How long has GM been known for crappy interiors...

Short story.....

Back in about 99 (junior year of highschool) I started to get heavy into GM cars. Car that sparked it honestly (even though I had the 79 forumla) was a brand new 1999 Grand Am GT my manager at work had at the time. It was black and had the chrome rims and dual exhaust. I did not know much about cars at the time...but I remember that car jumping to the top of my attainable car want list..even ahead of new Mustang's and F-body's (whose insurance I could not swing).

Anyway..I remember when I saw the interior on her Grand Am GT, I thought it was the neatest interior I had ever seen (remember it was 99 and I was just into cars)..the coolest design ever. Then I remember reading a review of the GA in a mag, and they trashed the car...especially the interior. The more I read...the more cars that I thought had cool interiors got roasted in the mags (Bonneville, Firebird, Corvette, etc). On the otherhand I remember having my 88 Turbo Coupe and it seemed to have a pretty nice interior (least for a used car).

Anyway...sorry for the story...but my basic question is...how long as GM interiors been inferior to the competition?

1980s.

Original "J" car to be exact. Last new car from GM that had an interior that was on par with everything else.

Also...I have always wondered something.

My 79 Firebird Formula had the Trans Am interior in it which had the machined metal dash, full guage package, racing looking wheel. I always thought this was one of the coolest interiors of it's time...maybe all time. Is that true or am I just being nostaligic.

For those who don't know...this is the package..

http://www11.brinkster.com/turbo301/London/Trans_Am_SE_interior.JPG

I don't know. They might use better materials and all that jazz now but I think they have gotten just plain dull. My 95 and 92 both have great looking interiors. The 95 has a cockpit-like appearance and the 92 has a nice big flat top with good crevaces in the passenger side.
Now, it seems like every car they produce has the same boring looking interior. 2 vents integrated into a center stack, and 2 identical looking vents on both the passenger and driver side. :tired:
What they gained in materials, imo, was lost in creativeness and originality.

Most writers note the endless plastic as the reason for labeling them cheap.

But then again, if I wanted steel I would buy a '75 pickup.

GM's interiors of the 70s were pretty nice.

Take the Formula/Trans Am interior that Branden brought up. Turned-alumunum faceplate area around the guages. A seat that was very stylish and comfortable, chrome metal (!) shifter handle. Even on the automatics (which had a scooped out thumb slot to push the shifter button).

My dad still has his '78 Impala (bought new) that even though it looks a bit worn now, you still get a great feel of how it was. Thick, soft padding on the doors, a dash that doesn't look like it was either strained to look like something else, copied off of something else, or drawn by someone who spent too much time designing machinary.

The new Impala and GMT-900s seem to be getting the design & feeling back, so I guess there's hope.

I think early to mid '90s is when they lost it...more towards the late '90s. I too think the third gens have a great look to them, and if you look at the materials, they're really pretty good. I mean, the cloth was of higher quality than anything GM has made lately short of a G6 (witness the cloth in '96+ F bodies...that stuff is CRAP, but then again the leather is too), the dash had a nice soft feel to it, the door panels had this stuff called CLOTH on them...I mean, imagine that...

I think the height of despair in GM interior was my own Grand Am GT Branden waxed poetic about :D I never warmed to the design, the seats were uncomfortable and had cheap cloth, the door panels were a sea of monotone plastic, the leather steering wheels in all of them delaminate at some point, the radio volume and tuning knobs are microscopic, etc. I owned the car for a year and a half...I have not one good thing to say about the inside. It was wretched. At least the design of the GP is better looking, the seats while flat don't hit my back wrong, and the door panels have this stuff called upholstery...again, go figure.

Most '80s GM cars, while the ergonomics were kinda off compared to new cars and the durability wasn't always the greatest (warping dashboard, anyone? Sagging headliner??), at least the materials were well made and the designs typically were not offensive. I remember my mother's basic '85 Olds Calais. The cloth was nice and soft, the door panels had cloth on them, there was nice brushed aluminum trim with "Oldsmobile" in chrome letters across the dash above the glovebox...it was an inexpensive car that didn't feel cheap on the inside.

