When buying a car, you should consider four main factors quality, price, value and reliability. A car may have one or two factors but be missing the other two. You need to find a car that has all four factors. Foreign cars tend to be more likely to possess the four factors.
Quality is the workmanship and durability of a car over time. Many foreign cars, especially mid size cars, can have a very long, useful life. There are many of these cars still on the road well after 100,000 miles of use. Domestic cars, on the other hand, tend not to last much past 100,000 miles even if cared for well.
A foreign car will tend to be more durable and will have fewer problems than a domestic car with the same mileage. Consumer reports wrote that both Honda and Toyota were consistently better over time then the major domestic manufacturers. During a survey, they reported that Honda and Toyota were at least 55 problems per 100 vehicles better than the next closest competitor. Ford, which is considered to have an average amount of problems.
Price is not just the number on the window sticker. Price includes long term costs such as maintenance and repair bills. Domestic cars may be a little cheaper than foreign cars on the average. It seems the long term costs of owning a domestic car are greater. They tend to have more problems down the line during the life of the car. The cost of getting a domestic trade in ready for sale on the lot is usually higher than getting a foreign car ready for sale. If you ask any mechanic which type of car has better service histories, they all say that as a whole, foreign cars were usually better running and easier to maintain. They also added that domestic cars were easier to work on although they felt that a foreign car would hold up better over time.
Value is described as what your car will be worth over time. The easiest way to determine this is to look at resale values. The resale value and trade in value of foreign cars generally hold up better over time than domestics. This has to do with quality and price which we just discussed. Another way to determine this is to look at lease programs. Foreign cars generally have higher residual percentages and therefore lease better than domestic cars.
A Honda Accord leased for 3 years may have a residual value of 55 while a Chevrolet Impala comparably equipped and priced may have a residual value of 40 . Even the banks know there is a distinct difference in value over time. They are the ones that set the values. This is why more people lease foreign cars over domestics.
Reliability is the ability of a car not to break down over time. Sometimes it is referred to as dependability. Like we discussed earlier, mechanics tend to side with the foreign cars. Consumer Reports even claims that Asian vehicles are by far the most reliable in their latest subscriber survey. The vehicles in Consumer Reports are graded on a rating of problems per 100 vehicles. Asian vehicles have reported about 12 problems per 100 vehicles. European makes remained steady at 21 problems per 100 vehicles.
As you can see they do not have the reliability ratings that Asian car makers do. Oddly enough, in the same Consumer Reports subscriber survey, U.S. makes had an average problem rate of 18 problems per 100 vehicles. That was up from the previous year of 17. That is a better rating than the European models. Don t look at these numbers and think that all cars from a certain area of the world are the same. The results vary significantly within each group and should be researched more before purchasing a vehicle.
Author Resource:
Mark Hoffman. If you search for a car, please visit http://www.buysellcar24.com where you will find cars for sale.
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