Phil Edmonston is the author of Lemon-Aid Car Guides and is the founder and past president for almost 20 years of the non-profit Automobile Protection Association (1968-1987).

Edmonston, 57, now resides in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he is a saltwater tournament fisherman, and relaxes by playing tennis, scuba diving and listening to country music.

Vaughan: It's not the Big Three any more; it's the Big Seven or Eight. You've been one of the harshest critics of the American auto makers but wouldn't you agree they've cleaned up their act considerably in the face of Asian and European competition?

Edmonston: No. Detroit's Big Three auto makers are a "dead man walking," run by executives with old ideas hoping to get a fat pension after they are taken over by manufacturers of safer, better-quality vehicles.

Ford's former president Jacques Nasser was posing as a consumer advocate when the Explorer/Firestone mess hit the fan. Both companies screwed owners during Nasser's watch in Venezuela by using secret warranties denounced by Lemon-Aid to deal with catastrophic tire failures and vehicle rollovers.

Clean up their act? Nah! Now that the dust has settled, Ford and Firestone/Bridgestone have paid off plaintiffs and are seeking to sell tires together again.

GM has lost almost half its market share in the past three decades. It's cleaning up its act by hyping a former Chrysler exec, 72-year-old Bob Lutz, as its top executive for generating change and making the company profitable. Lutz is Detroit's flavour of the month.

He is the same "bright light" that brought out the Chrysler K-car lemons, sold Chrysler to the Germans, and then set up and oversaw Cunningham Motors as it went bankrupt. Lutz got GM to invest in the manufacturer of a $250,000 V-12-equipped sports coupe prototype that never saw the light of day. GM lost its investment and continues to lose money under Lutz.

Chrysler? Both DaimlerChrysler and Mercedes are in organizational chaos and are reeling from poor sales, sub-par quality, and a recent bushwhacking from Mitsubishi's jailed executives charged with hiding safety defects.

What has Chrysler learned? German. What has Daimler-Benz learned? Nothing.

Vaughan: Maybe you still don't like them but how can you resist them with the incentives. GM and Ford will give you $4,000 or $5,000 if you buy one of their cars. Doesn't that show they're going to do whatever it takes to capture back market share?

Edmonston: Canadian buyers, described by Toronto-based auto consultant Dennis DesRosiers as the most loyal in North America, are resisting these dubious bargains because they heed Lemon-Aid warnings and don't want overpriced, unreliable vehicles, or service managers trained by the Marquis de Sade.

Here's what makes my readers weary and leery: For almost a decade, GM, Ford and Chrysler have used plastic engine intake manifolds that crack. Are these simply errors from the past? Not on your life. This morning, a GM whistle-blower sent me GM's latest secret warranty (Special Policy #04017 published June 3, 2004) to cover melted rear taillight circuit boards on almost one million 2002-04 SUVs. Melting taillights??

The choice of better-quality vehicles from Asian auto makers may be coming to an end. I have written in this year's Lemon-Aid that certain Honda, Toyota and Nissan vehicles have had a resurgence of engine and transmission problems. Apparently, as market share was captured, these auto makers pulled back on quality, committing the same mistake as Detroit did years ago. For example, Nissan engineers are falling over themselves trying to correct Altima and Quest glitches.

There is a marked difference with Asian complaint handling, however, where "secret warranties" are shunned and coverage is often publicly extended to everybody up to eight years.

Vaughan: Gas prices are sky high and there's a big demand for hybrid gas/electric cars these days. You seem to get the bad news first. What are you hearing about hybrids?

Edmonston: Hybrids are over-hyped.

Automotive News reports that few people get the fuel economy claimed and that rescue workers have been warned that a 500-volt fatal shock could await unwary rescuers cutting through a wrecked hybrid. Don't look for GM, Ford or Chrysler hybrid vehicles to be available in any large quantity in the near future. These companies don't really believe in hybrids and have given a discreet word to production to go slow.

Remember, for the price of a Toyota Prius (recommended by Lemon-Aid) or a Honda Insight/Hybrid you can buy two used Toyota Echos or Honda Civics that are almost as fuel frugal and can be repaired and serviced anywhere.

Vaughan: Manufacturers call it "no-haggle pricing." You, you old cynic, call it price-fixing. I don't want to give you too much credit, but I see others have agreed with you recently.

Edmonston: Yep, Canada, South Africa and Saturn buyers agree with me. It is quasi-legal price-fixing and it turns off buyers. Saturn tried to fix prices through a "no-haggle" policy a decade ago and then dropped it when sales plummeted. Toyota recently paid several million dollars in a settlement following a price-fixing probe by Ottawa based on my complaint of its Access program. A similar settlement for 12-million Rand is in the offing in South Africa.

Vaughan: What do you drive personally and, without filling the rest of the newspaper, what would you never drive?

Edmonston: I own a 1995 GMC Vandura full-sized, fully converted van that I bought used four years ago for $9,000 (U.S.). I also have a 2001 Hyundai Elantra.

I would never drive your car, Michael. BMWs are long on cachet but short on common sense. Its iDrive gauges and instrumentation can supposedly perform 700 functions -- if you are an MIT grad. British car columnist Robert Farago calls BMW's device the "I Die" because its basically unsafe as you drive and calibrate 700 functions.

Michael Vaughan is the co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Toronto One.

Michael Vaughan Live is on at 8 p.m. Monday to Friday on Report on Business Television.