You watch the news and they are laying off thousands of workers,there car models suck,no more Camaros/firebirds,mean while we have Mustangs out the green bean cassarole hole,Toyota is sneaking up like the rats they are.
Yet GM stands by and its like screaming at a scary movie on tv not to open the closet door but they can't hear you!!!
I know they are shipping quit a few cars to China($392 a month saleries) figure that out?) and not really saying much about it plus maybe a military contrac or two,but is it worth breaking their plate in America???

 

Fuel prices are so high. Gm is still using heafty cars with the old V-6. Their V-6 is basicly a V-8 with 2 cylinders chopped off. Just recently some Gms got the ECO tech 2.2 and new 3.5 liter DOHC. But, it was to little to late. Import cars run on less gas overall, have a better reputation, better warrenty coverage and price compared to GM's line.

 

HHR, Cobalt, Solstice, Sky, C6, GM900's, TBSS, Cadillac V Series, I guess they all suck, could have fooled me and everyone else.

Having an Fbody the last few years wouldn't have solved anything, and only would have made matters worse.

Green bean cassarole hole?

Why are they rats? Because they make reliable, decently priced cars and people buy them?

 

HHR is just PT cruiser in desguise...and other than the Cobalt...which is only good in SS design...the other stuff isn't practical or cheap...their designs have gotten plain weird...and soon they'll stick that god awful truck front end on the corvette cause they put it on everything else...

have you seen these in person...my god they're awful...

http://www.buick.com/terraza/index.jsp#top

 

Wrong. While the 3.8 liter can be claimed to be that, the other V6's most certainly are not.

Rule of thumb:
GM V8's are categorically 90 degree engines, meaning that the angle between the line of action of the stroke in the respective cylinder banks is 90 degrees. Any V6 that does not have that 90 degree angle most assuredly is not based off of a V8. Internally, they can still share pistons, rings, rods, valves, valve guides, valve springs, retainers, locks, lifters, pushrods, rockers, main bearing and con-rod bearings, but that's about it.



***EDIT***
Oh yeah...

You can share some fasteners too. Nuts and bolts and screws and the like, but there is no real point in doing so since since fasteners like that are invariably made in a process known as "cold-heading" (jam steel wire into a one half of a die... smack wire hard with the other half of the die... lather, rinse, repeat until you get finished part minus threads...) and then have the threads cut (screw-machined) or rolled on.

The term "heading" comes from the process for putting the head on a nail, which is the same. The term "cold" means that no outside heat is added to the process, although the parts become wicked-hot just from the internal friction of flowing steel around like that and will burn you badly if you pick one up right off the header...

...ask me how I know that...

Anyway, in cold-heading, the tools are destroyed in the act of making the part, so there is no point in commonizing them from an investment standpoint once the volume of parts per year exceeds 40,000 or so.

With those parts, you're better off making the parts unique if it confers some benefit to the process (common driver sizes and torques in the plant), or allows you to save on engineering time or part piece prices.

***/EDIT***


Utter crap.

Thanks to ignorance like that shown above.


In any given class of vehicle, GM will option for option and through the overall price of the vehicle, be less expensive than the imports - note the incentives.

 

if you are talking about the 3.5 DOHC that was in the intrigue and the aurora thats crap sure the 3.5 is smooth and is DOHC doesn't mean its better than the 3.8 litre

i've had experience with both in the intrigue one with the 3.5 and the other with the 3.8 the 3.8 had a lot more low end torque and even got better milage than the 3.5 i could get up to 32 mpg with the 3.8 and with the 3.5 i could only get a best of 27-28 mpg

 

Good Lord...

Thank you, Pacer, for shedding some light. It is amazing how much misinformation is constantly spewed out over and over again. No wonder GM has to struggle so much...

 

What V6 is that???? The current 3.5L & 3.9L HV's aren't, neither are the 3.6L and 2.8L DOHCs. GM V6 also have some of the best gas milage around. GM cars in general have great milage, the only area they lack is the small 4cyls. GM could use a 40mpg+ Aveo.

2.2L has been out for about 4 years, The olny DOHC 3.5L they make now is a inline 5 cyl.


Fuel economy isn't GMs problem, except in the 40mpg+ mini car segment.

 

You're welcome!

Alas, you and I share the same mission...

Shedding the light of data on the world, one closed-head injury at a time.

Here's some learnin' for the unwashed:
http://media.gm.com/us/powertrain/en...g%20trans.html

 

Everyone buys into the media WAY too much these days. They want you to think GM is drowning, that way you will stop buying from them and other manufacturers and then everyone will have to buy Japanese...

