In these days of sky-high gasoline prices, drivers are looking for alternatives to reduce their overall costs of ownership - including purchase price, fuel efficiency maintenance and depreciation. The days of gas-guzzling V8 engines may be over, spelling a radical shift in the thinking of US car makers. Isn't it ironic that hybrids and electric cars were slow to the market by the domestic car makers (because their gas guzzling SUVs and trucks were their highest margin vehicles), but they have been able to unveil the Escalade Hybrid and Volt electric car in mere months after crude oil spiked to record levels?
It was not that long ago that Japanese (let alone the Korean) automobiles were considered to be of low quality and unworthy of consideration by discerning buyers. Where the Asian automakers have been very good (as opposed to the Eastern European manufacturers such as Yugo and Lada) is that they have persevered over their initial poor decisions of bringing low-cost, low-quality cars (remember the Hyundai Pony) to North America, and took a long-term approach to building vehicles that emphasized reliability, quality and fuel-efficiency. This is also a very different approach to the Americans who focused on lots of gadgets and features, big engines but poor reliability and low quality vehicles. Granted, they have started to follow the Asian philosophy, more out of necessity, and started building better quality products. This has been so ever since the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord surpassed the Ford Taurus as America's best-selling car. In the more conservative Canada, the smaller Honda Civic has been the best-selling car in that country, surpassing the Chevrolet Cavalier/Pontiac Sunfire a few years back.
Which brings me to this post, and how smart consumers can buy import quality vehicles but pay domestic vehicle prices. I have been doing this for years and have been rewarded handsomely for paying next to nothing for used cars that lasted me a number of trouble-free years. There are a number of cars on the market that are Asian but are badged as domestic. This has been going on for years, as all the US car makers have used their partnerships and/or ownership of Asian car manufacturers to help them bring smaller cars to the local market. They called it badge engineering. In the 1990's, the Dodge Colt was really a Mitsubishi, the Geo Storm was really an Isuzu, the Geo Tracker was a Suzuki, and even the Geo Priszm was really a Toyota in disguise. Buying them on the used car market was an especially good buy (except perhaps the Ford Festiva which was a re-badged low-quality Kia), as the rate of depreciation on these 'domestic' vehicles was much faster was much faster than those for their imported cousins such as Honda, Toyota and Mazda.
These days, such badge engineering still exists, although perhaps not as frequently as in the past. But buying a new Chevrolet Optra or Aveo is really buying a Daewoo, and the Pontiac Vibe is mechanically identical to the Toyota Matrix. Many Ford vehicles share a platform with Mazda cars. The Saturn Astra and Aura are really award-winning, German engineered Opels. Even some recent large-sized Chevrolet models such as the Epica were really Suzuki cars.
Because the Big 3 domestic automakers are currently in financial difficulties, they are more likely to offer all sorts of incentives and discounts, and you are much more likely to be able to bargain for a rock-bottom price with them than the dealers of imports. So get the best of both worlds by doing some research on the exact origins of the vehicles you are considering, and go get the salesmen to sharpen their pencils and grab yourself a bargain.
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