How has GM stayed in business so long?

[Chris142]

Maybe they have the same advertizing agency as Fram?

Today I had a 99 Chevy pickup in the shop, 454 engine. 102K on it. Customer says it has a coolant leak. I found the coolant leak.........Intake manifold gasket! just like every other GM V6/8 that comes into the shop.

Also has a couple of qts of coolant in the oil!

Then a 98 w/454 came in with a blown bypass hose. Took me 2 hours to replace the 4 inch long hose between the water pump and intake manifold. Stupid design!

Once I fixed the blown hose this one had a leaking intake manifold too!

I see probly 20 leaking intake manifolds a week on GM cars/trucks.

Why do people keep buying this GM junk? I know I'll never buy one.

Rant off.

 

[KJA426]

Like Fram being the biggest name in filters, GM is the biggest name in automobiles. Once you become the big boys, people buy you because they figure the biggest must also be the best.

 

[cryptokid]

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Topic: How has GM stayed in business so long?

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lies, more lies, false advertising, and advertising trickery.

same way all american company stay in buisness. they have to be dishonest inorder to try and compete with the superrior super powers from the east.

 

[DJ]

And then you have my wagon over 175K and cranking compression still around 200psi, must be junk huh. Also consider your position people only bring their cars to you when they have a problem

and GM is the largest manufacturer so what are you going to see, broken cars that have a better chance of being GM than any other brand just because of numbers on the road. Then consider some of the imports are not readily servicable by non-dealers and their owners tend to be more of the dealer only service mindset, you won't see them. Then you have Ford which can't come up with a competent recommendation for tire pressure in a truck, Dogde that has difficulties with V6 timing chains and transmissions almost accross the board. These are machines and as such will have parts that fail EVERY manufacturer makes mistakes and every machine ever built will eventually need repair.

 

[benjamming]

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Originally posted by cryptokid:
same way all american company stay in buisness. they have to be dishonest inorder to try and compete with the superrior super powers from the east.

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Easy there. There are lots of American businesses that are honest. There are lots of Japanese businesses (read Mitsubishi) that are dishonest.

 

[cryptokid]

dude just pickup any magizine and read the propaganda that american company spew out as advertising. they use the fallycy straw man approach when attacking their competitors.

incase you dont know what fallacy straw man is, "Straw man" is one of the best-named fallacies, because it is memorable and vividly illustrates the nature of the fallacy.

Imagine a fight in which one of the combatants sets up a man of straw, attacks it, then proclaims victory. All the while, the real opponent stands by untouched.

thats gm for you.

read here :

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html

 

[labman]

By putting out crap like my 02 Cavalier. The one rotor warped almost right away. Other than that, I have done nothing to it, although it is 3 years old now and pushing 60K. With some of the great foreign cars, I would be pricing timing belts and wondering what else I should replace while I had half the engine apart. On another site I hang out at, it is full of Hondas that won't start. One of the old ones had to have a new distributor, $500, likely half what it was worth. Everybody is resoldering the main relays.

Then there was my 92 Grand Am with the HO Quad 4 and 5 speed. It could lay rubber North of the double nickel. It did eat wheel bearings and coil packs. Still, I could haul a 10' length of pipe with the trunk lid and windows closed.

Yeah, you see all the crap in a shop. I used to get depressed when I worked in a plant that reprocessed all of the company's scrap. We joke about getting a load of scrap back for every load of material we sent to Mexico. The truth was, there were dozens of plants shipping them material.

 

[SKUNKY]

I have two GMC's..454(130k)..305(140k)..both with the coolant intake leaks..both fixed on my dollar..You know that there's a class action suit going on that may get me some of those dollars back

Boy..I love America.

 

[brianl703]

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Originally posted by labman:
One of the old ones had to have a new distributor, $500, likely half what it was worth.

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Ignition module failure, right?

It's funny how Ford faced a class-action lawsuit over their distributor-mounted ignition modules, with a replacement part cost of about $60 (if not $30), and which can be replaced quite easily...