GM is not failing, they are not going under. They under reorganization. When a company is set to break even w/ a 30 percent market share, and they are only at a 22% share right now, they have to cut costs somehow. Unfortunately the easiest way to cut costs is to cut labor, since you really can't skimp on production materials. GM got too big for its britches IMO. They spread out way too much, put their eggs in too many baskets when times were good, now that things are not so good, they have to reorganize to a business structure that fits the current time. Now if they had kept the way things were, then we would be seeing the demise of GM, and quite possibly the big 3...

 

I believe the 4.3 truck motor hasn't been purged from the system yet.

As an aside, does anyone know why GM never upgraded to an LS based V6 for trucks & SUVs?

 

I think there are many factors of why GM is struggling, but one that sticks out is, perception. The perception that the majority of the public has of GM. Most see their cars as not reliable, not enough goodies offered in the entry levels, and their models that do offer alot of their goodies are their top models and out of reach for some, price wise.

 

redglare23... you are right. My mother for example is one of those. She had a nissan forever that she loved. Never had any major problems except a fuel pump in 250k miles. Now she has a 93 Olds Cutlas Cierra that my grandfather gave to her when he couldn't drive anymore, and she bitches b/c little things break, like the parkign brake cable. Trim molding came off... etc. It takes forever to get over a bad impression...

 

I agree, but need to add that GM has (or at least had) a lack of forward thinking. GM was the big man on the block and thought everyone would come to them for cars no matter what kind of crap they threw at us. Chrysler was not as popular as GM and did the things it takes to get people talking about and buying their cars. Just look at this forum. Many Camaro/Firebird fans are talking about the Challenger, Charger and 300c. I am willing to bet, not many people on the Chrysler boards are talking about any GM products ("hey, did you see the new Cobalt?, wow").

The service sucks also. As a GM person born and raised I have recently purchased a few Fords due to better service. The GM service centers (dealerships) I have been utilizing in Michigan and Florida think they are gods and rarely get problem fixed correctly the first, or even second time. I am not talking of small dealerships for Geos either, I am talking large Cadillac and Chevy dealerships. I have contacted GM numerous (four) times about the problems with the service I have received and I get a form letter back, saying blah, blah, blah...

Until GM starts thinking about the consumer and starts to regulate the service departments at their delaerships, they will have problems. I actually think that the big wigs at GM do not really give a crap about the consumer, or their own workers (who are the biggest consumers). As long as the executives get their money they will be satisfied. I am not a fan of the unions, but how can someone who makes over $250,000 a year tell the actual workers who build their product that paying them $30.00 an hour is too much. The typical human nature dictates that if someone "keeps" telling you that you are overpaid, you will do the least amount of work possible to still keep your job. Therefore the quality sucks and the circle of life starts again.

Sorry for the rant, but it upsets me that I "had" to switch to Ford products. GM left me no other choice.

 

PacerX, et al: You guys can complain all day long that GM is getting a bad rap from media bias, misinformation, etc, but he fact remains that GM is doing poorly across the board. This isn't football, where you can call foul, and play over. So yeah, maybe GM has gotten a few bad calls, but the team has no offensive plan whatsoever, and its defense sucks. If GM got every call in its favor, they'd still be losing by 40 in the first quarter.

I too do my best to educate those around me regarding the misinformation, but that does little to stop blood gushing from the gaping flesh wounds GM suffers from.

At this point, even if GM magically introduced an entire line up of cars that exceed their competition, GM's problems still wouldn't go away. For every GM success, it garners 5 gross failures. GM has no plan of action. Consumer loyalty is almost non-existent. Employee morale has got to be at its worst. Public perception is wretched. Average quality across the board is below average. And before you point out how good the Caddy or Vette is doing, take a look at the consumer reviews for their new products such as the Cobalt and Equinox. Brand new Equinox owners are having to take their vehicles back to the dealership on a regular basis for a number of engine problems. Again, for every Corvette, there are 5 Azteks out there. We can't point at GM's successes and ignore their failures that stare us in the face.

GM is missing an entire demographic - late 20 somethings and under. When the baby boomers die off, GM will have an even bigger problem on its hands. An entire generation of "buy American, even if it is crap" is retiring and will soon not be purchasing cars anymore.

Their Union problems don't help either.

I have a sick feeling inside, that GM's roadmap over the next few years could very well look like this: They introduce more competive models. Sales go up and they start to break even. People get happy and think that GM's woes are all gone. As a result, they abandon corrective measures and turn course back to business as usual: Bean counting, not giving a hoot about consumers, conceding to the Union, return to bland styling, promoting incompetent business leaders. Then they die.

I think now is make or break for them. What they do now will determine if they (a)die within the next 5 years, (b)if they limp in crippling pain for the next 15 years and then die, or if they (c)start a steady return to excellence and dominance.

"b" is my least favorite, yet most likely scenario.