Did anyone else besides kirkyg catch what he just said here!?! This is simply an unfactual opinionated statement with no basis in reality.
First of all the new Kappa platform is just that "NEW", one of the most interesting things about this new platform was how fast GM was able to cobble it together from scratch. It is a front engine/RWD platform not a simple derivative of a FWD platform such as the one that underpins the Saturn Ion and other GM FWD compacts, the Epsilon I believe. And I'm no Saturn or Fiero expert, but wasn't the Fiero a mid-engine/RWD or AWD platform and I know the original Saturns were front engine/FWD so I doubt they were designed off of the Fiero, at best they may have shared a few components from the GM parts bin. So basically what I'm trying to say is about the only common heritage the new Kappa platform and these other cars share is that they are all GM cars. You might as well say the Chevy Express Van and Camaro were derived from the Fiero as well!
Now for your rantings about the recent resignations of execs from Ford and Chrysler, such as Jacque Nasser (the french guy as you put it). If I rember right from articles I read on the matter from such rags as Autoweek, Road & Track, etc., stated that the main reasons for Mr. Nasser's resignation were because of internal corporate politics orchistrated by among others Bill Ford and other members of the Ford family on the board of directors or in positons of power over at Ford. Now im not a Nasser fan or enemy, I'm sure he made some mistakes but he was not canned over some conspiracy of Ford building vehicles to purposly breakdown at a certain mileage or for simply bad quality issues. And as for Bob Lutz and others of the old chrysler regime just prior to the "merger" ( more like a takeover but not a bad thing for Chrysler) by Daimler-Benz, I believe most of them resigned after overseeing the merger as part of the deal, and not because of your buildem to break conspiracy, there was no need to have two totally seperate groups of execs for the same company in the eyes of parent Daimler-Chrysler. And as for Daimler being the first to instigate major quality refoms at Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep this is another fallacy, yes Daimler-Benz is adament about increasing the quality of the Chrysler brands we are just now beggining to see the fruits of the Daimler-Chrysler merger and the old Chrysler regime including Bob Lutz had a major role in improving the overall quality of the brands well before the merger.
Third, where on earth did you get your figures!?!
Here's a dose of business sense for you, if you built a car to purposly fail at 36,000 miles or any other interval, you would go bankrupt from just the costs of fixing the problems you created for these new cars under warranties and such. Not to mention that many people could put 36,000 miles on a car in the first year they have it and if something like that were true im sure they would never step foot back in your company's showrooms. Your company would be out of business very quickly.
Finally, as many have already told you excluding lemons and cars such as the topaz that rust away in the wind, a car is only as good as its owner treats it. I'm sure if you were to purchase a brand new Lexus, Mercedes, or Honda and drive it into the ground and never properly maintain it it would become a POS pretty quickly regardless of build quality. It sounds to me like your dad likes to buy cars better suited for the crusher or parts. You yourself stated that these cars had questionable pasts, had been beaten into the ground by their previous owners and poorly maintained. So why on earth would or your father believe these cars were good representatives or the norm of a brand's build quality!?!
So you get what you pay for!