Are Young Buyers Abandoning Japanese Brands For The Detroit Three?

Since I turned 25 (I am 32 now), my wife and i have purchased 1 Ford and 4 Audis. We would never touch a Japanese car.

...Wow, And just think, there are a lot more people who research, touched and test droved Ford's and Audi's and still bought a Toyota or Lexus on loyalty, first time purchase and the Ultimate TEST DRIVE!

The Big Three have made a conscious effort to update/modernize their current small & mid-size vehicles to better compete on features, value and appearance.

While the Japanese manufacturers have been hit with some bad press and letting their product lines become stale with slight refreshes and increasing pricing due to Yen fluctuations.

Interesting, over a period of 7 years, a married couple (2 people) have "purchased" 5 cars, an average of life of 3 years per car. Why did you change so frequently? If not for car problem, wouldn't it make more sense for you guys to lease? I'm curious.

Dont' know about nguyenvuminh but there are very few vehicles I'd be really comfortable owning out of warranty these days. Jeep Wrangler is about it but only because of it's simplicity and there are so many aftermarket parts for next to nothing. Our 07 4runner has cost us more after warranty than any domestic vehicle we've ever owned. The scheduled routine maintenance isn't cheap and if you do the math, what we pay for routinely probably outweighs a major repair on a comparable domestic. I've yet to have a major issue with any domestic (other than a recall for windshield wiper motor and updates for navi systems) so either I've been lucky or just take care of my vehicles. As for the Audi question, I wouldn't own anything European out of warranty. I've watched my uncle fight that battle for years with Jag and BMW. I guess he just enjoys the Amex points he gets for repairs.

Yeah they are smarter than there parents.

Who's been smokin what? While our American counterparts have improved a bit, they are still behind the Japanese in terms of an overall refined high quality vehicle on any level. Toyota and Honda just keep right on staying focused finding new and better ways to assemble their vehicles and in many areas are using the same suppliers. Of course, Toyota aint telling us all they know, we just know what they have revealed up to now, but they still rule.

think about it like this. the Japanese hit their prime when my age group (early to mid 20s Generation Xers), and young boomers started to come into money either for their first cars (X-ers) or their first luxury car (young boomers) back in the early 90s. This has been their bread and butter and the Japanese primarily have built cars to suit these age segments, thus the non-luxury cars have become blander and less sporty as Xers have hit their mid 40s and the Japanese luxury brands have become more upscale and refined -they are not econoboxes any longer. Basically the Japanese big 3 don't really make cars for late teens-early twentysomethings any longer, save for the Juke and Scion models by Toyota and Nissan.

Young people are buying S.Korean cars because they are simply better. They also come with 10 year/ 100,000 mile real warranties and purchase price is far more friendly.

So, after years of mocking japanese small cars, calling them shitboxes etc., now americans are move to their own shitboxes? So, how it's gonna be? "Yeah it's a shitbox, but it's an american shitbox!!!!11111". This is gonna be soooooo funny...

Has General Motors settled the multi million dollar law suit with the approximate 175 Canadian dealers they discarded in 2009?
When you utilize tactics as they chose to eliminate franchise dealers in small towns without regard for the customer, the dealer, the employees and the community - I wonder why their sales in Canada continue to plummet?