Originally Posted by Nic

If I cared about safety, I'd buy a Volvo...

Ford's never had a great reputation for building high-quality cars, nor did I imply they did, but let's do a quick comparison here for the 2004 model year since I've got a little time to kill.

As you may very well know, JD Power & Associates works with every major auto manufacturer (37 manufacturers to be exact) in the world by sending surveys to buyers of new vehicles. You'll recieve 2 surveys, one when you first buy the car and another after you've owned the car for a year. Let's take a look at what JDPA's quality studies have shown for the 2004 model year:

Initial Quality Surveys report an industry average of 119 problems per 100 vehicles through the first year of ownership. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi is well below the industry average with a reported 130 problems per 100 vehicles. That's almost 10% worse than average and 25th overall! Of the 18 classes of automobiles, a Mitsubishi vehicle only finished in the top three in 1 class, the premium midsize class where the Galant tied for 3rd place. That's 1 out of a possible 9 Mitsubishi vehicles made! On the other hand, Ford had 7 top 3 finishers in its model lineup with 3 Lincoln/Mercury models also finishing in the top 3 in their respective class. To even further put things in perspective, Hyundai owners only reported 102 problems per 100 vehicles and had 33% of it's model lineup finish in the top 3 of their classes. Mitsubishi can't even outperform HYUNDAI in quality!!

In other words:

Mitsubishi