I like what I'm seeing with new interiors from GM though...a G6 blows away a Grand Am, and even the revised '06 GP. Cobalts look great too, as do the new trucks. I'm hoping the next gen GP (still pleading they don't call it G8!!!) gets the attention to detail the G6 did...

One more thing...the "wow" factor needs to come back, too. I remember sitting in an '89 Corvette the day my parents bought my old RS...that car had it. I sat in RP's own C6 Z06 in KY, and it was like "eh" inside. A G6 looks nicer! I was shocked that the door sill plates were the same crappy plastic found in my 5 year old GP. Even my dad's TrailBlazer has brushed-stainless-looking sill plates. And this Z06 is a $70k car?

Hey guys, keyless ignitions are cool and all, but why not give me some visual pizazz while you're at it? And no, I don't the Atari look of that C4, either :)

My 86 Lesabre had a nice interior. Those veltet like comfortable seats which were comfortable as hell and made traffic feel like nothing. Hell, come to think of it, it rode better than a new BMW (honestly didn't feel any bumps or anything) but my sister took it and killed it :(
Not to mention that fake-ass wood looked actually decent for the time until someone broke in and cracked the **** out of it for the stereo.

Seems to me GM has been known for crappy interiors about as long as people have cared about interiors. I don't know when this trend of feeling up everything on the inside of a car began....to me, if the interior is comfortable and ergonomic I'm cool with it. I don't need to run my hands over the dash and pick out the hard pieces. :rolleyes:

2000

Japanese cars from the 90's are no better than GMs. I think VW raise the bar for affordable (under $25K) cars around 99/00

In addition to my Z28, I have a 2001 Suburban Z71. For yrs. GM used that crappy carpeting in it's car & trucks. My Suburban has really nice carpet in it. Thick & soft. I'd like it my house. They are getting better all the time. The newest car I sat in was a Cobalt SS. The design I can describe as sleek. It's not a term I'd use for GMs of the past.

I remember looking at my dads 87 Z28 interior as being amazing. My father kept it clean all the time, and it always looked brand new. When compared to the 83 and 84 Cutty's we had, it looks super high tech. I look at other cars from that era, and it only makes it better looking.
I did notice one thing though. I had a 95 Taurus, and when a similar year Grand Am, Grand Prix, Lumina or whatever GM car, Im amazed about how poor the interior quality is. Now, the 95 was deffinaly not luxurious, but eveything looked solid. It wasnt clutted with buttons and dials like a Boeing 707 of GM cars. The switch gear was smooth and the plastic was good for 95. I also sat in Camry's and Accords of the time, and only the Camary could match it or beat it. It flowed better and the cool 3D guages looked better.

I now sit in my Maxx, and the interior is night and day from any 03 Malibu. The blobbyness of old GM design made me wana puke. All surfaces are very smooth and flush. The switch gear is very asian in feel and opperation. No cheap clicks or clacks. No rattles over rought NJ highway. Everything holds together. And to go C&D for a little bit, the dash is very soft and smooth. It flows very well. My only gripe is the design of the center stack and lack of two tone interiors. I have sat in all new mid sized cars and Id say that the Malibu deffinatly has it over the Camry in quality of feel, but the Accord is by far the nicest looking interior of the bunch.
Id say that only a few cars remain in GM's stable that could be considerd cheap, and most of that is Pre-Lutz.

The 2000 Blazer I own I thought had a decent interior even though it is all plastic. My only problem is bouncing down the country roads they rattle quite a bit. I could hear a pin drop in my 05 GP, night and day difference.

Unfortunately my wife likes the size of the Blazer and thinks the Trailblazer is too big. So I'll have to deal with the rattles until GM pops out another SUV that she likes.

