I am done buying GM products!!

[Jason1212]

I have had three Fords, two Chryslers, and one VW. The VW was great till someone rear ended me and totalled it. The F150 I has (with the straight 6) was great and I wished I had never traded it in. The two Ford compacts and the two Chryslers on the other hand have been less than satisfactory. I feel your pain with having worked in automotive (10 years) and then dealing with shops like this. They usually shit themselves when you call them on the charges which is funny and sad at the same time. My next car will be a Toyota for sure.

[yard dawg]

That sux. Youre dealer is a thief. Id report them to the news.

ANother thing. GMs leadership blames the union for there problems. There is not a union member in the CS department. Crap like this is why the foregin car companies are doing better. GM is a bloated useless company that doesnt care about its customers.

[shreddermon]

It was listed as a demo with only 32 miles on it. Me knowing how this program works asked the salesman how long ago it was activated. He told me just 2 weeks ago. With only 32 miles on it, it seems logical...

....Come to find out the car was activated November of 2004 and the warranty was expired.

Right there is your problem. Go back to the dealer and howl about fraud. They lied to you. You bought thinking you were getting a near-full warranty, and it wasn't even close.

[markD]

i have driven cadillacs for the last 12 years. the dealers and service people have been awesome, the repairs minimal and not nearly as expensive as one would figure, and the cars themselves have been beyond reliable. i put 45000 miles on my STS in one year and only had it in the shop for oil changes. i had it 2 years and put 78,700 miles on it before i decided to part with it. i would have bought another cadillac except i HATE the styling now. i bought a volvo instead....and i still haven't bonded with it....

not all GM products suck.

too bad about your particular dealer and situation. i had a firebird when i first started driving, an 88 GTA, and the dealer jerked me around like that. it does suck for sure....

[CharvelRocker]

I've suffered through ownership of many GM vehicles enough to know I'll never buy another one. Actually, I said that last time, and caved in and bought our Pontiac Montana. The CD player quit working, the grill fell off, the seat back adjusters came apart in my hands, the rear wiper quit, and the tailgate doesn't open anymore. Some of it is poor workmanship, but a lot of it is just bad design. Who the fuck makes a seat back adjuster out of plastic?

That's nothing. We had a 1990 Tran Sport. Great looking car, body (plastic) held up great, ran great. The rest of it was junk. After about 4 years the DASHBOARD was PEELING UP from the heat melting the glue that held it and causing it to warp. Around two and a half years later, it hit the fan. Door locks started breaking, the trim on the side was falling off everywhere, the fabric on the ceiling had come totally unglued, the one fog lamp just fell off after going over a bump, wiper motors stopped working, and the roll down windows would get stuck. I would never forget driving around in it, with the door trim on the inside of the driver's side hanging off So we could lock the bloody door

To expand on this topic as I was too lazy to write a novel last night:

After that we got a '96 Ford Taurus. in 1997 that was a show car. That thing had a solid enough interior, but mechanically had some issues. At around 2 years and 45k miles (had 12 on it when we got it mind you, and mom at the time worked for ACNielson which required her to drive around to stores and scan items on display and what not) the stupid antenna motor broke. Next, at 75k miles, the Transmission pretty much ripped itself apart. The dealer claimed a rock put a hole in the casing, and tried to charge us $75 just to have it put up on a jack and looked at. We took it to our guy, who said the dealer was bullshitting us, and after yanking the transmission, found the teeth on the gears had come apart and the shavings wrecked the rest of it, including putting the small holeS in the bottom. Then, about two months later, the check engine light sticks on and will not go off, even though it's not giving an error code of any kind. Never figured it out before we junked it a few years later as it wasn't going to worth the money to have new tires and a new catalytic convert put on to pass inspection when we had a car to drive.

That car to drive was a 1993 Buick Century, that for the past few years of it's life had a wooping 25 miles put on it, and had just under 50k when we got it three years ago. That thing was junk too. First the alternator fails on it, then a few months later the heater core breaks. Next, the interior was also starting to come apart; the horn button snapped off, the glove compartment would only close half way, the ceiling fabric was coming down on that too, and the radio had a short in it. Finally just traded it in when we bought our Mitsubishi. Now lets take a moment to compare that to our Japanese/Korean cars:

1970s/1980ish Datsun/Nissan Sentra - Dad won this for $200 by accident. Ugly ass faded red that made in look like a giant rusted coffee bean going down the road. The back end was also smashed in. To get it past inspection, he took it to work and tied it to the nearby dock people fish of. Next, they tied the back to his friend's Dodge Ram. His friend then gunned the engine, and used the Ram to pull the rear end out so it could pass inspection and not look like total garbage going down the road :ROTF: Got 2 years and around 20k miles on it before the timing belt broke and we ran it into the ground.

