I must confess to being more than a little bit naive about American cars. In the UK I have a rough idea as to which makes are goodand which ones to avoid, but I have no idea if a Chrysler is better than a Buick or Dodge, GMC etc are any good.

Can those of you that live in Canada gives some views as to which makes are worth considering, and which ones should be avoided

Buy Japanese, they're available in all countries and always get good write ups in car magazines. Me I'm buying a Mercedes, unless my wife says otherwise.

We've had Chrysler in the UK and from our experience we would NEVER have another - nothing but problems.

It used to be with General Motors vehicles that the cheapest and lowest quality was Chevrolet then came Pontiac followed by Oldsmobile (no longer in existence) then Buick and lastly Cadillac the best quality. GMC made only trucks. Not sure if any of this is still the case.

Chrysler was better than Dodge or Plymouth (don't think Plymouth exists any more either) not sure if that is still the case.

Mercury was upscale Ford but I think they have disappeared too. Ford as a brand in North America is not a patch on UK Ford.

I only bought GM products for the longest time before the Japanese started selling cars in North America. Pontiac and Buick were my choices but I bought my last Buick in 1980 and although it lasted 12 years I have purchased only Japanese since (Honda and Toyota). I have also been lucky enough to get all of my Japanese branded vehicles as imports from Japan, apparently better quality even than North American manufactured Japanese vehicles, so I'm told.

I am still not impressed with North American manufacturers although they have improved immensely quality wise in the last twenty years they still have a long way to go to catch the imports.

Don't buy domestic. Prices drop like bricks.

My hub bought a Honda Civic when we first got here, and now 2 years later they are still worth only a couple of grand or so less than we paid for it. Not bad in 2 years. !
He's thinking of updating to a new Nissan Altima now (only if he convinces me we are staying put here for at least another couple of years, for those of you who know of our saga)

If he's looking at the Altima tell him to look at the Toyota Camry as well.

The good thing about domestic brands and their prices dropping is that you can pick up a top of the range second hand vehicle for a decent price. I am fortunate in the fact that hubby is a mechanic - we will never buy new...That is until the new Dodge Challenger comes out - hubby can't decide on the colour he wants so I can't put his name down. Does he want orange or vanishing point white or sublime green??????? Thats the one thing we truly regret not bringing, his 1970 dodge Challenger:curse: Not sure if he'll ever be able to afford another one

Incidently our '98 Eddie Bauer expedition cost us less than $10k and has been no trouble at all, we have just sold a fully loaded '98 Jeep Cherokee for $5k - some guy got a bargain (not as much as a bargain it was for us though!) and a '93 Jeep for $2,800K. Just to give you an idea of what you can get, if your not looking for a brand new car.

I would suggest you get a 4x4 if you are planning to go out of the city, hubby is trying to get me a PT Cruiser, he reckons I'll be fine next winter in one, but I was so impressed with my Expedition last winter, i'm not sure I want to lose it.

Americans are naive about American cars.

We are Canadians.

(we buy from the little yellow fellas, gettit?)

buy a Honda CRV. never buy american !

Would agree about not buying American cars unless you're mechanically minded and you get it rustproofed!

When we were looking at cars to buy, we went to a Toyota dealer to look at used Corollas. When we intimated that $12k was a little more than we were hoping to spend on a 2002 very basic model, he showed us a 2005 (ie - only just over 12 months old at the time) low kms Chrysler Intrepid fully loaded...

...and told us it was on sale for $10k.

The other half was tempted, but bearing in mind what I'd heard about American cars, we walked away and ended up buying a 2002 Hyundai Elantra for just over $10k with low mileage and plenty of bells and whistles.

Usualy German and Japanese cars loose about 10% of their price each year, but American cars loose about 20% a year.

Seems a bit optimistic to me - if you look at 3yr lease rates for Jap/Euro cars it's considerably more than 10% per yr in depreciation that you're paying for. Can't think of any car still worth 70% of its value after 3yrs. Certainly residuals are somewhat higher than US vehicles, but they're not that good. Often if you shop carefully and choose the right spec/colour and negotiate hard (US manufacturers in my experience will discount more heavily) the depreciation rates are not dissimilar.

I leased an '06 Mazda 3 GT which is estimated to be worth 40% of it's original value after 36mths. I also lease an '07 F150 King Ranch which in 36mths should retain 35% of its value - not a whole lot of difference really. Both are 0% financed on the same mileage (25,000kms p/yr) basis, so the comparisons seem pretty fair.

i have a lovely lexus ready for me........
wouldnt touch american.......except with a flaming torch

Alberta doesn't use salt on the roads in the winter here and it's really dry so you don't need to rustproof. We can tell if a vehicle is from Ontario - it's the one with no body left- given way to rust.

Thanks all -there is some good advice here. I must say that I am disappointed about what everyone has said about American cars - I was hoping to get a mid sized American 4x4 (SUV) - I liked the prices they were going for. Sounds like they are this price for a reason