Toyota moves from Ca to Tx: When are bluestates going to actively fight job poachers?

[Savannahmann]

90. To the average person, the average consumer, it's about bang for buck.

In 2005 I was in the market for a mini-van. I shopped around. I compared quality, warranty, cost, and expected reliability. It came down to two choices, the Ford or the Kia. I went with the then new company Kia. The reasons boiled down to cost versus quality. The Kia came with a 100k mile warranty, the Ford, Dodge, Chevy, all had 36k mile warranties. The cost of the Ford was nearly double what the Kia cost.

Think about that last statement for a moment. The Kia with the 100k mile warranty cost about half as much as the Ford with the 36k mile warranty. Now I can understand getting two for the price of one, but why would I get one for the price of two? That is what it came down to, the fact that the Ford was going to cost me almost double what the Kia would.

2012 came around and again, the need for a mini-van presented itself. Again I shopped around. Again I compared the models, and again I made a choice based upon the same factors, cost, quality, expected life of the vehicle, and bang for the buck. The price of the various models was going to be in the same ballpark. The warranty was going to be reasonably similar. So we had equaled price, and we had equaled warranty. That left quality, and that left bang for buck, or features of the vehicle.

I ended up buying the Toyota Sienna. I considered the Kia, and then decided if I was going to pay Toyota prices, I might as well get " target="_blank">Toyota quality and reliability. It isn't the first Toyota I've owned, and probably won't be the last. This time however, the final two models was the Volkswagen and the Toyota, and the final thing that pushed Toyota over the edge was that the Sienna was built in Indiana of 75% American parts. It came down to how many American Jobs could be tied to the vehicle, and Toyota won. I nearly ordered the mobility assist model which is the only factory installed, as opposed to after market add on, mobility assist system for handicapped people there is.

Toyota's system is brilliant. The rear passenger seat waits until the door opens automatically, the seat turns, and then slides out and down to the ground allowing the limited mobility person to get in and out of the car with much more ease than trying to crawl into it.

I'm already thinking about the next car, the Sienna is the Wife's, and I am not going to drive it any more than I must. I got the Hand me down Kia for driving to work. When the Kia gives up the ghost, my choice is almost certainly going to be a Toyota Tacoma pick up truck unless Volkswagen starts making a truck, which I kind of need around the rural areas I'm in. I definitely want one car that is 4WD in case the dirt road I live on gets exceedingly soupy during an extended rain storm. Did I mention that the Tacoma is built using 70% US parts in the US?

The Toyota Tacoma is well known quality, and well known reliability. After all of those decisions, I learned of Volkswagen's green earth policies at the plant in Chattanooga. I kind of wish I had bought the Volkswagen, because that stuff is astonishing in it's broad spectrum approach to conservation of resources and earth friendly production.