If personal experience is the measure, I have owned Chryslers, GM's, Fords and now have an '02 Toyota, and '03 Honda. My last Ford was a 93 Ranger w/ V6 3.0L that had 196,000 miles on it when I gave it to my daughter and son-in-law, who were moving in Sunnyvale.
I have had no major problems, but did replace muffler (noisy) 45K, replace the antilock rear brake sensor and chopper wheel corroded from all the salt it received during it's life in Chicago, IL (light came on, braking was okay, just no anti-lock) at 60k, F/R brakes at 90k (squeal from wear indicators); clutch & m/c (slipping) at 100k; water pump (small puddle of coolant on my driveway) at 140k. Routine L/O every 3k, Filter every other change. Pretty reliable truck, always starts (original starter). My kids tell me they are amazed how well it starts and runs (they are yuppy maintenance ignore types i.e. don't work on it 'til something breaks). BTW the alternator still has noisy bearing since 40,000 but also runs just fine, just passed 200k. :newsmile091:
The Ranger really is a 2nd generation Mazda truck, when I worked for Mazda in 2002 as QA inspector, my U.S. manager said it was the best truck Mazda ever designed in collaboration with Ford. Honestly, the Japanese have higher quality control and workmanship standards...:shock
Even though we developed the techniques of QA here in the U.S, I can attest to the fact that with only 2-3 months on the job, I could close my eyes, be put in front of any one of 1000 cars in a lot, and in 30 secs could tell which cars were made in Japan and which were made in the U.S. just by the number of defects I tallied.
Just my thoughts, I still like domestic vehicles, I just put my inspection techniques and experience to the fore when it comes to buying one and don't get caught up in all the "flash". :newsmile022:
