Yeah the QA on the Camry must be amazing if you read that article!My parents got one back in the late 90s to replace their Accord, you could weld the engine lid shut on those cars.
I wish GM would do what the guys at Top Gear did to that poor Toyota truck, try to get it to break down, they even drove it out to sea, let the tide come in and flood it for a few hours, they towed it out, sprayed some carb cleaner in the air intake, AND IT STILL RAN, amazingly reliable cars they make, but still nothing sexy to compete with the Sky.
When you consider the top 7 places in JD Power Quality this year go to US cars -- I'd say the strides have been great. That coupled with a complete collapse of Toyota in the quality dept (they had more recalls last year than cars) shows the turnaround.Two years ago my job required me to spend some time in the Camry plant in Kentucky to study their production methods. It is an amazing place. It is really too bad that more plants cannot do a better job of emulating their style. The workers there take tremendous pride in the fact that they produce a high quality product. When I asked one of the line workers why he had gone the extra mile on a difficult task he gave me an incredulous look and said "its a Camry!". That seemed to sum up the entire workforce. I have benchmarked world class manufacuring plants around the globe (its a tough job but someone has to do it) and the Kentucky Camry plant always ranks high. The Sky (if I ever get it) will be my first American badged vehicle since 1985...I can only hope GM has made huge strides in quality. If not, I will once again go foreign where I have been getting quality cars for the past 20+ years.