http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/s...threadid=19066

 

So what's the deal? The G6 'vert is a soft top? And the top's soft material has been shown to not be durable? By what standards? Poor durability for a soft top today would mean what? Only 5 years? 10 years? I know on older cars if you got more than 5 years out of a top and didn't take care of it then you were lucky.

I'm not a big fan of soft tops, really... if I got a 'vert it'd most likely have to be a hard top unless it were an older car or something (a classic).

 

I believe it's a hard top and that's the reason for the delay.

 

Cool deal, so then what's with the durability issues they mentioned? The motor mechanism that raises it and lowers it?

 

It was said it HARD top was not meeting long term life cycle requirements . I dont remeber GM's requirements , but the top was ( so it was said ) failing intermittently after 10000 open and close cycles which was not acceptable . Karmon ( manufacturer of the hard top ) denied that claim . My company is making the limit switch for the retractable hard top . ITs had several revisions over the last couple months , but as far as I know the program is still on track .

 

I read somewhere (replying before reading article linked in first post...) that the trouble came from Pontiac wanting to use the existing Saab Epsilon hardtop, but Saab moved the mounting points, and it will not direct-fit to the G6 now...

 

10,000 cycles? If you open and shut it 2x a day EVERY DAY that's 13.6 years.

 

I believe the Saab is a soft top. This is what I've seen on the mounting points:

from this article: http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=103024

originally brought to us by Z284ever in the GM goes global again thread.

 

That would be where I remember reading it from! Thanks.

 

But combine the affects of aging, weathering, driving, etc then that 13.6 years would be further reduced.

The more you overbuild a part the less likely it is to have a premature defect for the small fraction of people who are unlucky enough to be among the first to experience failures. If the average failure starts at 10,000 cycles then does that mean that 1% of the models sold experience failure within 1,000 cycles? That would be bad if that were the case.

I'm not saying it is. Just giving an example as to why 'enough' isn't really 'enough' these days.

I know Toyota pulls cars off their assembly line at random and tries hundreds of different random tests including slamming the door, raising and lowering the windows, etc, etc 100,000 to 250,000 times. In the event of a failure the assembly line is stopped and they figure out why.

 

You KNOW this? So you've spent 58 days in their factory, watching a window go up and down 250,000 times? (Which is how long it would take, assuming a 20 second up-down cycle).

Even if they did stop the factory after 58 days, how many cars have passed through in the 58 days that went by after they were doing the testing.

Please, lay off the Toyota marketing kool-aid. Someone misplaced a zero or two. Or they're lying.

 

Heh, its funny you should mention a window. My buddy's family's new Camry driver side window stopped working shortly after they bought it. Guess that one slipped on by.

 

 

Quit the "you KNOW" factual vs assumed bull$hit, there's very few things in the world we KNOW. But when something comes out of GMs mouth y'all are more than happy to repeat it as fact. Stop holding a double standard. It does a body good.

I'ma keep the circle jerk going for you guys.



You like that don'tcha!? Oh yeah.

 

Regarding convertible tops.

It was not publicized, but when the PT Cruiser convertibles came out, some of the pump units were activating themselves and running continuously, continuing to heat up, until the hydraulic lines melted down and the fluid ran out. In some cases, the pump would still work, if the lines hadn't melted.

I was a mechanic at a Chrysler dealer when the PT convertibles first came out. I had this happen to a PT. When I called the tech help line, they were pretty eager to hear about the problem. Well, because I was in Michigan, I had 2 engineers at my dealership later that very same day and 3 more engineers came back the next day, including actual guys that designed the actual components.

Chrysler paid my dealership for me to wait on the engineers hand and foot, performing tests with them and generally tearing much of the car apart to vew wiring and different components.

We never did find an exact cause. At the time the PT in question melted down, at least 7 other PT's across the country had had a similar problem, but none were in Michigan, hence I was the lucky one. LOL.