Hubs, the Japanese were building trucks in the US back when I was working at the dealership I described.......and did I mention it was a Nissan dealership?
Almost all, if not all, auto manufacturers have checklists for their new vehicles, to be performed at the dealerships. Not just US manufacturers.
As to the country of origin, back then the VIN told you where the vehicle was made.
Guess which country of origin gave us the most defects? If you guessed the US, you were wrong.
Some Nissan trucks and some Sentras were being built in Tennessee, not just Japan. All Maximas and IIRC Pathfinders were assembled in Japan. I can't recall if the Altimas were being built in Japan solely, but IIRC they were since they were an entirely new model in 1992-93, when I worked at the dealership.
Let's see..........
1993 Altima, would not shift out of 1st gear (auto trans), built in Japan; after replacing the transaxle, computer, etc. 4 times, the factory rep gave up and had us put the car back on a transporter to send to wherever factory lemons go. The car never made it to the line or showroom.
1992 Nissan extended cab pickup, 5 speed transmission......never made it to the showroom or new car line, cause the shifter would jump out of place, and I mean to where it could not be placed into any gear. Factory told us to R&R the transmission and put it on the line.......fine, but after 3 transmissions did the same thing, it was sent back to lemon purgaory also.
1993 Maxima, again, transmission problem...manual transmission would lock in 1st gear....disassembly revealed nothing that to the naked eye would cause it to do that, so a factory new transaxle was installed with the same results. Again, after two more transaxle R&R's, it was transported away.
Or there was the ice storm in the winter of '92-93 where a lot of the Sentras wouldn't start in the cold weather..the Japanese made ones anyway. The shop was full of Sentras backed and pulled into stalls, their fuel pumps being replaced. The American made ones performed flawlessly.
Am I being selective? Perhaps, but mainly I am pointing out that all manufacturers produce lemons from time to time. People want to bad mouth US car makers as the only ones whose quality has deteriorated, but that is a myth. All of them make plenty good ones, and a few lemons, but people only wanna talk about the bad things that have happened.
I'm not picking on or at you, just venting a bit on the subject you brought up.........
