First Chinese Car for sale in North America
 

Honda wins the award of bringing in the first Chinese build car for sale in North America:
http://www.thecarconnection.com/news...-north-america

Want a Chinese car? Go to Canada and buy a Honda Fit
 

I'm still getting caught up and just read this thread for the first time.

I think it's amazing that the first Chinese car for sale in North America is a Honda Fit - but it's only available in Canada.

I think it's also interesting that Honda dealers in Canada will likely have Fits in their inventory that are made in two different countries. (The existing Fits were all made in Japan and the new inventory is made in China.)

For some reason the U.S. Honda dealers won't be getting the Chinese made Fit - there's will still be imported from Japan.

China VIN indicator = L
 

I thought of this thread over the weekend. I was following a live Proxibid Auction on my laptop and noticed the auction company was selling off some late model motorcycles and quads from an OEM I'd never heard of before.

When I checked the VIN numbers they all started with the letter L - that's the designator for vehicles built in China.

I can't figure out why someone would buy an off-brand motorcycle or quad from China - it seems like both parts and resell value would be major issues. That said, I guess anything will sell if the price is cheap enough.

Price is king until service is un available. These "off brands" are a major service headache for dealers. I can vouch for that. We will not do ANY work on them, the shoddy product is unbelievable. The only thing to be mindful of is the fact that Hyundai and KIA were both in that same category at the beginning and I think Honda and Toyota weren't much different, so things could change in the next decade.

I was wondering about that - I imagine most major brand power-sports dealers wouldn't want to mess with the Chinese made quads and motorcycles.

One of the first Chinese vehicles I saw sell through the Copart auction was an off-brand knock off of BRP's Can-Am Spyder. From a distance I thought it was genuine but when I looked at it up close it was clearly smaller and appeared to be of questionable quality. Lord only knows how you'd go about getting one titled?

I totally agree. In fact, I'd almost guarantee it.

If Honda is building cars for North America in China it won't be long before all the other OEMs want to tap into China's cheap pool of labor. The added investments, training, technology and process improvement will ultimately lead to higher quality for all Chinese goods.