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It's really getting hard to stay loyal to GM

D

driney

1/2 ton status
 Premium
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Jul 6, 2001
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Location
west central illinois
My wife had a 2000 Monte Carlo that she bought new that was in the shop repeatedly for warranty issues. She bought a 2006 Impala that has been in the shop for wheel corrosion problems, tire pressure sensors that quit working, intermediate steering shaft that needed replaced, and an air conditioner problem, all in the first 45000 miles.
I have a 2007 work truck that at 16000 miles needs new tires. When I decided to put the spare on to replace the right rear tire that has been punctured for the fourth time, I couldn't get the spare to lower. Turns out the tube that is supposed to guide the jack handle into the little winch wasn't lined up. By laying under the truck and reaching around the spare I finally got things lined up. Glad I wasn't along side the road at night trying to figure that out. Finally got the spare out and not only is the wheel not painted, it isn't even the same style of steel wheel that is on the truck. The intermediate steering shaft on this truck is making noise and needs to go in the shop to be replaced ,and the frame is already rusty.
To make things worse, my coworkers that have bought Fords, the one thing I said I would never do, just drive theirs and never do anything but change oil. Its a good thing I can count on my 90 Jimmy.:waytogo:
 
Sorry to hear you are having bad luck.

Our two trucks have been nothing but trouble free since we bought them.
 
you talk about tires going bad like thats general motors fault. tires go bad too soon from erratic driving not because of the make of the vehicle.
 
I'm sorry to hear that bud. But that's any car not just GM. I know people who have nothing but problems out of their hondas and try are suppose to be great cars.
 
I might agree with you if someone else was driving the truck, but it's my personal vehicle and I know exactly how it is driven. I blame it on GM putting the cheapest tire they can find on the truck.
 
I guess my disappointment stems from the fact that I've been buying GM since 1974 and driving their vehicles before that and have never had this much trouble. Some of my vehicles had nearly 200000 miles with very few problems.
 
Yea I understand but from what I have seen it's like everyone is doing this nowdays. People are cutting corners to make the money they need.
 
Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what they are. The rubber must be really soft, it seems they have no resistance to cuts. Maybe my BFG tires have spoiled me.
 
They are a junk tire, at work they are called ameriCHUNKS. We are constantly having to replace them. Also to back GM up, they are OEM on a few makes as well.
 
Im afraid im in the same boat. I love my M1009, i feel this was the last generation of real trucks that GM made. Dont get me wrong, i really would love a new duramax/allison equipped silverado, but im not paying 50k for it. even with my employee discount when i used to work at a chevy dealership, my cost on a stripped down bare bones reg cab, short bed, 4x4 silverado with the diesel drivetrain was almost 40k. and the only car i even would have considered until recently was the corvette. Now of course i like the camaro (aside from the nearly 4000lbs curb weight), and the volt is an awesome step in the right direction.

But gm has made a poor decision, to try and cram as many cheap electronics into the cars, instead of the quality electronics that you NEED. And its driving the quality of the cars down.

Its why im currently driving a 2000 VW jetta diesel, 44.4mpg commuting, 61.7mpg on the highway, and fun to drive, and great long distance. And GM has openly stated that diesel is not where they are investing money, they are going hybrid and hydrogen :doah:

Its just sad that GM's leadership is so off base. ignore proven, effective, and easy technology (diesel) in favor of a pipe dream thats expensive and unrealisitc. ethanol is worse for the environment in its current form, hydrogen dosnt make sense for long range cars (maybe city cars but certainly nothing highway useable). only the volt seems to make sense, and they still put a gasoline engine in it instead of a diesel, that would have further increased range.

The sad thing is, GM has some of the greatest engines of any manufacturer, and the diesel ecotecs in europe are very highly thought of, all gm would have to do is address the exhaust systems with better emmissions controls to bring them over. so why not? They just so missed the boat. They keep building cars like its 1970, and giving themselves fat pay raises, while laying off workers, ya know, i love my camaro, i love my old chevy muscle cars, and i LOVE my truck. But unless GM really changes its ways, i wont shed a tear when they close their doors for good, because they did it to themselves.
 
It hurts me to say, but i kinda see what your saying.
Back in '08 i went to a Chevy lot, just to look at some 1/2 tons.
You know Chevy, and GMC DO NOT sell manual transmission 1/2 tons?
Youve got to be ****ting me.
I cant see me buying a brand new truck, and not gettin it the way i want it.
I would never ever, buy a tundra, or anything from overseas, but dodge is looking alright lately.

Also, my dads '06 3/4 ton's dash didnt make it past 20k miles before the speedo read 100MPH while driving about 20MPH.
What wrong with mechanical gauges?
 
if u do go ford dont buy an 07-09 diesel truck they are crap. im not sure about the 10' model though, but they got their own hotline at ford. we're just a small shop and we tow em in all the time for the insurance company. my neighbor got his lemon lawed, i was quite surpised ford payed for the truck, and everything he had done to it, the plow, salter, business decals, bedliner, the tires, and a couple of other things.
 
I had some issues with my daily driver (2001 Pontiac) corroding around the bead on the alloy wheels. (Northeastern winters didn't help it any.) They basically lost a few pounds of pressure every day until I got the problem addressed. Fortunately...the car actually has an air compressor in the trunk, so I could take care of it on the go.

