I currently buy american but I did own a nissan 200 sx in the 90's. It was a great car, very reliable. I've also had good luck with all my fords, a 73 maverick (first car) I got it used with over 200k miles on it in the mid 80's, I put about 73k on it before the trans went. Almost 300k on a 73 ford, not bad, only thing I replaced on it was the heater coil (core?) and water pump.
Had a festiva that had 189k miles on it, sold it still running. 2 ford zx2's one has over 200k and was still riding around last summer, the one I just traded in had 105k - no problems, just wanted a bigger car so I got the HHR.
My husband also sticks with fords -Ranger, Bronco, Explorer and now F150.
He was a mechanic so he's pretty good with keeping up with maintenance.

I think it all comes down to personal preference and researching the models you are looking at. However on foreign vs. domestic, when you see all the local layoffs (Chevy/GM/Ford) it makes you think. I for one will stick with domestics as long as the reliability is there in the model I'm looking at. I have the 3 yr / 36k on the hhr so after the water leak is fixed I'm hoping that is it.

 

1) With big business nowadays, you are not guaranteed job security no matter who you work for.

2) The housing market is drying up because investors who bought up the homes looking for a quick profit (which drove home prices up) are now moving their money somewhere else, over flooding the market with many available homes causing prices to go down which in turn affects new home owners' equity who purchased at peak.

3) My opinion, big business moving their facilities outside of the U.S. to save money, taking the jobs with them, and selling products/services back to U.S. citizens and residents is party to blame for the dollar being down. How does it make sense to take away jobs from the same people that buy your products/services from you?


So with all this going on in the U.S. and the world, do you really think it can make a difference if people buy American made vehicles? Wait...GM is an American company, HHRs are made in Mexico...hmmm.