and even Toyota is slipping.
>>28744830>When did Japanese cars get their reputation?In the 70s and 80s they were known for being cheap, fuel efficient and fairly reliable. In the 90s they had a similar reputation but with higher quality. That trend continued into the 00s with their quality being seen as equivalent to American or entry level Euro cars; but with better reliability and gas mileage. In the late 00s and 10s the quality and reliability of American and Euro cars went down while most of the Jap brands maintained their quality with the exception of Nissan and Mistubishi. That trend has generally continued into the 20s although now we're even seeing reliability problems with Toyota as some of their new engines have been blowing up.TLDR: Jap quality and reliability continually improved from the 70s up to the 10s then maintained their quality and reliability better than American and Euro models did.
>>28744994>i'd be hard pressed to see why you'd get anything elseThe Toyota Tax is almost third-world tier these days.There are good and bad cars from every manufacturer, but most people who aren't /o/tists are willing to find the good ones aside from the easy choices.
>>28747844>The companies were also much more efficient - they never had the legion of retarded, useless mid-level managers that weighed down US industry.Japan has a much worse problem with this these days. They have low economic productivity because they expect people to live at work. The US is arguably better because the option to work to output is available instead of only working to time.
When I was in maybe 4th grade in the mid 80s the principal of the school was filling in for our absent teacher and he went on a spiel about how high quality toyotas are. He said that in local car factories the workers are lazy and don't care but a japanese auto worker, if he was on his way out of the factory after the bell went and he saw a wiper installed at a slightly wrong angle the worker would take a screwdriver out of his pocket and adjust it to the correct angle before going home. Completely bullshit made up story but I remember it clearly. Maybe because he was teaching us how to improve our memory on the same day.
>>28748398it's as if Japan didn't have UAW workers.
>>28748398A bit absurd but there is some validity.
>>28748616Their workers didn't come into work drunk or high. I don't think you can imagine just how bad the typical UAW line was in the 70s.
>>28748616>>28748626Even at the time I thought the story had some pretty serious holes. I didn't think the workers would have screwdrivers in their pockets and my dad was a toyota mechanic so I asked him about it and he said you can't adjust the wipers with a screwdriver.The point is, that by the mid 80's a school principal thought toyota quality was something worth teaching the students about.
>>28748200LOL no jap cars were FAR superior than americrap by the 80s already only real problem was rust >>28748387Yes but the difference is Toyota makes 1 bad car for ever 100 great reliable,durable ones you have to TRY to find a bad one.While Americsn manufactuers mayve make one decent car for every 100 absolute garbage ones.
