GM cars are notorious for (sometimes) developing strange problems that would have you think they are possessed with the devil. (Despite post-1990 GM cars being near peers to Japanese cars for reliability overall)
I learned a lot of things from my father. Unfortunately a lot of them were what not to do. Don’t buy cheap tools that you’ll have to replace three times in the lifespan of one that costs 50% more. And don’t buy GM.
Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
And there is absolutely no forgiveness in my soul for the Chevy Citation. I joked when I moved to Seattle that the main problem is since there is no salt, there are still Citations on the road and that is unnatural. Their place in the natural order is the junk yard.
After owning my 1988 Chevrolet Beretta for about a year, the paint came off in one big sheet one morning when I was brushing a light dusting of snow off with my wool toque.
The first call to GM revealed that it was the acid rain (acid rain in the 1980s was what global warming is today -- the cause of all evil). Exposing my car to rain voided the warranty.
The second call to GM revealed that ultraviolet light destroyed the bond between the paint and the primer. Exposing my car to sunlight voided the warranty.
I spent hours researching this issue through the trade mags and published court filings. Plenty of legal findings about implied warranties of fitness for purpose. Evidently GM had an unpublished policy that it would pay the cost of a repaint to dealers for this situation, and the dealer was expected to provide the work for free.
Of course, the greasy grin of the dealer as he quoted full price while knowing he would collect the same from GM was enough to make me drive the car with no paint for the next 10 years so everyone could see, and recommend nobody purchase any GM product ever again.
I'll say this though: that primer sure prevented rust.
I wonder if the irony of the situation is that some chemical engineer invented a new primer that sticks to metal extremely well and it turned out that it may stick to metal like glue but it doesn’t stick to paint as well as the old stuff.
But based on what peeled, I’d say thermal expansion or UV damage were involved. The former could still be the primer’s “fault”.
>I joked when I moved to Seattle that the main problem is since there is no salt, there are still Citations on the road and that is unnatural. Their place in the natural order is the junk yard.
This was the fate of many British Leyland cars, even the ones that people genuinely liked such as as the classic Mini and the MGB were practically hygroscopic.
I will say I was somewhat delighted by the number of good looking mustangs and british roadsters there were. And so many Beetles. My roadster had a little too much bondo for my liking.
I didn't realize the Countryman was bigger than a midsized sedan until I parked next to one the other day. Walking back to my car something seemed off. Wait, that's a Mini??
None of the 'Mini's' are Mini. They're just BMW that bought the brand and builds cars loosely inspired on the original, with sizes ranging from 1.25 times the original all the way up to definitely non-Mini crossovers. Our company had one of the smaller ones as a lease car and even though it drove ok'ish it definitely didn't feel or drive like a small car. It was a way for BMW to appeal more to women (with that demographic BMW never really caught on) who loved the original Mini to bits. And then wealthy women want a larger but still trendy car.
BMW is hyper aggressive about the brand, including going after each and every use of the brand for the original cars, even when used in the context of spare parts.
I think about eight, ten years ago they stopped being mini when collision safety laws changed. They had to raise the hood for pedestrian safety (hitting legs and spinning heads into the windshield is not allowed) and raise the door height for side impact safety. The whole car got normal sized because of it and then they just kinda said fuck it.
Of course there are: "a mention of a praiseworthy act or achievement in an official report, especially that of a member of the armed forces in wartime" Don't focus on the North American usage of "a traffic citation". Citation is almost a contranym, which is a word that has at least two meanings that are opposites of each other, i.e. bolt, bound, buckle, cleave, clip, consult, ...
I think it's funny how GM came out with the "Cavalier" to compete with Honda's "Civic". Or that matter, there was a Chevy Cobalt (e.g. a "Kobold" is a demon that causes mine accidents) or an AMC Gremlin.
Sure, the name is derived from "kobold", but that's like saying you should never call anything good "terrific", because it derives from the root "terror". Etymology isn't destiny.
> The statement refers to a popular anecdote in international business and marketing about a supposed blunder made by American automaker Chevrolet with the car model, "Nova."
> According to the story, when Chevrolet tried to market the Nova in Spanish-speaking countries, the car reportedly did not sell well because in Spanish, "no va" translates to "doesn't go". This led people to joke that a car named "doesn't go" wouldn’t be a popular choice.
> However, it's important to note that this is largely a myth. In reality, the Chevrolet Nova was relatively successful in Spanish-speaking markets. "Nova" as a word is understood to mean "new star" in Spanish, and it's unlikely Spanish speakers would naturally break up the term into "no" and "va", just like English speakers wouldn't naturally break up "notable" into "no" and "table".
