You can't compare UAW wages to non-union wages. They're actually quite similar. It's just that Honda and other non-union plants pay similar wages so there's no reason to unionize. They also tend to be in states where the local population isn't so quick to unionize cuz that's just not what they do or are used to.
That said, the avg person looking at autoworker salaries is just in awe. $30/hr for many jobs that wouldn't get anywhere near that in another industry. In that sense, the "greedy" label fits. It's just that it applies to the non-union workers too.
The main cost disparity is from legacy benefits. Primarily from retired workers. Greedy can apply there I guess, but that's all in the eye of the beholder. They asked. GM and the others were dumb/weak enough to agree. Benefits were crazy. I wouldn't hold that against the UAW too much. Yeah, it sucks they have to give up stuff now or might lose it soon, but it's stuff the majority of workers in the US couldn't dream of getting. So, little sympathy there.
And yes, it's pretty established that domestics produced utter crap for decades. Isolated good product, but overall, it wasn't good. ANd you can get a lemon from anyone. But, until VERY recently, the quality difference was noticeable. It's gotten better and better so it hasn't been a big difference from many years, but still noticeable. What's disturbing, and what many Americans don't want to admit, is the reason why the gap has closed. GM/Ford/Chrysler started pulling execs from the foreign companies and started taking cues on how they ran their plants. So, they got better there. The foreigners started using more and more domestic suppliers. So, they started having worse quality. The new Toyota Corolla, previously an unbreakable car, has weird electrical problems. Doesn't start randomly, etc. What did the mechanics find? The electrical part was sourced from Delphi.
The key thing to look at is cars vs trucks/suvs. The foreigners produced good cars. The domestics produced crap cars. The domestics had good trucks (and later suvs; but this is all a relatively new phenomenon). The foreigners didn't have trucks other than the odd compact pickup, and only later developed trucks/suvs. In the full size arena, they're still learning how to play it. Below that size level, they just used car based chassis to make what are now known as crossover vehicles. Those were always good and the non full sized domestics weren't (cuz their cars sucked or they used trucks for vehicles that are basically car based wagons). See the Rav-4/CR-V vs the Trailblazer/H3. Things are more even now, but we'll see if it's too late to save things. Perception can't be changed overnight.
Resale value is based on demand. In Texas, that's domestic country - full sized truck territory at that. Just like Michigan and pretty much most of the midwest/south. On the coasts, people don't blindly buy American. It's more diverse. And full sized trucks/suvs aren't quite so popular. There, demand for domestics is much lower and you will see the huge resale price difference btw domestics and foreign cars. The one state that throws everything off is California. It has soooo many people and soooo many cars, whatever it does is basically how it will be "generally". And CA is on the coast and doesn't blindly buy domestics, and it's preferences affect the total US car market.