I worked on cars for years, 7 of which was at a GM dealer. GM had a notorious problem with starters, alternators, water pumps,fuel pumps, wheel bearings. etc. Not very expensive parts, but all parts that would leave a customer stranded. Toyota and Honduh did not seem to have nearly as many issues like. To me it is a no brainer Toyota and Honda were more reliable on average than GM or Ford 10-15 years ago.

Also the drivetrain itself on GM cars seemed to last long with when talking about high mileage. The rest of the car would fall apart though.

Personally I owned a 370k Old 98 Regency that had th eoriginal engine and a junk yard trans. I gave it away and I hear it is still running today at nearly 400k

I mean people did not run from GM and Ford and switch to foreign brands for no reason during this time. If GM and Ford were as reliable back then, they would nt have the perception problem they have now.

 

Charlie and Eric,

Indeed, its ALMOST a compliment...I'd agree with you. But if someone said that about a Toyota, there'd be rioting in the subsequent issue's letters to the editor section. When its GM, it seems to be fair game.

Maybe I'm one of the few that's never had a truly bad experience with a GM car? Even those "crappy" '80s models never seemed to be all that bad, at least for my family. We had an '85 Olds Calais that my dad put 120k on by '93...other than a speedo cable that was loud when it was cold, and the radio display dying, it never had any issues with starters, alternators, or anything else. His '91 Grand Am SE he replaced that car with indeed did have a head gasket blow around 85k miles...hell, that was less than the cost of changing a water pump every 60k in a Honda Other than that, he ran that car to 125k, then sold it to my uncle...whom replaced a wheel bearing, a water pump, but nothing else before he sold it with 166k on it in '03.

My '89 Camaro, which my parents purchased brand new, was the closest car I'd call a "lemon," as it had some t-top rattles, a rough idle and an improperly secured exhaust heat shield from brand new. The t-top rattles and shield were taken care of under warranty, but the car never did idle glass smooth in the 13 years and 96k miles we had the car. Other than an occassional issue with the PassKey (occassionaly it wouldn't start, then you'd wait the requisite 20 minutes for the system to reset, then it would start fine) that cropped up every 2 to 3 years, it was reliable, drove great and gave me few issues...

Maybe I'm the minority here, but one of the things I always liked about GM cars was that they WERE reliable.

 

To me, it would seem that GM's real low point was in the latter half of the 70s as far as reliability goes and that was when people really started defecting to other makes. This is the era that they have to overcome.

My brother had a 77 Buick LeSabre coupe - a big ole land barge with a 400 under the hood that just floated over potholes and everything else. Man that car could go, but it had major problems with accessories - it was like the car had a stroke and everything on the right side of the cars centerline failed at one point or another. I had it for a summer - it was 10 years old by then but I found that it was still a fun car to drive hard. By that point the maladies gave it character I thought. Sadly he encountered more than one problematic GM car (all mid to late 70s) so he moved on to Chrysler products where he seemed to fare better. That Buick was his last GM car until a couple of years ago when he picked up a 69 Impala with 28k miles on it.

I have never had the problems he had (I'm not even sure that any of the issues he had were by themselves major, it was more of a cumulative effect I think). I've only ever owned GM cars including 3 80s models all Chevrolets and I have never had the issues he had. The most "unreliable" car I've had was an 89 Beretta - 2.8l 5 speed. A nice car, but it was expensive (IMO) to fix when things went wrong - ignition module and head gasket come to mind. Still, the problems I had didn't deter me from replacing it with another three GM cars since I parted ways with that Beretta.

 

IMO, a lot of GM's bad reputation problems are from the 90's, not leftover from the 70's .

Just think of how many 3.4L V6's have spit intake or head gaskets over the years .

How many 2.2L 4-bangers (consider all the J-bodies out there) have blown a head gasket around the ~80 - 100k mark??

For how many vehicles GM has produced through the 90's and still into the 2000's using those engines, why did they NEVER FIX those stupid, BS problems??!?!??!!?

While I get a kick out of every Toyota recall I hear about, at least they come forward and ADMIT there's a problem, and CORRECT it. GM has the resources ... why did they not fix the sh!tty intake/head gaskets over the years???

...and I'm not talking about ancient history.

THAT'S what has them in big trouble TODAY .

 

...as promised!





...while I'm at it



...and tucked away in the garage ("temporary" storage for Dad )



Nice little trio of Chevys, if I do say so myself!! Right there sits the dragster, the road racer, and the grocery getter!!

 

When we talk about reliability and quality it isn’t just serious things like major engine or transmission problems or the body rusting away, it is other things as well…sometimes it’s design issues; sometimes it’s the quality of the parts and sometimes it’s poor manufacturing/workers who don’t care and do a bad job. But regardless of the specific issue/reason, it all adds up.

I had a major transmission problem with my ’76 and with my ’79. The gas tank in my '73 had a major leak because the neck wasn't properly welded to the tank. By the time I was on my third TransAm (my’79), I could predict with some degree or accuracy when the water pump was going to go as well as when other problems would start to show themselves. My ’75 Cutlass Salon had a major electrical system problem which was eventually traced to the dashboard being forced into place which ended up digging into the wiring harness…the front windshield of my ’79 was never actually glued into place meaning there was actually NOTHING holding the windshield in the car aside from the weight and rake of the windshield itself! The weather-stripping around the inside of the trunk lids on my ’76 and my ‘79 looked as if it had been put on by a drunk and blind line worker. Radios, clocks, power accessories almost always failed fairly early in the vehicles life. Keep in mind that all the above mentioned vehicles were purchased brand new…I’m not talking used vehicles that had been abused.

