10 Cars That Damaged GM's Reputation

Thanks for that, an eye opener indeed.

 

Fun article unless you are somehow affiliated with GM.

My own thoughts as I read through the article:

Chevy Vega: There is a book written by John DeLorean about GM which included a couple of chapters on what a clusterf#ck the Vega was. The accountants were in charge of the program, not the engineers.

Chevette: I knew someone who had one of these and it was truly an awful automobile. I think the door trim was made from pressed cardboard. It was noisy and slow.

X-cars: I had a boss who bought one and he complained about it being in the shop all the time. I also drove one that was a company car and it had very weird handling characteristics as I recall.

Cadillac Cimarron: I knew someone who had one of these and we secretly ridiculed him for spending so much on a Chevy Cavilier. I also knew someone who had a Cavillier and I thought that car was a piece of crap.

Saturn: I think they are being kind of harsh on the Saturn, but there is no doubt GM dropped the ball by letting the brand languish.

Aztek: Yep, way ugly.

Olds Diesels: Thanks GM for setting diesel autos back by 20 years.

Cadillac V-4-6-8: Same as above applied to variable displacement technology.

Hummer H2: Even a joke in the off roading world. Its a Chevy Tahoe with less interior space.

EV1: What if GM would have had some of these to sell last summer when gas went to $4/gal?

 

Back in the day I remember calling it the Sh!t-ette and who in their right mind is going to pay Caddy prices for a rebadged Chevy?

If you watch the Saturn video you'll see Dad got his "sleazy dealer" experience from Oldsmobile.

Diesel had to be rolling in his grave when he saw what GM did to his invention.

A few years back I was talking with a Chevy salesman & he proudly brought up the Northstar engine in the new model. I reminded (probably educated) him that the original Northstar V8-6-4 was a complete piece of junk that ran only when it was modified to fire on all 8 cylinders.

Olds built some fine engines, damn near indestructible, but there also knew how to stink up the place.

I find the EV-1 entry contriversial but the others are right on target.

 

A very good friend of mine had one in High School as his first car. It was passed down to him after being used as the family car (5 people). Though crude, noisy, and slow; it was as reliable has an anvil. He had no mechanical problems at all and it rusted out before anything mechanical went wrong. (It was 12 years old when retired)

 

12 years old and rusted out? Not what I call reliable. The shell of a car is a pretty important component. I buy second hand Toyotas with the intention of keeping them for 14 years. I have one in my carport which is 41 years old this year and no rust, Toyota of course.

The Chevette looks a lot like a car that sold here as the Holden Gemini which was a rather primitive POS. I recall test driving a 1985 Gemini after testing a 1985 KE70 Corolla and was pretty disappointed with the Gemini. The finance manager of the Holden dealer was most upset when he kept pressing me about why I wouldn't buy the Gemini and I finally came out and told him.
"The Corolla is a much better car to drive and frankly the Gemini is a heap of sh!t and I wouldn't buy it at half the price. The only people who would buy it couldn't have driven anything but a Holden in the last 20 years." Then my wife and I got up and walked out.
I have a feeling it was a while before their mouths closed :jaw:again after that.

 

In America most cars from the 70's rusted out, even Toyotas. Anywhere they used road salt it happened even faster. Rust through was a big deal, I used to see many rusted through fenders as a kid. We had an Oldsmobile that had rust holes in the trunk.

With improved metal coatings, different road treatments and alloys in the metal this problem largely has gone away but it was nearly universal in the northeast USA.

 

Can't imagine there is a lot of salt used on the roads in the heart of Dixie, but I was wrong once before ...

When I was a very young lad my dad had a late 50s Holden which had a rust hole in the left floor you could put your foot through.

 

I'm enjoying these lists. And again, another of my past vehicles turned up - we also had an X-car: a Pontiac Phoenix that we ordered and waited 5 months for. We shouldn't have bothered. The yellow hatchback looked like the lemon it was, and 4 years later (with a failing transmission) we bailed out & traded for a 1985 Buick Century wagon. In spite of GM's famous "morning sickness" that car served me & my son for 14 years & went on to a homeless shelter in Chicago as emergency transportation.

 

Re: Rusting out before wearing out

I grew up and still live in the Sacramento area, where rust is not an issue. It is common to see vehicles from the 50's and 60's (usually pickup trucks) still used as daily drivers. Empirically, you can look around to see which of the cars on the list are left:

Vega: haven't seen one for years

X-cars: rarely see one, but see Chrysler K-cars much more often (about the same age)

Chevette: took a pic of one in Oregon last summer because I hadn't seen one in years

Cimarron: see one every once in a while, not many originally sold.

Saturns: see them everywhere, most still in good condition although I saw one yesterday that sounded like it was on its last legs. I think the water pump was about to seize from the sound of it.

Aztek: see these every once in a while, ugly lasts forever

Olds: probably all of the diesel engines were scrapped long ago. Still see the gas versions driving around, cosmetically they usually look pretty bad. Car of choice for the lowest economic groups.

Cadillac: see lots of these, in various condition from cosmetically perfect to having parts hanging off. I don't know about the V-4-6-8 engines though.

Hummer: Yeah, we got Hummers. All kinds of them.

EV1: Never see these, GM crushed them all.


The bad thing about cars not rusting out is that the ugly ones last for a long time. Remember the Datsuns (Nissan) from the 70's and 80's? Still around.

 

You seem to be completely ignoring that people tend to move. I spent my first 22 years in Michigan where plenty of road salt is used. Since then I've lived in Virginia, Tennessee, and now Alabama.

As hampdenwireless said, ALL cars from the 70's rusted out in Michigan. Until I moved south in 2000 I had never seen an early Toyota or Honda. It was considered normal for holes to start appearing around the wheel wells and rocker panels after about 5-6 years. This changed in the 80's.

My father still drives a 1991 Ford E-150 van. It has more than 300K miles now and only in the past few years has started to show some rust.

 

How could one limit the number to 10??????????

... Brad

 

That is until the Duramax came along. 6.6 is a great motor!

 

I don't think there were specific cars per se that hurt GM. I think they developed a reputation for unreliability--relative to Toyota and Honda. Ford is the only American company that has seriously battled reliability, and they are thought to be 3rd behind the two Japanese companies. No wonder they are in the best financial shape at the moment of the American companies. VW, by the way, suffered the same reliability fate with the Rabbit (remember those unreliable carburators?), and they have never recovered their US sales.

GMs other problem is they had too many models for their shrinking market, and they didn't adjust accordingly to reduce their costs. Maybe internal politics was a problem--Cadillac vs Buick, kind of like Army vs Navy, in terms of getting funding. They were spread too broadly. That will be the key to salvaging the company--it will be much smaller. How they can justify Buick at this point is beyond me. Chevy and Cadillac, along with the Truck segment, would seem to be enough.

 

So is the GM 12/71TT but you wouldn't put that in a car.

2 stroke, 12 cylinders, 71 cubic inches per cylinder and 2 turbos. 625 horsepower and enough torque to stop the rotation of the earth!

JSH, OK, I concede, people relocate. I'll also concede I lived a sheltered life. When I find a place better to live in than Adelaide I might move too. Looks like I'm here for a while.

 

Yes, it's a very good motor. Good thing Isuzu engineered it

 

I'm convinced you'd like living here too. Nothing like a brisk -42 morning to put a little spring in your step

 

Supposedly, it was a problem with Tacoma frames up until the the 90's.