Originally Posted by
onehundred80
How have you worked on your cars? North American cars have used a mixture of inch and metric threads for a long time, on the same car you can find metric and inch threaded screws and bolts. My toolbox has had tools for both systems in it for years, so metric is not new to North America.
The use of metric bolts is more and more prevalent, globalization is the reason for this trend.
Likewise, my toolbox is fully outfitted with both SAE & Metric tools. I've owned cars manufactured outside CONUS and if you wanted to perform any DIY work, you had to have Metric tools. But back 10+ years ago, when the Crossfire showed up in Chrysler service departments for work, most services mechanics didn't have the tools required to work on them. That's all I'm stating. In fact, when one thinks about it, the Crossfire may have been the only vehicle in the Chrysler lineup that was predominately metric or even had metric hardware. I now first-hand that the Chrysler dealership on my end of town back then had a specific toolbox fully loaded with metric tools so they could work on the Crossfire. Came up during a discussion with the Service Manager back then when I was pursuing something about the Crossfire.
And I agree with you that metric hardware is definitely more prevalent on current models, especially since the automotive market is more global today than say 10-15 years ago.