Musings of a GM guy

"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
06/18/2014 at 11:46 • Filed to: GM clusterfuck

I won't call myself a GM fanboy. I certainly would have qualified as such when I was a kid, but I've grown up a lot. My tastes have matured, and my juvenile insistence that I must be right, has long since faded away. Still, there's no getting around the fact that 9 of the 10 vehicles I've owned were made by the general. I have owned at least one of each of the core GM brands (I consider Saturn, Hummer, and Saab to have been temporary interlopers, although perhaps Saab was more of a hostage … ), five of which were cars, and four were trucks. Although in terms of number of years owned, and miles driven, a lot more of that time has been behind the wheel of the trucks.

My history of GM vehicles goes like this:

-'89 Oldsmobile Toronado Troffeo (purchased from my parents in '97, who bought it new)

- '98 S-10

- 2000 Silverado K1500 Z-71

- 2004 GTO

- '89 S-10 (concurrent with the GTO, for hauling duties)

- 2006 GMC Sierra

- '74 Buick Apollo (aka Chevy Nova in a cheap tuxedo)

- 2000 Cadillac Deville (Grandma's old car, no picture, but who cares)

- 2011 Malibu (again, no picture)

The reason I can still call myself a GM guy, is I've had a pretty good run of vehicles with them. Yes, I've had a couple of duds (The '89 Olds and the '04 GTO were both disasters from the word go), but most of them have been really good vehicles. What I find amazing, is that my extended family included, we have a very heavy majority of GM vehicles, and with all these tens of millions of recalls, only one has hit us. The brake light wiring harness recall applies to my Malibu. All the other vehicles in my family are recall free.

However, with everything that's going on, with this absolute barrage of recalls (what are we up to, a kajillion vehicles now?) in the wake of the ignition clusterfuck, I must stop and consider my continued allegiance to GM products. The countless recalls, I think I can forgive, as the current products are, IMO, very good and competitive products. The reports and investigations reveal much more insidious things, though. At best the company conducted itself with gross incompetence. At worst they show criminal neglect. I'm starting to feel like the answer may be both.

I have no interest in discussing plastic dashboards, and interior panel-gaps. I am completely fine with the giant grey plastic dashboard in my '06 Sierra. The interior of my '11 Malibu LTZ is every bit as nice, and well put together as my co workers '11 Acura MDX.

No, lets discuss recalls, safety, reliability, and responsibility. I understand many of you feel GM should have never been bailed out. That is a valid opinion, but we've discussed that time and again, so let's move on.

Let's talk about the future. The culture of the company is taking a lot of the blame, and perhaps that's fair. But can you really change the culture of the company, with almost entirely old employees? I'm not convinced of that. Can you ever trust GM again? I'm honestly not sure if I can, and that's a painful thing for me to say.

DISCUSSION (12)

crowmolly > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 11:57

Incompetence and bad judgments for sure.

I consider myself a GM guy as well. Hell, I know a lot of 60's and 70's RPO codes from memory and can spot a fake first gen Camaro trim tag on sight in most cases.

But I did not go with GM on my last two vehicles. I think there is way too much turbulence over there. Not saying I would never own one again but my trust in their ability to make good decisions is shaken.

Keith Moon > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 12:13

I'll tell you this, Holden know how to make a good car. They might be an offshoot of GM, but Holden muscle cars are pretty awesome. The Monaro, which is sold in the US as the GTO is one hell of a car. I simply love it, and the only reason I drive a GT86 right now is because I couldn't find a good enough used GTO for the right price.

mazda616 > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 12:16

I was a tried and true GM boy for a long time. But my wife's 2006 Chevy Malibu LT had constant problems. The interior was literally falling apart and at six-years-old and 86,000 well cared for (by me) miles, the transmission was slipping, the power steering cut out whenever it felt like it, and the head gasket was going. It also thought the driver's door was open when it wasn't, so the alarm went off randomly. And then there was the sometimes no start issue, which I was never able to figure out. We went through three radios, too. The car was a tried and true lemon. I was so glad to get rid of it.

I have owned a Mazda3 for five years and have only had one issue. My wife took that to heart and she now drives a Mazda CX-5, which we have also had no issues with. Is Mazda a trouble free automaker? No. One word: rust. Thankfully, I don't have that issue with my 3. But I know it's possible.

No carmaker is perfect, but I went with something different when I bought the 3 (my first two cars were GMs), and I'm glad I did.

