Since I got no reply from this last post I thought I'd follow you here Tex.
I was reading an article in automotive engineering that was an interview with GM CEO Rick Wagoner who said, that GM shot itself in the rear end by designing its components to last the life of the warranty while Toyota was designing components to last the expected life of the vehicle. The result being that after the warranties ran out many GM customers had problems with their vehicles. The assumption that GM had made was that GM customers were loyal and when this planned obsolesence occured the customer would return and buy a new GM vehicle. Instead customers got pissed off because their car wore out too quickly and went and bought cars (not necessarily Toyotas) that had reputations for reliablility. He says that GM has targeted this problem, but that the damage done will take GM 15 or more years to overcome.
Recalls and reliability are two different things and when you look at the top of the list of cars with fewest problems per 100 vehciles produced GM's models do not top the list. They occasionally get one in there, but they have not been there consistently like Toyota has. This is how Toyota has managed to gain the image of reliability over all of its models. According to the article below none of GM's brands even made the top 10 in vehicle reliabilty while all 3 of Toyotas (Lexus, Toyota, Scion) made the list and with the exception of Mercury the rest were asian brands as well. However you can relax because the europeans make even worse vehicles than we Americans.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/01/Autos/carreviews/cr_reliability/index.htm?section=money_mostpopular
Another truth is that more recalls are in the future for all automakers because of the fickle consumer. Car Companies are forced to rush designs to market before the consumer changes his taste thereby engineering mistakes will be more frequent. It is only logical.