Well, turning a blind eye to quality control is certainly what turned into a loss of market share by the '80s when Japanese manufacturers started gaining a reputation for good quality and fuel economy and the general consensus was that the Big 3 were producing junk. My Dad, as a WW II combat veteran (Normandy, Purple Heart) never bought anything but American until the day he died in 2008. I remember in 1983 he bought a new Chevrolet Caprice Classic. It was beautiful, dark grey with a matching vinyl roof and a burgundy interior with burgundy pin stripes, and it was loaded. After signing the papers, before we pulled out of the lot, the directional signal stalk fell out of the steering column! They pulled it back in, the first night he drove it, the light switch fell apart (it had 20 miles on it. By the end of the first week the water pump stared to leak. Squeaks, rattles. After a little less than 3 years he traded it in for a new '86 Lincoln. He was beyond pissed and blamed GM for the everything wrong with the auto industry because they wielded so much power. He never purchased another GM product. When I bought my Corvette, he told me I was nuts.
