GM: the shame of a nation

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This thread is just funny. "The Shame of a Nation"?! Regarding a beat up 16 year old piece of junk? Overreaction at its finest.
 
Well none of our Toyota have ever in history left us stranded and Mom and Dad have owned them since 1979. In fact we have never had one that wouldnot start ecept for the time water froze int he fuel rail. We took the line off and powered it up and when all the ice junks stoped coming out and it was clear gas we put the line backon and it started right up! If I had a dollar for ever time I have pulled a Ford or GM truck out of mud,water or off the raod I could afford to buy my kid a $3000 pro-trumpet! In college me and a Room mate had to jump start all the other vechiles because we had the only two vechiles on campus that would one start under their own power and two had high capacity alternators and jumper cables. I spent about 5 hours jump starting cars and trucks that day so people could go home for the holidays!
 
Originally Posted By: BuickGN
You can't blame a 16yr old 150,000 mile WORK vehicle. I'm surprised it's still in service. That thing is a light duty family hauler, not a work vehicle.

We have a large fleet of Ford F-150s and they're beat to [censored] after 2-3 years and are auctioned off. In no way do I think there's anything wrong with Ford because I've seen what these poor trucks are put through. They're work trucks and are flown through the oil fields at 45mph, the same "roads" I have to drive the Murano at 5-10mph to keep from destroying it. They're severely overloaded and generally abused. Instead of blaming Ford, I blame the operators for their driving habits and the company for not supplying something built for the abuse like a Chevy....lol...kidding. They should supply F-350s in place of the 150s and double the lifespan.



I totally agree, the right tool for the right job is fundamental.

WRT the oil field service trucks. I worked for a small oil services company doing bottom hole pressure tests and casing calls in Michigan back in the late 70's. The guy who owned the place always bought used F-150 and F-250's from down in Texas. You know the ones with the Red and Gray paint that used to be everywhere in the fields???? Anyway, they were beat to [censored] when we got them and we beat them some more. Never once did I get left in the middle of no where, and these were some very tough winter conditions, two tracks, mud holes....man that was fun.


I did get one of them stuck, up to the axles once, had to have a huge wrecker come and pull it out. Then drove it home.
 
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I had terrible luck with my last GM, (a 2000 Blazer) but I've also driven some good one's--even work vans with the 4.3 Vortec. The consistency bothers me. I don't want to take too many chances with getting a lemon, so I am off them. Plus I feel like they ripped me off and I am angry.
I hope they turn it around because we need the jobs and I kinda drool over the new Malibus and Impalas.
Very mixed feelings.
 
My work had a couple caravan 3.0/ 3 speeds approaching 15 years. Then they conked out. One cracked an exhaust manifold, one slipped in drive.

A jeep cherokee XJ, however, lasted 160k before I bought it at auction and it took the abuse handily.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
Well none of our Toyota have ever in history left us stranded and Mom and Dad have owned them since 1979. In fact we have never had one that wouldnot start ecept for the time water froze int he fuel rail. We took the line off and powered it up and when all the ice junks stoped coming out and it was clear gas we put the line backon and it started right up! If I had a dollar for ever time I have pulled a Ford or GM truck out of mud,water or off the raod I could afford to buy my kid a $3000 pro-trumpet! In college me and a Room mate had to jump start all the other vechiles because we had the only two vechiles on campus that would one start under their own power and two had high capacity alternators and jumper cables. I spent about 5 hours jump starting cars and trucks that day so people could go home for the holidays!


Amen!

Some people might not sympathize with me one bit because it appears we've been spoiled with good cars in the past. Current Camry has 330+ and counting. We've had 2 Mazdas, 626 did 360K before we sold it, the B2200 did over 450K KM before selling. The Honda Prelude managed 370ish k before an accident and a Civic with 250k. Only the Civic left me stranded a couple times when the wheel fell off and the disty died. All had original drivetrains! That Pontiac van only got laden rarely, albeit with heavy pipes and meters when it did, but was mostly a runabout for techs- it's like dog years 240K in a (i should specify) FWD GM is like 700K in a quality vehicle
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Originally Posted By: Pablo
Well he is from Canada and he is shaming the USA.

Don't you need permission to do that? I mean if the USA tries it, we need to get a consensus.



well GM has plants in Canada, so is it okay now?
 
I'm no fan of G.M but give me a break! a 13 year old van that i'm sure has been driven like it been stolen from day one, by every leadfoot, i don't give [censored] its not my van, at work.
 
I sympathize, I said sorry you got stranded. Heck, I remember getting stranded in my younger days, in every brand of car almost. Both mine and others but I think the key then, and now is that was my younger days. Driving around in [censored] me and my friends could afoord to keep on the road. Minimal maintenance, is the key here.

Again, sorry you got stranded.
 
