Toyota's woes provide opportunity for U.S. car companies

Toyota's quality issues could not have come at a better time for the Big three U.S. car companies. This article was pretty interesting.
One of the things they mentioned were the "bad carpets". Just my opinion, but I don't think there was ever anything wrong with the carpets, That was Toyota either not knowing or refusing to admit they had mechanical problems with the accelerators, which I'm sure are far more expensive to replace than the carpets. It was not mentioned by the article, but from what I have read elsewhere, the predominant problems seem to be emanating from the Japanese trying to cut costs by using cheap shit parts from third party suppliers in the U.S. and worse, Mexico. Christ, if I wanted transportation from Mexico I would have bought a donkey.

Up till now the U.S. car companies have never been able to compete with the Japanese in the small car market because on one side you had a car like the Corolla, which was known to hit the 200+ K mark, while being an infrequent visitor to the mechanic, while on the U.S. side you had the Pinto, the Gremlin, the Chevette, the Escort - just an endless suck-session of junky cars that not only didn't last long, but saw the mechanic frequently from cradle to grave. This soured (and rightly so) most peoples opinion of American made small cars, and made it almost impossible for Detroit to break into the small car market, for even if they came out with a great small car, who would believe it?

I'd say that now with Toyota's woes, it would be a great time for a U.S. car company to come out with a great, high quality small car that does NOT have a myriad of safety issues or mechanical problems, announced by an aggressive ad campaign. Unfortunately I doubt very much that will happen, the bone head CEO's of the U.S. car companies are far more likely to try introducing some new enormous SUV, even though gas is still expensive and is going up again.

Room Mates still suck

A while back I made this post about how bad room mates suck. This guys post confirms everything I said and then some...

From reddit:

 First, a little background on me.

A while back, some of you may remember my roommate killed my cat.

I had the roommate move out and filed charges. He is still at large with a state jail felony warrant out for his arrest. I do not know where he lives, but I recently discovered where he works.

A couple of weeks ago, my fiance and I discover that both of our cars have flat tires. Two flats each, both on the right side of the car. Our cars were not parked next to each other, and no other car was vandalized in the parking lot. Logic dictates that it was done by someone who knew both of our cars and had a grudge, so I naturally concluded that it was the ex roommate.

I filed a police report and never heard anything else about it. My fiance and I also made the decision to move. We move on Wednesday.

Well, two days ago, my fiance went to get gas. She discovered that her gas cap was missing and that the inside of the gas tank's mouth there was... some sort of sealant. We still haven't figured out exactly what it is. I checked my car, and sure enough, same thing.

I'm positive that it was the ex roommate, but the cops don't seem to care. I've told them where he works, but he has yet to be picked up.

What would you do in this situation?

Edit: So I was just checking the cars again, and got my finger stuck in gas thing... you know where you actually put the nozzle in when you are filling up? Yeah. Stuck, bleeding. Had to get the ice cream truck guy to call 911. There were 3 fire trucks and an ambulance. Now I get to go get a tetanus shot. How embarrassing.

Sooooo glad I live ALONE in an apartment now, but I bet not nearly as glad as the guy who made the above post!