I can respect anyone for what brand of cars they like. Even GMs. Their current products are very admirable. But this recall mess shows what I already knew when we owned the Malibu: GM went far too long trying to cut corners and save costs and count on the tireless GM loyalists to keep buying their products no matter if they sucked or not. And now it is biting them in the ass. Hard.

I won't say I'll never own a GM product again, but I'd have to do some SERIOUS thinking before doing so. My trust in them is shaken, and I don't know if they'll earn it back, especially since the whole recall issue hit kind of close to home for us. We got a letter about the Malibu's power steering when we had it, saying that if it did go out entirely and we had the whole unit replaced, GM MIGHT reimburse us the cost. Now, the entire line of Malibus/G6s/Auras with that electric steering have been recalled, conveniently enough AFTER the whole Cobalt ignition issue came to light. Even though the Malibu power steering has been an issue for a LONG time.

In contrast, a power steering issue was identified with the Mazda3 and Mazda5, and Mazda promptly recalled all of the affected models and replaced their entire steering units. I had my car's pump and all lines replaced for free as soon as the recall was announced, despite the fact that my car in particular never had an issue. I know Mazda is a smaller automaker by far, but that just goes to show GM cost cutting measures being placed on top. They could more than afford to recall these cars in a timely manner. They just didn't want to.

shop-teacher > mazda616
06/18/2014 at 12:42

Excellent points all around. My wife has an '06 Mazda 3, and it has literally only had one part failure in all that time, some sort of valve that was replaced under warranty when the car was a month old. Nothing but tires and brakes since then. Granted, the car only has 50k miles on it, so that helps, but I've been very impressed with the car.

shop-teacher > crowmolly
06/18/2014 at 12:42

I feel very similarly.

shop-teacher > Keith Moon
06/18/2014 at 12:44

Boy, my experience says otherwise about Holden. My '04 GTO spent 31 total days in the shop in the only 3-1/2 months I owned it. Probably just a lemon, but it sure made me think twice about buying a G8 (which I didn't). I love love love the new Chevy SS, but I'm scared of it as well.

mazda616 > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 13:00

Mine is an '08 3, and my only issue was the passenger side hydraulic motor mount. It is a liquid filled unit and is prone to bursting. Even with all of its fluid gone, I didn't notice any driveability difference in the car. Anyway, my friend and I replaced the mount in fifteen minutes. Other than that, it's just been oil changes, tires and brakes for me. I did have the coolant flushed the other day, but that wasn't required. I just did it for preventative maintenance. I've had the car since August 2009 and I have put around 52,000 miles on it. It has just under 66,000 right now.

Keith Moon > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 13:06

I haven't heard of reliability issues with the Monaro, since none of my Australian friends mentioned reliability to be an issue with Holden muscle cars. What went wrong with your car? I don't think I know many GTO owners in the US, and sadly I couldn't find a single manual G8, so the car just dropped off my radar.

shop-teacher > Keith Moon
06/18/2014 at 13:39

Several things went wrong. The highlights were: the inside of the front tires rubbing the struts (common problem on American spec GTO's, which have wider tires than the Aussies got), a freeze plug in the right side head was leaking coolant, and the final straw was the ECU died, and the car left me stranded.

Waiting for parts from Australia was a big issue to. At least 1/3 of the days in the shop, were waiting for parts.

I still loved the car, and miss it, but she was not good to me.

Keith Moon > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 15:37

Ah, that's a lot of issues alright.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > shop-teacher
06/18/2014 at 16:30

My family has owned nothing but GM in the last 24 years (6 cars) and both my parents say they'd buy again even after this crisis.

They see it like this: Yes, the company hid it for a long time, but now they're doing the best to try and fix what, and I hate calling it this, but old GM fucked up.

All of our current cars were assembled before bankruptcy. None of them have ever given us issues. I mean never . The worst that has happened is we've ran out of gas because the gauge in the 20 year old van is off a little bit.

In all honesty, the cars we own have probably given me a very positive outlook on GM as a whole. Even if some of their business strategies have been of poor taste, the products they've put out, to my family at least, have been more than great overall.

With all the being said, yes, I do trust GM. And my family and I will continue to buy GM products as long as they're around.

Cars my parent's have owned:

1990 Chevy Silverado 454 SS

1994 Saturn SC2

1994 GMC Safari (still own)

1999 Chevy Tahoe LT

2004 Chevy Silverado (still own)

2008 Saturn Vue XR (still own)

shop-teacher > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
06/18/2014 at 20:23

I had a feeling you'd be weighing in on this one :)

I'm glad the vehicles have been good to you and your family.