1992 Hyundai Elantra - Another auction cheapy (maybe $950) around 1997, we got 4 years and probably 100k out of this, bring the tach to about 190k before the transmission ceased up. Only had two issues; burned oil for no real reason, and the clock was shorted out. Not having AC was murder in the summer, but what are you gonna do

1993 Toyota Corolla - Had this for 4 years and save some new plug wires, no issues at all. 156k on the tach, drives and runs great.

2001 Suzuki XL-7 - Had one major issue with this, which is when the AC broke about 2 weeks after the Warranty went "Bye-Bye", and after initially being rather pissed, the company came up and paid for half of it.

2007 Mitsubishi Outlander - Well I would hope we don't have any problems with this for another couple years as we just bought it 8 months ago

[Cygnus X1]

On the other hand, 1992 Pontiac Bonneville...
Between my brother, his daughter, and then me, we put 225,000 miles on it
without any issues other than a coil pack and two alternators. The car was
still getting 22mpg when I traded it for the Monte Carlo SS. And I loved the way it
handled. We miss that car.

[UFORocks]

I wonder.... what would happen if GM allowed independent auto shops to do warranty work? Would it help alleviate some of this blatant theft and abuse by the dealerships or would it make an already out of control problem bigger?

-Steve

[UFORocks]

So far the GM cars I have owned; a 2001 grand am currently at 100k, and a 2006 malibu currently at 23k haven't given me any troubles. I had to have a tuneup done on the grand am at about 70k miles.

Now, as for Chryslers that I've owned; a Cherokee and a Lebaron, talk about G A R B A G E. It would take at least a page of typing for each car, and just dont have that kind of time today.... Bottom line, I probably wont buy another chrysler product again, ever.

Im actually thinking that my next vehicle purchase will be another GM.

[DonP]

Lou,

I (the wife actually) have a 2003 Tahoe with the check engine light on a few other things we need done. Can you tell me which dealer to avoid?

I think now that car sales are diving, dealers are trying to make up for it in the service and parts side of things.

[yard dawg]

Do y'all think that maybe the outsourcing of the parts has anything to do with it? Arent they made in mexico or china now with inferior metals and materials? Maybe we should bring the manufacturing of the parts back home and monitor it better ya think?

[Spivonious]

Do y'all think that maybe the outsourcing of the parts has anything to do with it? Arent they made in mexico or china now with inferior metals and materials? Maybe we should bring the manufacturing of the parts back home and monitor it better ya think?

That's probably true, and I'm sure the QC would be better, but it would also make car prices rise.

[fett]

The dealers are not selling enough GM cars. And when they do, the margins are pretty thin. It's obvious to me that their shops HAVE to make money. It will get nothing but worse.

[CharvelRocker]

Do y'all think that maybe the outsourcing of the parts has anything to do with it? Arent they made in mexico or china now with inferior metals and materials? Maybe we should bring the manufacturing of the parts back home and monitor it better ya think?

Nope, and here is why: Because they make some damn many, they wouldn't be able to keep up with demand if they took time to QC them. Lets take the Pontiac Torrent for example. the Torrent, Chevy Equinox, and Suzuki XL7 all use the same interior parts. So right just to build one of each, you need to make three of that part instead of just one. Cheaper than different parts for each, but you need to make a lot more. And for what it's worth, our tran Sport had crappy USA parts too, so in the end it doesn't matter, especially companies like GM and Ford that make so many versions of each car, and need to take tons of parts to keep up with things.

[StukaJU87]

My forst new car was a 1985 Chevy S-10 2wd pickup. V6, 4 speed. Treated me just fine. Never had to do a thing to it until 110,000 miles, clutch died. Other than that, it was very reliable. Don't know about newer GM products.

My daily driver is a 94 Toyota 4x4 V6 pickup with 148,000 on the clock and running strong. My other ride is an 07 Mustang GT which I love.....for now. No problems to write home about yet.

[LouSiffer]

Lou,

I (the wife actually) have a 2003 Tahoe with the check engine light on a few other things we need done. Can you tell me which dealer to avoid?

I think now that car sales are diving, dealers are trying to make up for it in the service and parts side of things.

Don,

I couldn't tell you who to go to or avoid in the Cincinnati market. I feel that sometimes, private owned shops may be better due to the fact that they NEED your repeat business. The techs at dealerships are paid by wrench hour and the dealership relies on them to boost overall profit, hence, they like to make stuff up. And sometimes the service writers may "push" you into finding more wrong to make their sales look good.

You will find that alot of your small private owned shops have great techs that used to work at the dealerships, but, got tired or didn't have the heart to do all the scamming. As long as the tech has a good OBD tool and is competent mechanically, there is nothing wrong with a private shop. I have been debating on whether or not to start one of my own as of late.-Lou