2000

Japanese cars from the 90's are no better than GMs.

The biggest difference in the early 90s was the ergonomics - Japanese cars (especially Honda) were quite good, while many American cars still had cluster that one couldn't read through the steering wheel and crap like that. I will say that until sometime in the mid-/late-90s, that low-end Japanese cars were not "all that" in terms of quality and durability, with the exception of their switchgear which I feel was world's ahead of GM at that time.

I like the layout and appearance of my Impala's interior, but frankly the quality of materials throughout is quite horrible and probably not even suited to a child's toy. And a pox on the person who selected the vinyl for my truck's seat.

Stuff like this hurts GM far more than they want to believe, since a heck of a lot of first-time new-car buyers are coming from rather old used cars.

Not to mention that fake-ass wood looked actually decent for the time Even the "real" wood cracks, most of it is now just a vinear(sp?)thin layer adhesived on same as the "fake' stuff...some of the "fake" stuff may actually be more durable, and less likely to scratch etc...
Things I disliked about Chevy interiors were :
1)weak door pulls, always breaking, cheap material, or wrong materials.
2)Lack of good, custom fitting floor mats, in everything, not just optional.
3)brittle dash material, cracking b/c of heat, or when bumped when cold.
4)sagging headliners, why use a sponge backing you know will deteriorate.
5)cheap "looking" plastic buttons and knobs...plastic is fine, just polish it or something..and the writing wearing off buttons, or button faces getting brittle and popping off.
6)leather seats that crack and wrinkle all to he!! and color wore off....

GMC, Pontiac and Buick were always a notch better, probably why people like them a lot. Better material, better design, better layout and function...why? :shrug:

Japanese interiors were bland to me, but more space efficient in a lot of cases.

Think GM vehicles had bad interiors, I've own some '80's Chryslers... :eek: talk about "nickel and diming you to death"... :no:

I also think one thing that gets confused too is "visual design" and "material/build quality". A GMT-800 dash will never give you issues and is built decently....but the fact that it is ugly as sin kills any hope it has.

True, Visual Design is truly only an OPINION of the user. I agree material/build quality is important. But even this is hard, or soft, or rough? (bad use of words, LOL)

I tend to like the hard plastic feel and looks as it gave a cockpit type of feel to it. My only problem is damn they rattled everywhere. My 05' GP is the quitest and coolest Interior I've seen in awhile. Love it.

Am I one of the few people that doesn't like wood, fake or otherwise, in the interior?

Am I one of the few people that doesn't like wood, fake or otherwise, in the interior?
No, I don't like it either.

Am I one of the few people that doesn't like wood, fake or otherwise, in the interior?

If it'd done right, I like it. That means I like very little of the wood, real or otherwise, that's currently offered.

We've got an interior part at work that we supply to a American luxury brand that's crafted from real wood in Italy, and it's eye-poppingly beautiful (made so much more obvious by the lesser-quality materials that surround it). It's also shockingly expensive, even for a $45K car, and there's enough other faults with said vehicle that one is left wondering if the money should have been spent elsewhere.

If it'd done right, I like it. That means I like very little of the wood, real or otherwise, that's currently offered.

We've got an interior part at work that we supply to a American luxury brand that's crafted from real wood in Italy, and it's eye-poppingly beautiful (made so much more obvious by the lesser-quality materials that surround it). It's also shockingly expensive, even for a $45K car, and there's enough other faults with said vehicle that one is left wondering if the money should have been spent elsewhere.

Every Lexus model made today uses real wood (or no wood at all), and they make sure that the pieces that go into each car all came from the same tree, and same finishing batch so that the color and grain matches. It's nice and all, but it's freakin EXPENSIVE to replace if your original one gets damaged. Just for S&G I priced the wood trim around my center console/shift area (as seen in the lower right of this pic (http://www.threxx.com/car/DSC00523.JPG)) and it was $725 at the dealership, ordered direct from Yamaha's Piano wood division in Japan.:o

I personally hate fake wood, real wood is usually 'ok' but for my money I'd rather have aluminum/cf/or just plain old trim that doesn't try to look like anything more expensive than it is.

