Afraid… (foreign car tariffs)

[98_Q45]

Just wondering if this hasn’t been brought up already. But having 2 older Nissans with new/reman parts mostly made in Mexico and China…could this make it even harder to find reliable parts and service?

I know Nissan and Infiniti has already put up manufacturing locations in Tennessee and probably some other areas. But those are new Infinitis with warranty. An out of warranty vehicle isn’t really going to benefit from American made factory parts, that cost a lot more, especially when said vehicle may have more than one part going bad at a time.

I feel like this is the dumbest move since cash for clunkers, which has been analyzed to be a failure. I wish these f*** politicians would stay out of the auto business, let the actual customers and businesses go about how they want to do things. f*** sake lol. This is why we have these damn ticking time bombs aka airbags on our steering wheels, f*** politics run everything I’m over it lol.

[VStar650CL]

I'd agree with you if it wasn't a sorry fact that we've all but killed our own manufacturing base. It isn't just cheap crap that's responsible, it's overpriced crap too. When we let the EU send cars here at 2.5% and rake in the profits, but let them charge Ford 25% to sell an F150 in Berlin, that's a self-induced s#it show. It's no coincidence that we can't even produce home grown artillery shells in quantity anymore, no less auto parts. That's a big f#cking hole and I'm glad somebody's finally decided to stop digging.

[98_Q45]

Good way of explaining it. that is wild but…curious who pays the difference for the 25% tariffs on US cars sold in other countries?

At the end of the day though, I do wonder if it’s just typical politic nonsense talk that may have minimal effect on me personally. I haven’t brought a new car ever as it is lol. Even if foreign parts go up a bit, I’ve not been as loyal to chain store auto parts anyway because it’s always reman stuff or overpriced new parts. I already save a lot going thru online vendors, plus some stuff I simply can’t get at the store.

Not saying I’m not worried though, however I wonder if this may instead push for Nissan and other makers to start focusing more on older vehicle parts. A silver lining perhaps lol. Might be fantasy but I just feel it sucks I can’t get hardly any of my parts for the Q45. My key fob is weak, can’t find one. Shocks are after market only also.

But lately the issue seems to be the cost to put these parts on. Which is a lot considering I’m not trying to spend on a new car in equivalent to maintaining it.

[VStar650CL]

Parts "expiring" in the marketplace is a different matter, but I don't think I'd count on Nissan (or any other OEM) to do anything about it. We routinely need to locate used parts to keep customers' older vehicles on the road, and when those run out, it's often curtains for the vehicle if what failed is a critical piece of electronics with no work-around. That's just life in the "modern" car world, it ain't like making friends with a machinist to keep a '58 Chevy on the road.

As far as the EU (and some other places), they don't just tariff our stuff at the port, they also pull a lot of sneaky "back door" tariffing through VAT taxes and other devices which deliberately drive up the cost of imports they don't like. I see it every day when I sell my widgets into the EU, the duties and VAT can more than double the cost of my merchandise to EU customers. I'm fortunate that a good bit of what I sell is unique and if they want it, they need to pay the piper. Ford and GM aren't in that boat, and sad though it is, Trump is right. It's time for an economic big stick. Not just to open up markets, but more importantly, to start restoring our industrial base. I want you to picture a world where everybody invades everybody else and we can't produce enough ammunition to have a working ugly stick. That's always been what the USA represented, the guy in the white hat with the working ugly stick. It's been that way since Teddy Roosevelt. The very threat of us inherently kept the peace. These days -- we can't mine, drill, process, and make what we need anymore. So is it any wonder that lately, the stick has lacked the authority to suppress the ambitions of tyrants? That needs to be fixed, and it's not a matter of artillery shells, but the industry needed to make them here.

[Q70sGuy]

I don’t want to get into the politics of this but are you implying the US doesn’t have vehicle manufacturing capability right now? I’m not American but that doesn’t seem true to me. Maybe final assembly isn’t in the US but you guys have a s*** of parts made in the US either by the OEM or the aftermarket.


Also, if European countries imposed 25% tariffs to American pickup trucks, did American brands start building their trucks in Europe to avoid the tariffs? I don’t think that’s the case but I haven’t researched it. Rather I think « Europeans » don’t drive American pickup trucks any more than they drive Japanese ones because it’s impractical with the insanely high cost of fuel there (5x more than American prices for fuel I believe) (keep in mind Europe is actually a bunch of completely independent countries with completely different cultures)

[VStar650CL]

I don’t want to get into the politics of this but are you implying the US doesn’t have vehicle manufacturing capability right now? I’m not American but that doesn’t seem true to me. Maybe final assembly isn’t in the US but you guys have a s*** of parts made in the US either by the OEM or the aftermarket.

Also, if European countries imposed 25% tariffs to American pickup trucks, did American brands start building their trucks in Europe to avoid the tariffs? I don’t think that’s the case but I haven’t researched it. Rather I think « Europeans » don’t drive American pickup trucks any more than they drive Japanese ones because it’s impractical with the insanely high cost of fuel there (5x more than American prices for fuel I believe) (keep in mind Europe is actually a bunch of completely independent countries with completely different cultures)

We have plenty of vehicle assembly capacity, but that's a vastly different proposition from the ability to construct a whole car. That's true in virtually every industry from metallurgy to pharmaceuticals, our industrial base either lacks the ingredients, the raw process capability, or some other fundamental requirement. For us here in the USA, all I can say is, wait till war breaks out over Taiwan and your kid dies from some stupid, curable bug because there's no native ability to produce ampicillin. We don't need to be self-sufficient in everything, but we can and should be self-sufficient in all the basics.