As a mechanic I cannot agree with this statement. While American cars aren't necessarily a bad idea to buy, they are some of the most PITA cars to work on. I am a freelance mechanic on the side (mostly doing jobs for friends, everything from oil changes to engine rebuilds) and let me tell you, I'd rater work on a 2000, or 2009 honda, toyota, nissan... hell even a BMW any day than a 2000 or 2009 ford or chevy (or any year except the pre-70s models, and those certainly aren't reliable due to age). Example of a car i worked on recently: to get to the slave cylinder on a 2009 ford focus you have to UNBOLT THE TRANSMISSION, compare to almost any other car where you just drop the exhaust and have at it, if that. I have an associate who is full time at a ford dealership, and he told me one day why the designs suck so horribly to work on and maintain (this plays into reliablilty and TCO a lot. im not just talking about jobs you need to hire a mech for). Two reasons come to mind, one is that Ford has not stuck with old designs and improved them, they insist on coming out with some new model every few years, imagine if they had stuck with and refined the nova, for example. Toyota has had the Corolla (ok it was called the the Corona before) for how long? How long has the focus been around? Consumers associate names with reliability, and the longer something has been known to be reliable, the more this is reinforced (civic and corolla being great examples). Second reason is under-skilled engineers. American car companies are known for hiring green engineers fresh out of school, rather than more seasoned professionals like the foreign companies do. Why? Short term cost cutting I'm sure, just more of the same mentality that has been wrecking this country for the last 20-30 years.