Every Lexus model made today uses real wood (or no wood at all), and they make sure that the pieces that go into each car all came from the same tree, and same finishing batch so that the color and grain matches. It's nice and all, but it's freakin EXPENSIVE to replace if your original one gets damaged. Just for S&G I priced the wood trim around my center console/shift area (as seen in the lower right of this pic (http://www.threxx.com/car/DSC00523.JPG)) and it was $725 at the dealership, ordered direct from Yamaha's Piano wood division in Japan.:o

I personally hate fake wood, real wood is usually 'ok' but for my money I'd rather have aluminum/cf/or just plain old trim that doesn't try to look like anything more expensive than it is.


Didn't you say some interior part in your GS was from a Camry? :p

Didn't you say some interior part in your GS was from a Camry? :p

Cruise control stalk. Why? I don't get it.:)

I'll give you one major thing I hate about the GMT-800's.. the inner door panel.. on my Avalanche. first, they are flimsy.. they budge around and squeek if you grand and push with your hand and your knees... the backdoors of my Avalanche seem to be much worse. This is especially annoying when haivng people in the back of my Avalanche, and their knees squeeking against the door panel, especially supporting themselves in a turn. Squeek squeek.


The door handles are these pieces of pastic that gape out of these huge door handles.. in fact one of my coworkers even commented when he first stepped inside that the door was broken/missing a trim piece. lol

And nitpicking, you can see some flash/ragged cut stuff on the edges on the trim piece where the rear seatbelts go into the pillar.


There's also an odd squeek somewhere in the rear passanger area of my Av.. and occasioanlly some wind noise.. But you know what, the only reason I'm complaing about this, is cause the actual truck is so dang comfortable and quiet, that you actually start noticing these odd minor squeeks!


I let my friend borrow it for a week. He owns an Audi, and his parents and bro's have Mercedes and BMW's.. He started with the preconception of hating all SUV's, but after the week and a few roadtrips, he admitted he turned around and now likes it for its comfort and quietness on the road, and begin to see why people like SUV's (but he'll still won't get one)..


Same goes with other GM cars I've rented lately.. They may look kinda ugly.. But they are functional, and surprisingly quiet.. I think sometime around 2000 they must have found a way to put them together a bit better so they didn't squeek and rattle.

and the newer interiors now go another step foward and making them look much better (although the new GMT900 dash's loook too carlike in the pics I've seen, but reserve final judgement till I see them IRL).


I also think one thing that gets confused too is "visual design" and "material/build quality". A GMT-800 dash will never give you issues and is built decently....but the fact that it is ugly as sin kills any hope it has.

Every Lexus model made today uses real wood (or no wood at all), and they make sure that the pieces that go into each car all came from the same tree, and same finishing batch so that the color and grain matches. It's nice and all, but it's freakin EXPENSIVE to replace if your original one gets damaged. Just for S&G I priced the wood trim around my center console/shift area (as seen in the lower right of this pic (http://www.threxx.com/car/DSC00523.JPG)) and it was $725 at the dealership, ordered direct from Yamaha's Piano wood division in Japan.:o


What a waste of money. I don't really need any wood in my car, let alone a $725 piece of it.

What a waste of money. I don't really need any wood in my car, let alone a $725 piece of it.

I agree though I'm sure Lexus' true cost on it is less than 10% of that at worst. Seems like a lotta OEM replacement parts; particularly those not commonly needed for purchase like various interior parts, clips, etc can be WAY more expensive than they should have cost the manufacture to put in your car when it was first made. If something happened to the wood in my car I would just go without any trim. I'd never even pay half that for that trim. I could see maybe up to 150... that's about it.