Yeah, I was not trying to confuse the new FJ with the Land Cruisers. I think the new FJ is more like a 4Runner than a Land Cruiser.

I was just comparing the old Land Cruisers to older Jeeps and the newer Land Cruisers to what I see in the Land Rovers. The new FJ is certainly not the king of the hill even in Toyota's line-up, but it is a fun ride for what I use it for.

Let's see... before I owned my Tacoma, I owned a Jeep Cherokee. The Tacoma has a 6 year 72,000 mile warranty, the Jeep had a three year 36,000 mile warranty. Right off the bat, I like the fact that Toyota will stand behind their product better than a US based company. I just looked up Jeep warranty and it is still the same.

I did buy American and here's what happened: I serviced my Jeep every 3K miles to the letter at the dealership. I had a problem that mysteriously kept turning into something else each time I took it in. You see, California has a lemon law which dealerships can get around by not having it be the same problem. This same dealership managed to get this problem outside of the warranty and then threw me under the bus. I wrote Chrysler who apologized but did nothing. I wrote the State of California who did nothing. Ultimately I wound up taking a loss on a vehicle which had only 45,000 miles in less than two years. I traded it in for my Tacoma which now has 175,000 miles and is running quite well.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I had a problem with work the Toyota dealership did and not only did they not charge me for the labor, they also didn't charge me for the parts. While this has nothing to do with the automaker, I'm sure it has something to do with good management practices which are from the top down.

There is a large Toyota plant in Fremont, CA. While these are technically Japanese cars, they are manufactured in Fremont and employing a number of workers in bay area. I also know of a large Nissan plant outside of Nashville. I'm assuming there are other plants in other states and as well. These plants contribute to the local and US economy but probably not doing much for Detroit.

I can empathize with the people of Detroit (or Flint as in the case of GM) but at the same time, the manufacturers need to not only build a better product, they need to stand behind it.

/delete poor American car build quality rant

I don't have one but I like it better than the CRV. More sporty. If you don't mind the CVT transmission, you should look at them seriously.

I had 3 "American" cars, all Ford, all serious POSes. My girlfriend had a Chevy that almost fell apart by the time the lease was up. My parents had Pontiacs that lasted forever and a half and my sister had a Buick that was very much a tank. Now I'm in a Toyota, Mom's in a Honda, Dad's in a Lexus, one sister is in a Hyundai, and the other rides a motorcycle.

Are US based automakers making crappy cars? Some are, some did. All I know is that my Fords all cost more in repairs (Tempo, Escort, Focus) than for the cars themselves and I have yet to have an issue with my Corolla that gets 10 MPG better milage without even needing to be a hybrid; it was also likely produced in one of Toyota's 13 North American plants.

As for the hybrid price drop: that'd happen anyway. Technology advances, demand increases, and economy of scale kicks in. Don't need inside information to figure that out. What I would like to know is why a couple guys in their garage or a pack of kids from west Philly can make a 90-100 MPG car using existing technology and the "big 3" can't.

< / rant >

And there is the Billion dollar question. Technologically look what society has acchieved in the past 50 years, but the biggest technilogical break throughs in automobiles has been with the stereo systems. Oh sure there have been computer chips added to the fuel injection systems and the whole nine yards but underneath it all you still have the same tired combustion engine. In the computer industry we call that a wrapper and its only used as a stop-gap until a more robust system can be developed.

I just hope and pray that the hybrid is a stop-gap and that the big three are pooring some IR&D dollars into a legitimate alternative in order to regain market share. I think it will be a race like we haven't seen since the space program ;-)

Hopefully big oil doesn't foil it!

Tsilcyc,

You asked what a CVT transmission was and implicitly, how it works.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/cvt.htm

In short, a CVT uses a pully system that controls the driven and driving "gears" that can change diameter. It is a system that does not change gears, but seemlessly changes ratios using cone type gears that expand and contract to give different sizes of "gears".

The Nissan Rogue has it as well as some models of the Saturn Vue.

Hope this helps.

I seriously considered an element, before I fiddled around in back and decided that I didnt want to block my windows by folding my seats up by them. Although the tailgate feature is pretty cool, you can only pack 600 pounds, including people into an element, and thats not going to work for camping+cycling+dogs.