One thing the Japanese have forgotten is a characteristic of many Americans is being good with tools.  Another thing they have forgotten is Americans, early in car history, fell in "love" with their automobiles and learned how to do the engines and repairs work.  Another reason is this is a large country with a great deal of land in farming or some other enterprise requiring a knowledge of tools and mechanics.  So now, Mr. Toyota, make the excuses for the company and say "trust us" after you have put such a poor quality of cars on the road.

We Americans must remember that Toyota was first in line to sell "Clunkers" for cash and to use the American taxpayers money to get rid of the bad cars so you could sell more bad cars to Americans.  The only good thing is we destroyed the cars you turned in so they could not return to the road, but you kept replacing them with the new ones who are now being recalled and should have been on the "clunker pile" too.  You must go back to the drawing board and start with all fresh designs. 

It might be a good idea to publish all your designs on the internet for comment before going into production so some of our excellent American engineers can give their approval to the design just as you have designated all of our American patents to be published after 18 months before they are issued. We could do that with your car designs and patents. 

The Japanese automakers have done things that would make the scandalous Bernie Maddoff happy by taking "our American cash for Clunkers" and using American taxpayers abatements to finance the Japanese cars while ignoring American law as Nissan is by being held harmless for all Federal Environmental and Hazardous laws. Toyota was first in line just as Nissan was firs with the Federal Reserve on picking up $1.5 billion of TALF funds and planning on coming back so they would have $3 billion total in TALF funds.  Nissan was also first at the trough for the handout of $1.5 billion in Clean Fuel Funds from the Department of Energy.

Nissan took these funds despite the fact they have broken American laws before and after signing an agreement to obey all American laws.  For that they then received American money. 

This is changing now.  More and more people have become aware of the flaws in the Japanese cars and the assault carried out on the American auto industry by the Japanese companies.

We are aware that the Japanese auto industry came into the United States in 1958 with Nissan and Toyota and Honda shortly followed.  In "Stabbing Detroit In The Back" it was spelled out that the object was to overtake the U.S. industry in which Datsun (Nissan) capitalized with a sub-compact car.  That was the first shot across the bow of attacking the U.S. industry but never mind the technology.

Nissan like Toyota in the late 80's and early 90's had a serious problem with burning minivans.  Like you, Nissan attempted to cover it up by picking up the burned vans from junk yards and flying them back to Japan in "the cover of darkness."   There were 156 minivans that could be counted and no one knew how many Nissan actually picked up.  What we did know was Americans died in those vans and court records were sealed in these deaths.

The American Congress was fortunate because an American who had invested in a dealership discovered one of the vans covered with a tarp and asked what it was.  It was explained to him they were trucking it to New York at night and flying it back to Japan. 

The investor looked in the van and saw children's clothes and toys in it.  He took a video of what he saw and immediately came to Washington to report the burning minivans were a threat to children and to the public.  He went from office to office asking for help.  In the process he also discovered that Nissan had violated the laws on a huge auto industry in the U.S. by deliberately retitling cars after they had been driven considerable distance and also rolled back the odometers.  After changing the documents the company then committed a securities fraud by putting these cars back into commerce "as brand new" in sixteen states.   The company also made the mistake of titling a car back to the financial arm, thus violating the law of separation of powers between the finance arm and the company.

In addition the Japanese government weighed in on all of this by developing a "weakened yen" policy so they could hollow out jobs in the U.S. and help subsidize the Japanese industry to the tune of $4,000 to $14,000 per vehicle.  Regardless of the testimony on Capitol Hill, the American auto industry could not get it shut down because the Japanese companies bragged about controlling so many seats in Congress.

Americans have been judged in correctly.  They are a well mannered people and will be polite but they have had enough.  We like our cars.  The distances in this country are great so we must have something reliable but we will not tolerate being put at risk with poor cars which are not safe.  Nor will we tolerate taking American taxpayers money to foist poor products on us.  Nissan made the mistake with the minivans and others have had serious problems like rollovers, fires, cracked frame, poor brakes, etc. etc.  The man who called our attention to the minivans and the mis-titling of cars did the country a huge favor.  Remember, this is our history.  Americans change the world with the power of one!!  That is what is happening now.

Mike Biras     

Feb. 19, 2010

mbiras64862@mypacks.net