I think the American car buying public came to expect sloppy manufacturing from Detroit’s big three. Then came the Japanese in a big way in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s.

The Japanese nameplates never suffered from this assumption about poor build quality or poorly designed parts – even if they were “cheap” cars, people saw fit and finish to be very good…they expected (correctly or incorrectly) that the typical Japanese autoworker took real pride in his work and wouldn’t ever do something as stupid as put a windshield in a car without gluing it in. More importantly, however, the ’73 oil crisis hit (and it hit hard), the Japanese brands got fantastic MPG compared to virtually anything from the big three – Detroit didn’t even offer anything that could reasonably be called a small, fuel efficient car. By the time the next oil crisis hit (thanks, Jimmy Carter), Detroit still hadn’t learned much…they had made a half-hearted attempt at “small” cars but frankly, they were junk…when a person compared a Chevrolet Chevette to any average Honda, Toyota, Nissan or Mazda it was VERY apparent that GM didn’t yet have a clue about how to build a quality small car; likewise Ford, Chrysler and AMC.

The domestic's quality really wasn't any better in the '80s...especially as they started to see that they could make a lot more money by selling the pick-ups and SUVs that people were turning to...I don't think we saw any real improvements from the domestics until at least the 90's and although they've made some big improvements, they still have a ways to go.

Is it fair to hold all that against the remaining domestics today? No…but as I said earlier, people have long memories and a few yeas of good J.D. Power reports are not going to overcome those memories very quickly.

I realize a lot of you weren't even alive in 30 or 40 yeras ago or at least, aren't old enough to actually remember but I guarantee you that a lot of the people who are NOT buying GM and Ford products today very much remember their experiences from that long ago.

 

And how would you go about substantiating that claim? With all due respect, that claim, in and of itself, seems as erroneous as the C&D claim, if you ask me...

 

Which claim do I need to substantiate; that they've come a long way or that they still have a long way to go???

J.D. Power itself has summed it up pretty well when they said recently that while the domesticas have made some very good improvements and, with certain vehicles, have suspassed their foreigh counterparts, they haven't yet proven that they can do so across the board for for the long term...to me, that sounds a lot like they'ev come a long way but still have a ways to go.

 

By no quantifiable measure can JD Power even assume that though...you and I BOTH know that. What is long term? What is "as reliable as?"

When you can answer that in a quantifiable manner, then it becomes fact...otherwise, its pure hearsay.

 

Since quantifying reliability, among other things, is precisely the business J.D. Power is in I'd say they are as qualified as anyone and probably a lot more qualified than most to analyze the results of their own studies - doing so isn't "hearsay".

Nevertheless, it's inconsistent in the extreme to cite J.D. Power IQS and reliability studies as evidence of Detroit's reliability and in the same breath, claim that those conducting the survey/stats aren't qualified to gather the data and alnalyze the results!

For the record, here is the citation:

 

why?

 

Robert,

The last 3 year quality study I remember seeing had the Malibu ranked ahead of the Camry...I think that was about a year ago, which would have meant even the OLD Malibu had good enough quality to match/beat the Camry.

I don't need you to keep showing me the same citation. I don't even think THAT statement is devoid of spin, because nowhere is HE even stating the facts. His own surveys have shown the old-body Malibu had better 3 year quality (not just initial) than the vaunted Camry. So again, how can you use a blanket statement like that when often the reverse is shown to be true?

 

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/357608/all

Look at most of the Japanese responses about GM. There is a huge perception saying GM does not make fuel efficient or reliable cars. I can find faults concerning GM and expressed them here, but the arrogance of some of the anti american posts **** me off. makes me want to almost trade in my Toyota. GM is on th eright track to regain faith in consumers I think. The trip to Saturn last night showed me some really decent vehicles.

 

I think a lot of how cars stand up to miles and time is due to how they are taken care of. Sure parts will break but if you maintain the car and use it properly it goes a long way to adding years and miles to it's life. The people I usually hear about with engine trouble or mechanical issues are usually the ones whom never open the hood, change the oil or even wash the vehicle. You know the type and it seems like no matter what vehicle they get something bad will happen. I think that its safe to say for domestic or import if the owner abuses a vehicle it will break down some time over a long life, if kept. I've taken good care of a 100K '90 Bonneville (Sold) and now an almost 200k '96 Explorer 4WD and besides the basic needs for cars with higher mileage, knock on wood, they both have performed flawlessly.

BTW welcome to the thread Mr. Nashville; I don't think anyone will argue that the quality of the imports was/is better than the domestics we all seem to agree the gap is closing. Where we don't see eye to eye and what angers me sometimes is the biased responses from the media whom could report or say nicer things they don't. It's always been ok to bash American products of any type. Why well its the home team and we all feel like we can talk about the home team. But when its done for no other reason than to do it like the aforementioned C&D article some as you can see here don't care for it. I don't want sympathy for the domestic brands they don't need it. But being fair shouldn't be needed but expected and given and it's not. It reminds me of picking on a kid in school and while there was no real reason to pick on the fellow student people did because it was the popular thing to do, or least you could be grouped into that side too. It seems that C&D or MT now have continued down that road and because they keep selling magazines they have to keep it up.

 

Write the head of the mag, tell him how long you've been reading their stuff and why you are dropping it.
You guys should know though that these guys are writers. They don't know alot about anything, but they do have plenty of opinions.

That's why I don't read their magazines, or watch their TV shows. The only thing I will do is watch 5th gear when Tiff is driving. The guy knows how to drive, knows the history of the cars, and gives good feedback.

GM is suffering from some of the bad cars of the 90's. They ****ed up and now they have to pay, while Toyota gets to capitolize from years of hard work and dillegence.