Sonics Missing Brake Pads

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LOL, don't bash Sonic, I like them
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seriously, hope they will make 2 door version,and it will have all the parts where they should be
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Originally Posted By: eljefino
Quote:

GM vows to notify all potentially affected Sonic owners and install any missing pads and, if necessary, replace any calipers or rotors free of charge.


Step 1) Jack car up, remove wheel. Remove a brake pad, or several. Put them on a shelf in your garage.
Step 2) Screech over to Chevy dealer, say, "derp, there's a noise."

Get free brakes worth about $12. Take your girl out to Friendly's for some cheese fries with the money you "made".

You'd want to do this a while from now because I bet about 100 out of 100 Sonics have brake components that, when complete, are still pretty much brand new because the model was just introduced. Unless you can cite repair law that states that you must be able to ask for the old parts back - but I don't know if that works for a warranty repair paid for by GM.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Yay!! Another GM bashing thread. Might as well just lock it now.


Just because he brought it up doesn't meet he is bashing G.M. All manufacturers make mistakes. Although the posts referring to Toyota and Ford were over the line.
 
Beings that I work in a GM plant I can pretty much tell you what probably happened...

1. The hubs come in already assembled from the supplier - the factory worker just secures it to the subframe and depending on which pad is missing he/she probably would never be able to tell.

2. The vehicles all passed end of line testing - which does a very in depth brake test even actuating the ABS at all four corners - proving that, atleast in this case, it is possible to drive with a brake pad missing.

3. The supplier themselves caught the defect at their location and notified GM of the issue. They then figured out how long it was happening and with that data, allowed GM to narrow down the build dates of suspect cars. That is probably what happened and I see stuff like this all the time...and the Supplier will be charged for all the warranty claims as well as take a hit to there "quality score" as a supplier. The only other thing is maybe an alert line worker saw the defect - we don't know how it was actually caught - but sure glad it was. As long as it is handled well for the customer I think the Sonic will continue to be a successful launch of GM's best mini-car to date and I am so glad the old Aveo is gone as that was an utter embarrassment.
 
Originally Posted By: L_Sludger
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Quote:

GM vows to notify all potentially affected Sonic owners and install any missing pads and, if necessary, replace any calipers or rotors free of charge.


Step 1) Jack car up, remove wheel. Remove a brake pad, or several. Put them on a shelf in your garage.
Step 2) Screech over to Chevy dealer, say, "derp, there's a noise."

Get free brakes worth about $12. Take your girl out to Friendly's for some cheese fries with the money you "made".

You'd want to do this a while from now because I bet about 100 out of 100 Sonics have brake components that, when complete, are still pretty much brand new because the model was just introduced. Unless you can cite repair law that states that you must be able to ask for the old parts back - but I don't know if that works for a warranty repair paid for by GM.


You can ask, but when it is warranty work you don't get parts back. If GM is like Ford, and I bet they are, the dealer holds onto all warranty parts replaced until given dispensation from the manufacturer to scrap or send them back for inspection.
 
Serious lapse of workers, quality control, and PR.

Absolute embarrassment.

Does a car stop properly without pads? They do drive the cars off the line and park them. Are those guys stoned.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick R
I hope the people responsible are disciplined appropriately. I wonder how this was discovered.


If union likely nothing.
 
Originally Posted By: Brenden
I don't really see why everyone hops on the train to bash GM into the sunset...

These days nearly every manufacturer has let cars leave the factory in some way that was unsafe, and it is only 30-40 cars, sure beats the 2 million Toyota recalled for run away accelerators.


Why is it when other manufacturers mess up and someone here makes a post its ok, but when its a GM car, suddenly it's "GM Bashing"..?

Just seems anyone can 'dis' any other car maker but GM on this site anymore. To me, if ANY manufacturer messes up, INCLUDING GM, they should all get whats coming.. A BASH!
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Originally Posted By: GMBoy

2. The vehicles all passed end of line testing - which does a very in depth brake test even actuating the ABS at all four corners - proving that, atleast in this case, it is possible to drive with a brake pad missing.


As an engineer who have design "some" manufacturing test process, if something like this can pass a test, the test is bad and should have never deployed in the line.

The engineer designed this test or his/her manager should probably be fired.
 
There is absolutely no way anyone actuated abs on these without pads.

The pistons would fly out against the rotor. Even a dork would notice the grinding.

I'm not even sure what is going on here.
 
If they did a static ABS test, which I could see as likely, then it wouldn't grind and nobody would be the wiser. All it is is a computer command on the scan tool, not somebody actually driving the car trying to get ABS to kick on. Unless it really is a driving test.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Quote:

GM vows to notify all potentially affected Sonic owners and install any missing pads and, if necessary, replace any calipers or rotors free of charge.


Step 1) Jack car up, remove wheel. Remove a brake pad, or several. Put them on a shelf in your garage.
Step 2) Screech over to Chevy dealer, say, "derp, there's a noise."

Get free brakes worth about $12. Take your girl out to Friendly's for some cheese fries with the money you "made".
Step 3) Meet 350lb roommate named "Tiny" after being incarcarated for fraud when GM looks into this later and sees that your car was made 2 months after the affected models were made.
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I still can't figure out how these could get all the way to the customer like this. Even beyond the factory there's the transporter driver loading and unloading it and the dealer staff moving it around their lot. You can't pin this on just one person. There's a whole chain of not-giving-a-poop at work to mess up this bad.
 
Does the car use phenolic pistons? If so a piston contacting the rotor might not be as noisy as a steel one, hence the ability to drive the vehicle with a missing pad...
 
Originally Posted By: rjundi
Serious lapse of workers, quality control, and PR.

Absolute embarrassment.

Does a car stop properly without pads? They do drive the cars off the line and park them. Are those guys stoned.


Apparantly the car does stop ok with ONE pad missing. As my earlier post explained - the cars go thru a complete dynamic drive test that even actuates ABS. My bet is the outer pad was shy and the inner was doing all the work. So NO - the drivers would not pick it up as everything was working fine even a pad shy.
 
Originally Posted By: rjundi
Originally Posted By: Nick R
I hope the people responsible are disciplined appropriately. I wonder how this was discovered.


If union likely nothing.



Not true - I we had a case at my plant that a person was fired for not securing an important fastener. There are agreed upon "plant rules" that allow for this.
 
Originally Posted By: calvin1
I still can't figure out how these could get all the way to the customer like this. Even beyond the factory there's the transporter driver loading and unloading it and the dealer staff moving it around their lot. You can't pin this on just one person. There's a whole chain of not-giving-a-poop at work to mess up this bad.



Again - the issues seems to be that the car HAD NO indications of a pad missing so how is anyone gonna pick up on it? If the outside pad is missing there is nothing gonna hit the rotor to make noise and the car stopped because the inner pad was pushed by the caliper.
 
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
There is absolutely no way anyone actuated abs on these without pads.

The pistons would fly out against the rotor. Even a dork would notice the grinding.

I'm not even sure what is going on here.



The dynamic drive test DOES test the brake force and activate all four wheel ABS individually. I know because this system is part of my job responsibilities (not at the Sonic plant though!! LOL) NO vehicle can be shipped from the plant without passing this drive test - the computer systems will not allow it.

The piston would only "fly out against the rotor" if that particular pad was shy. If the outer pad is shy - nothing hits that side of the rotor (no piston there!)and the car will stop using the present inside pad - which is the only pad touching the caliper piston. There would be no noise. So it all is possible and actually happened with the Sonic.
 
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