..yet Honda has similar ignition module problems that require replacing the whole distributor (which costs a bit more than $60) and nobody says a word about it, let alone a class-action lawsuit.

And which of the two companies, in 2001, was STILL making cars with distributors in them...?

 

[TooManyWheels]

Class action, class action. Don't you know how much you irresponsible guys are "hurting America" and stifling the economy?

That's why we need "reform", and more Americans who will just suck it up and zip their lips.

 

[brianl703]

Frankly, I thought that class-action lawsuit was BS. First, it happened in 2001 when the last car that rolled off the assembly line with a distributor mounted ignition module was 8 years old..and it only covered cars with under 100,000 miles. (How many 8-year-old cars have under 100K on them)?

Second, it just doesn't cost that much to fix. $30 and 15 minutes of labor.

 

[TooManyWheels]

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and 15 minutes of labor

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On my 88 F150, if I remember correctly, it involved removing the distributor, removing the drive gear and shaft, changing the module, then reassembly. That's a lot for fifteen minutes, no matter how good you are.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Actualy GM is just the largest in the USA! Toyota is the largest global automanufacture by both total sale and profit!

GM offers a lot of content for a cheap price. THe combination of good advetiseing, deep incentives and lots of content is what keeps them in business. You also have the loyalty thing. I am sure we all know someone thaqt buys a brand because their grand and their dad all bought that brand etc... Some mistakenly think they are keeping "America Strong" etc... buying a mostly forign product with an American brand name on it over a domesticly produced vechile with a forign name on it! Never mind that all of "Chevrolet" was the family name of a French race car driver etc....

I have often asked the same question as did most of the non-GM contract workers that I worked with. They could be the best if they truly wanted to be the best but they let greed, marketing and bean counter stop them everytime. GM has all the raw material to be the best! Nothing would make me happier then to see them be the best. I doubt it will ever happen though. The corperate culture at GM just will not allow it to happen!

 

[brianl703]

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Originally posted by TooManyWheels:
On my 88 F150, if I remember correctly, it involved removing the distributor, removing the drive gear and shaft, changing the module, then reassembly. That's a lot for fifteen minutes, no matter how good you are.

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On my 88 Mustang, it involved using some white-out to make a mark on the distributor and the engine, loosening the distributor hold-down bolt, moving the distributor so the module could be pulled off. Then I put the new module on and turned the distributor back, and tightened up the hold-down bolt.

I did that on the side of the road--there is no need whatsoever to remove the distributor on the 5.0L engine.

 

[Chris142]

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Originally posted by DJ:
GM is the largest manufacturer so what are you going to see, broken cars that have a better chance of being GM than any other brand just because of numbers on the road.

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I understand what your saying. But on every GM car or truck that I see they all have the same problem.

Atleast with other brands I get to do something different ocasionally

BTW: The customer with the 2 qts of coolant in his oil declined any repairs! He drove off in the thing

 

[Chris142]

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Originally posted by TooManyWheels:

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and 15 minutes of labor

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On my 88 F150, if I remember correctly, it involved removing the distributor, removing the drive gear and shaft, changing the module, then reassembly. That's a lot for fifteen minutes, no matter how good you are.

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That sounds like the pickup coil and not the module

 

[SKUNKY]

Class action, class action. Don't you know how much you irresponsible guys are "hurting America" and stifling the economy?

Your right my man..I'll suck it up..$1300.00 for labor and 15.00 worth of parts...I hear that sucking sound real loud

 

[srivett]

Most people are thinking short term.

I'm not saying GM is bad but I know most people will buy poor quality if it costs less up front. So if it costs half the price and burns twice the fuel it is a winner!

Steve

 

[brianl703]

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Originally posted by Chris142:
That sounds like the pickup coil and not the module

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I think you might have to remove the distributor to change the pickup coil, but I've not heard about the pickup coil being a common point of failure. Actually it's not even a coil, it's a hall-effect sensor.

 

[brianl703]

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Originally posted by SKUNKY:
$1300.00 for labor

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That's probably close to what the lawyers made on behalf of each claimant.