Unfortunately there's waaaay too much truth in all this. Though buyin American used to be a part of my automotive acquisitional process, I've been a devoted Mitsu cat for the past 10-12 yrs now.

Here's a real simple example of American automotive design dysfuction and stupidity. One of my nieces has a 2005 Pontiac Sunfire with a standard tranny. Last week the slave cylinder went out on it, although some jackass parts engineer decided that a simple slave cylinder just wasn't exotic or expensive enough so they instead engineered some rediculous POS assy that now requires droppin nearly $200 on the part itself (which actually consists of about .25 worth of plastic and about another .20-.50 worth of seals and fittings), then removing the transmission from the engine to install it. This means the repair now takes about $500 total to get her back up and goin along with at least a days worth of down time with the car in the shop to have it done.

On my Mitsu the slave cylinder is $60, takes a 10mm metric line wrench to remove the hydraulic line from it, remove the 2-8mm bolts that attach it to the outside of the tranny, install the new slave cylinder, reattach the hydraulic line to it, take 5 minutes to bleed it out and you're back in business.

I'm all for good engineering and improvements in mechanical processes but NEVER in adding in MORE work and MORE money and that's what the Big 3 seem to be really good at