> But the story remains popular as a cautionary tale of the consequences of not considering linguistic and cultural differences when naming products for international markets.
Technically Chevrolet did but the entire thought process for that vehicle was questionable so the name is IMO a harbinger. This is not a place of honor.
A few other GM vehicles have this issue, Chevy in particular. A well known example is the market failure of calling a car Nova (No-Va) in South America.
You know, I've heard that rebuttal, but I've been told this anecdote of the car's notoriety by family members from Columbia and more recently from a friend from Argentina. So perhaps "no va" and "Nova" are pronounced differently, and perhaps the car did sell well, but the Spanish-speaking peoples most certainly did find the term "no va" in the car's name.
You should know what they say about the Mitsubishi Pajero, too!
Sure, we have these in my language as well. For instance, the car Kia should be written like "vomit" - so we have a convoluted spelling and say the name slightly wrong to distance the word from "vomit". But it's still clear to everybody how the name should be pronounced and spelled.
Doesn't seem to affect sales, though, probably like the Chevy Nova. Those Kia are everywhere.
> Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
Could be an older component stopped being available. Like when Apple switched to environmentally friendly lead free solder, but then the NVidia laptop GPUs got so hot they unsoldered themselves.
> 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
Dodge Ram Trucks had exactly the same problem. I also have no idea how two different companies with 100 years of history simply forgot how to paint cars.
i learned that these things typically are grounding issues. it usually came down to a single source of ground being a loose connection which is why it was intermittent. as a personal anecdote to this, as a first car as a teenager, i drove a GM/Chevy S-10 that one day started to have issues where all of the gauges on the dash would just go crazy and the lights would go on and off, and then suddenly just start working again. after taking it to the shop my dad recommended, a mechanic walked out to greet me. after i told him the symptoms, he stepped back to look at the truck model, asked me to confirm the year model. he promptly opened the driver side door, reached under the dash, located a specific screw, hand tightened it as a test, and everything worked. he came back with a screw driver to properly tighten in before sending me on my way free of charge. he told me that specific model was notorious for the screw holding the ground wire to come loose. it would cost him more in time to write up a sales slip to charge me.
I think independent mechanics tend to opt for earning goodwill in this situation rather than charging fair value for a quick and easy fix. Objectively, he provided more value than someone who might have spent several hours of troubleshooting time, but customers don’t necessarily think logically about it. So it ends up being better for the mechanic to earn that goodwill rather than appear “greedy”.
Some do the freebies because that’s who they are, and the free publicity is just a secondary effect. Some do the freebie because they know the publicity as the primary reason. I feel like this experience was the former.
> Despite post-1990 GM cars being near peers to Japanese cars for reliability overall
American carmakers really needed that kick in the ass from Japan. Around 1990 was when my parents went from being protectionist, "buy American" to never buying another domestic car again in their lives. They were angry, angry at the reliability difference and angry knowing that domestic carmakers could have done better but instead relied on people like them to buy the flag.
I had a 1989 Chrysler LeBaron that developed insane electrical issues. Windshield wipers would randomly turn on, the radio would change stations by itself. It really did seem possessed.
When I was a kid my (not wealthy) family had a Lincoln Towncar that was probably purchased used and fixed up and it ended up with some freaky electrical problems like you describe- most notably (because it freaked me out as a small child) I remember the automatic door locks would start locking/unlocking themselves rapidly, and they were big chunky metal switches that pop up and down and made an awful sound when this happened
I dunno. When my son needed a car to get to work we found a 1996 Buick Park Avenue in almost perfect condition at 100,000 miles. He didn't like the look of modern cars, didn't want a touchscreen, besides a 2010 Japanese car can cost almost new prices and they wanted $9k for a Chevy Sonic with 180,000 miles (didn't know they went that far!)
Granted the traction control and anti-lock brakes occasionally fail to boot up, but it seems to be a pretty good car, but it was close to the top of the line. Gets 27 mpg which is not bad for a big ass car. I like how it has a lot of the feel of a 1970s boat but it has airbags, OBD II and most of the good features of a modern car... And we didn't need to get a loan to afford it. Driving home though I was looking in the mirror and seeing it dwarfed by today's XXL trucks and SUVs.
I mean...it's possible they've improved a lot compared to where they were 30+ years ago, but to call GM's cars "near peers to Japanese cars for reliability" just doesn't hold up.
On Consumer Reports' list of car brands by reliability[0], none of GM's brands even crack the top 10. GMC and Chevy are 20 and 21, respectively, out of 25 brands. (The top 5 include, unsurprisingly, Toyota, Lexus, and Honda—your classic reliable Japanese brands.)