Basically...I was told that it wasn't uncommon with certain alloy wheels on many cars. It's really not unique to G.M. - although, yeah...it's a bit inconvenient. I actually did two things - when it came time to get new tires, I upgraded. I put on Pirelli PZero Nero (M+S) tires. I did the research on TireRack.com and found that they were actually a few dollars less than the recommended OEM tires, and pretty much blew them out of the water in every category. I even DID manage to damage one once, and I was amazed at how well it held up. (It never ruptured...it just had a little bit of a gash in one of the sidewalls.) So was the tire guy at the shop I dealt with - they looked at my funny when I told them to order those, since they don't normally carry them. Also - make darn sure they grind off all of the corrosion from the inner part of your wheels before they put the tires back on.

The other part was using that as an opportunity to fill my tires with nitrogen...and keeping them that way. Absolutely no more moisture in there to help the corrosion along.

When I was the car, I always make sure to rinse around the bead really well - especially when it was out in the northeastern winters getting blasted with salt all of the time.

I did that about 2 or 3 years ago, and I haven't had a single issue with any of that kind of stuff since then. YMMV, but it seemed to work well on mine. (I still have the Pontiac...it's at 130k and climbing with no trouble. The most I spent on it in the last year was for a transmission flush.)
 
i completely agree that they are not what they once were i think that all their practical vehicles that sombody in this economy would buy are crap and their super expensive ones are not too far from that. the only gm vehicle i would consider these days is the kodiak and before that i woulnt buy anything made past 2000. ive got a 96 s10 that has been totalled twice and has over 200 thousand on bone stock not rebuilt engine or tranny. and my blazer has has 200 thousand as well with stock everything but tranny. general motors is just not what they once were. i just didnt think judging tire wear was a good reason to put down a company. not that i didnt agree lol
 
Also - Google that intermediate steering shaft problem. It's ridiculously easy to address that yourself. Takes about 30 minutes and a 10-15 dollar lube kit from GM. There are a few sites out there that have painfully detailed step by step instructions for it, complete with pictures.

I've heard you can ghetto fix it with some occasional shots of a lithium grease spray the the trouble spot too. I haven't had to, but I would think it would work for a little while - and it would take about 5 or 10 minutes to do that, at most.

My car had that problem once while it was still under warranty. (it's very common). I helped a friend diagnose and fix his when I started acting up. (It does not feel like that's what it would be in the steering, so unless you are familiar with that problem, it's a little weird.)

Edit: I looked up the intermediate steering shaft page I had mentioned above. It's here.
 
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When I have to deal with the intermediate steering shaft out of warranty I will lube it myself. Some people can't crawl under a car and fix something like this. GM has known about this problem since around 2000, and I would have thought in that time they could have re-engineered the part to deal with the problem or at least make it easier to lube. One of my co-workers said the dealer he went to wanted almost $400.00 to fix his truck. Maybe that's just a case of one dealer ripping someone off, but even if it was only $100.00, that's a lot for something that might need to be fixed every 15-20 thousand miles.
 
Just to pile on.

I wrote about my former DD a 2003 2500 Silverado crew. Three months after I got it I had installed a 4 inch lift so I could fit 33" tires. The truck was perfect for FOUR years of street and highway. I racked up soem decent mileage, 79,000 miles by 2007. I suddenly started to have ABS issues. No one could figure out the problem or a fix ( repeated trips to dealership). Finally it turned out to be a issue with the ground wire and corrosion. It was something I had to fix every two months or so, ok, pain in the ass but not a deal breaker. Last Febuary I have a christmas tree of warning lights go off, 4x4, ABS, check engine, etc. I took it back to the dealer, they blamed the lift. I fought with GM, and really got nowhere. In the end I will NEVER buy a new GM product ever again. They have Sh*t support and don't care about the customer after he buys.
 
the sad thing is, GM could make such friggin awesome cars. the engineers show they have the right stuff when you look at the engines they crank out. From the ZR2's supercharged 6.2L V8 all the way down to the 2.0T Ecotec, I mean 260hp and 260ftlbs of torque from 2.0L and still getting 30+mpg on the highway???? GM engines are awesome. Hell the new 2010 camaro V6 puts out 300hp and is supposed to get high 20's (29) on the highway. Thats none to shabby in a car that weighs 3600-4000lbs.

The problem is the bean counters, and the fact that everyone knows, dealerships and car companies dont make money on the sale of the car, the bread and butter is in maintanence, so in our current world of disposable made in china consumer economics, cars have been designed by the bean counters to require frequent repairs, because nowadays its considered normal. people dont fix things aymore, they replace them, most buyers i deal with at the dealership i now work at lease because they "get bored" with their car every three years or so, so they get rid of it and get another. even cars have become disposable, and thus the quality has dropped. I still see Model T's on the road every once in a while, be interesting to find out if there are any 2000 chevy impalas on the road 50 years from now. why do you think so many old people are still driving their cars from the 70's? because they know whats available today is crap.

It breaks my heart, but theres a reason im selling my IROC to pay off the loan on my TDI jetta, and why i quit my job working at Chevy and am now selling VW's. The Blazer isnt going anywhere though ;)
 
My dad had a 00' s-10 4x4. In the past 3 years he had to replace 4 front Driver side wheel bearings, the fuel pump, water pump, and the third door wont open. He had the truck at the dealer about once a month for a noise that was coming from the third door and they would just slap some tape on the linkage to silence the noise and send him on his way. Fuel pumps and water pumps go out I understand that one. But the wheel bearing problem I dont understand. Now there is a new problem, he was driving down here to Des Moines from WI and just as he goes to pull off I235 he hears a loud pop and some fast ticking like a blown bearing or a separated splined shaft would make. So he takes it to a mechanic around the block and asked him to take a look at it. Low and behold now it needs a new pass wheel bearing, and the diff has no fluid in it. So i had to trailer him 6 hours back to WI. He ended up trading it in for a 09' Silverado.
 
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