I'm driving a 2005 Venture, with 110,000 miles, it drives like a dream. You basically have a "pooched" van, that needed to be traded as a clunker. The "reasonable lifespan" is over. Cars do wear out, you know. I have nothing but praise for my Venture Van.
I picked it up, cheap, 6 months ago, for 6,000$, I changed the coolant, changed the tranny fluid, changed the spark plugs, and changed the battery. I oil sprayed the body twice, inside and out, and since then have put on 20,000 perfect miles. The vehicle does not even use ONE DROP of oil, and there is NO BLOWBY when I remove the oil filler cap. The engine sounds extremely QUIET, and is POWERFUL. Basically, one, wonderful vehicle, that should easily last another 10 years, IF PROPERLY MAINTAINED, and NOT ABUSED!!! Since buying it, I have changed the oil three times, and the filter twice, 50% conventional group 2, and 50% group 3 synthetic, 5w30, with Purolator PureOne filter. Spark plugs are autolite, iridium/platinum.
 
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Should have named this thread:

"Whoever was in charge of maintaining the work van: the shame of a company"
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
You're complaining about problems on a 13-year old GM van with 240k km (150k miles) that is used as a general 'work' vehicle, and using THAT to represent ALL GM products today???

GET REAL!!!!!!

Geeeeeeze!

I can't stand GM and their products but even I have to agree with you addyguy.
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Originally Posted By: Max_Wander
So, it's not often I drive a GM. In fact, I can't recall the last time I did drive one...until today.

Took a "work" van which is a Pontiac Trans Sport 3800 96-ish (with the bonneville headlights) for today. What a MISTAKE. It needed 3 liters of ATF before I could get it to move. The thing has 240K KM's and it drives like pure GARBAGE. The suspension makes terrible knocking noises, jiggles on the slightest bump and it pulls to the left. But this being a GM, you get all the extras and bonus failures from all the components that NEVER fail on any other car like the guages. The tach is barely accurate, the speedo is WAY, WAY off... as soon as you start rolling it's up in 100km/h area and then it just flails and spazzes wildly from there... I find that so very irritating when the simplest things like that fail for no good reason but it was at least rolling on it's own power (how sad when you're just thankful that it can move itself). Anyway, I figure I'll make an attempt to do some maint's on it seeing as how it had low coolant and there was probably oil in whatever was in the cooling system given the grimey sludge. So I head on over to the parts store, coming up to a red light and the tach drops to 0. Oh lovely, I had forgotten what it was like to be stranded for so many years of driving decently manufactured automobiles
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so I'm stuck in the middle of the road- sharing the plight of many GM drivers with a POS that wont start. I crank the GD thing until the battery dies (which didnt take long) and thankfully got a good samaritan to help me push it off the road. All in all, after 20 minutes in a GM after several years, I never want to find myself behind the wheel of a GM product now or in the near (or distant) future. I hope the government takes the company and turns it into a food canning or kitty litter manufacturing operation, because GM has NO business making autos.
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and thats my just-got-stranded rant
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What a stupid post.
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My 97 Olds mini van, which is about to turn 170,000 miles, is as reliable as the day is long--and everything still works on it.
 
Originally Posted By: G-MAN


What a stupid post.
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My 97 Olds mini van, which is about to turn 170,000 miles, is as reliable as the day is long--and everything still works on it.


So now I'm stupid because I've had a hard [censored] day, am [censored] from some chincy GM POS dying without warning or reason? Whatever man. Hope you enjoy your [censored] from your defunct company. I must be why they ran themselves into the ground too right? Watch it turn out to be a fuel pump or ECM or something... i didnt know those were regular maintainance items, but again I dont willingly drive garbage mobiles and thus i'm stupid.
 
Originally Posted By: Max_Wander
Originally Posted By: G-MAN


What a stupid post.
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My 97 Olds mini van, which is about to turn 170,000 miles, is as reliable as the day is long--and everything still works on it.


So now I'm stupid because I've had a hard [censored] day, am [censored] from some chincy GM POS dying without warning or reason? Whatever man. Hope you enjoy your [censored] from your defunct company. I must be why they ran themselves into the ground too right? Watch it turn out to be a fuel pump or ECM or something... i didnt know those were regular maintainance items, but again I dont willingly drive garbage mobiles and thus i'm stupid.


Your posts usually make sense but you have got to know this is complete garbage. I figured you were [censored] and in time you would cool down and realize how little sense the original post made but maybe not. I'm not sure what you want out of this thing. It's old, has fairly high miles, and has likely been neglected and abused in the worst way. I could come back with some of my good GM experiences and bad foreign experiences but it's pretty pointless.

I'm sure even diehard GM haters will realize the van in question is no reflection on GM quality.
 
This thread is silly, although I must agree that the mistakes that GM has continued to make over the last 2 decades makes you think that the company is run by monkees.
 
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