Fool's Efficiency?

I have no problem with buying an American-made car -- my Civic was built by the UAW in Ohio, my Escort was built in Korea -- but it will be a long while before I overcome my hard-earned, visceral distrust of Detroit engineering.

So I understand that aspect of what the J.D. Power guy is talking about. But he fails to notice another equally significant reason that the Big Three automakers have a lousy reputation: They've spent millions of dollars over the past several decades on a PR campaign designed to persuade us that they don't know what they're doing.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have loudly insisted for years that they are technologically incompetent. They have spent millions of lobbying dollars to explain all the things they cannot do, all the improvements they are unable to make, all the ways their abilities, designs and engineering are inferior to those of their competitors. All of that money spent advertising their limits and incompetency has had an impact. American car buyers listened. We believed them. {the rest}

[via slacktivist]