Don't forget, some domestically-produced goods are awful, too. I won't buy a car with an American-made transmission and while I don't want to generalize, every American car we've had in the past 20 years had major transmission issues; the same can be said for many of my friends. (Of course, a tranny is only as good as how you maintain it sometimes; I like to flush mine every 30K or so and actually will be doing that next week since I recently hit that mileage milestone. Still, my old Legend went about a decade between tranny flushes and never had a tranny problem).

Outside of transmissions, my mom had a very unreliable Eureka sweeper built in the USA. It was in the shop at least a few times a year. Why she held on to it for 13 years is the pressing question.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of preference. If you play piano, you've probably noticed a "tinnier" sound from some Japanese models (Yamahas in particular). It's not a question of reliability there, but more or less of style and sound. I actually have a Yamaha synth and a Baldwin upright (best of both worlds). I'm sure I could find other examples to use here, too, but this one comes to mind since I remember hearing a dramatic difference in sound when I played a Yamaha piano for the first time.