On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Stan Wilder wrote:

> I'm of the opinion that Asian cars are designed to suck American bucks
> and self destruct if you go against the scheduled maintenance program.

It's a question of design.

Big American cars are designed with the knowledge that Americans won't do
maintenance, no way no how.  A real patriotic American buys a new car
every four years anyhow. If you take care of them, they'll generally last
quite a while, but even if you never change the oil or do a tune-up
they'll still struggle to 70,000 miles or so before starting to blow big
clouds of blue smoke.  This requires looser tolerances and lower-tech
engineering, so the result will have less power, more weight, and lower
fuel economy than a Japanese engine would.

Small 4-cylinder American engines aren't based on designs that are as old
as the big engines, and succumb to lack of maintenance just as easily as
the Japanese makes.  (Often easier -- ask anyone who owned a Chevette or a
Cavalier about reliability.)

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
| (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "BSD is for people who like UNIX.  Linux is for people
 |___/             who hate Microsoft." -- Brendan Howes