Originally Posted by Rspaight

I've got to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the interior quality of my three-week-old KY-built. It's far from the worst I've experienced (that would be a '95 Ford Contour that started shedding trim bits the day I bought it), but not up to the standards of the last few Hondas I've had (including an Ohio-built Accord that needed a new tranny right off the bat but was otherwise a jewel). A couple examples:

- There's an uneven gap between the panels on the driver's door -- just above the inside handle the panel bulges out slightly, leaving a sliver of empty space. The passenger side is fine.
- Another uneven gap between the dash top and the panel above the glove box. It's tight on the side by the door, but there's a bit more than 1/16" of empty space on the side by the center stack.
- The first time I pressed the button to open the fuel door, that whole dash panel (left side under the steering wheel) flexed and nearly fell off. I thwacked it back into place and it seems good and tight now -- I think one or two of the clips weren't fastened.
- Seems to be little rattly, though not nearly as bad as that Ford (or my wife's Japan-built Mazda Protege5, for that matter, which has been plagued with a nasty center stack rattle that's come and gone since day one). My British-built '05 Civic Si was absolutely rattle-less its whole time with me, and the interior was assembled flawlessly.
- Plus, there seems to be a lot of hard cheap plastic for a $30K vehicle. I'm not expecting Lexus-level materials, but that $18K '05 Civic didn't seem this cost-cut. I think the fact that it's all light grey doesn't help -- I had an Infiniti G35 with a very plasticky interior but it was all black and it didn't seem as cheap-looking. Black plastic also hides bad gaps well. I'd probably have never noticed those first two items if the black gap hadn't been so obvious.

These are *very* minor nit-picks, but one of Toyota's big selling points is their fit and finish and so I guess I expected more. I still love the car overall and I was very pleased to get ~42 MPG on an out-of-town trip today with plenty of passing power on the two-lane roads (the 50-to-80 acceleration in this 3700-pound car is almost startling with just a 140-hp four under the hood).

I would be curious to compare a Japan-built car and see if they're any different. Obviously, the cheap-ish materials would be the same, but I'm wondering if the fit tolerances are down to the quality of the parts or the quality of the assembly. The car I test-drove was Japan-built, but I naturally I didn't examine it as closely as I have this one.

Regardless, though, I live near the Georgetown plant and I'm very happy to support a local workforce. It'll take more than a couple of tiny panel gaps to make me regret that aspect of my purchase.