Read it in the paper this morning. Nissan will be moving it's Maxima production from Japan to Smyrna, TN for the upcoming model. Smyrna is about 15 miles southeast of Nashville. They already make the Altima, Xterra, and some pickup models there. Should be interesting for quality control. If they pull it off well, then Acura should take some notes on making a high quality US built auto - mainly the next gen CL.

 

I can't believe that so many people believe that the quality problems are due to where a car is built.

Quality/Reliability is determined way back in the design and manufacturing design.

Fit and finish is influenced by where a car is built. but fit and finish have NOTHING to do with quality or reliability.

if you have the most expensive leathers and the best design, and assemble it in a really shitty way, you still have great quality and good reliability, but the fit and finish will suck.

and i think even though the car is built in the u.s., the tl's and cl's fit and finish is still above par...most of us are just too detail oriented.

 

Yeah it's a nice car...but it's a fact that higher end cars built in Japan are better than the ones assembled in the USA...sorry, American workers tend not to take pride when assembling Japanese cars. Note..this is in general....

 

Having owned a 1st get CL, I feel that the fit and finish of this model is sub par compared to that model. Also the TL's are produced here and exported to Japan so I would expect very good fit and finish. So why are alot of CL's which are made on the same assembley line appear to have lower quality (f&f)?

[ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: davo-cls ]

 

Now Nissan will have hoods, trunks and doors that are not aligned correctly.

 

only usa has monday and friday assembly problems, not the japanese.
ur dreaming if you think that there is no diff

 

yep there goes the neighboorhood

I think cars build in Japan are better assembled and seems to be sturdier than vehicles build in USA. I mean CL has fairly poor fit and finish in comparison to infinity, bmw, lexus and benz, all of those manufactured in Japan. I understand Nissan's move from economical standpoint, but I dont approve of it because its not like their prices will go down.

 

They can sell more cars here...because more of it will be domestic content and allow them not to affect quotas.

 

The actual MSRP's won't go down, but the amount you end up paying for the car will possibly be lower, because there will be more room to play with between the invoice and what they want to sell the car for. I'm pretty sure that it's going to cost Nissan less money to make the cars in the U.S, which will make the dealer invoice of the car lower then if it was made in Japan. So, ulitmately the cars will be cheaper.

 

But I guarantee you that the "window sticker" will be the same. I don't expect Nissan or anyone outside the US to lower prices just because it's made closer to home now (i.e. BMW-Z3, Benz-ML series). The dealer markup will grow by a larger margin, that's all.

 

In my experience, cars manufactured in Japan are better overall. I agree that prices will not get cheaper for cars that are manufactured here. I'd rather pay a little more if I knew it would be produced in Japan. My father has owned American cars for over 30yrs and 2 yrs ago finally decided to buy a Japanese car (infiniti). He was amazed at the quality and the fit and finish. He swears he will never buy any American car again.

 

Exactly! But usually when you negotiate a deal on a car, you want to get as close as possible to the dealer invoice or even lower, and since these cars will not be imported into the country the bottom line cost will be less. This gives the consumer a chance to get the car at a lower price because the dealer invoice will now be cheaper. But you will always find those dealers that are not willing to negotiate, and people will end up paying the marked up prices.

 

When I was car shopping the 'Made in Japan' was a big plus for the Max.

 

The Max was in my list of "next" cars to own. It has affected my decision since they are moving production here. Maybe it's a paradigm that all Japanese made cars are good and all American made cars are bad, but I'll wait and see.

 

I agree partially. But look at the Honda/Acura quality slide in the past six years. Ever since they relied so heavily on the Ohio plants.

In the case of our car. The Acutator, Sunroof rattle, Driver's seat leather wear, right pipe hanging low. These are all engineering or vendor mistakes. But the fit and finish, and some of the squeaks and rattles are assembly related.

The fact that the H/A are still near the top of the heap in Quality and reliabilty has to do with engineering as well.

But there has been a significant slide, and I fear it's not going to get any better. Honda sells a shitload of Accords and Civics. You rarely if ever see them discounted or rebates on them. As long as their moving 500,000 Accords a year do you really think they are worried about a drop in quality?

 

Furthermore. I narrowed my search to 2 cars. The Maxima (Made in Japan) a huge factor.
And the Passat GLX V6, again made overseas.

But the CL-S had just won me over in the bang for the buck catergory.

Just pray the Japanese manufacturers don't set up shop in Mexico. We'll all be looking for mods for our Sonata's and Leganza's