Posted on 11/26/2008 7:02:07 AM PST by yankeedame
GM's current precarious situation didn't come about overnight. There are arguments to be made that various government regulations led to the disaster and that management can't escape much of the blame, and there are plenty who contend it was a series of disastrous union labor contracts that have put the company at risk. But there's one thing everyone agrees on: Over the past few decades GM put some truly terrible products out on the market. Unreliable, uninteresting and flat ugly, these were cars that simply destroyed GM's reputation....
1. 1971-1977 Chevrolet Vega
Legend has it that when Chevrolet Division Manager John DeLorean went to the GM Proving Grounds to get his first look at a prototype of the new 1971 Chevrolet Vega, the front of the car literally fell off onto the ground. But that bad omen didn't keep DeLorean from putting the Vega on the market.
Responding to increased import sales, the Vega showed up at the same time as Ford's similarly ill-fated Pinto. Both were relatively conventional cars by Detroit standards, with their four-cylinder engines in front sending power back to a solid rear axle. In fact, the only innovative thing on the Vega was the all-aluminum block around which its 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine was constructed.
Unfortunately, the art of building aluminum engine blocks was in its infancy back in 1971 and the unlined cylinder walls of Vega engines were scoring almost instantly. That led to lots of oil burned and early death for this engine. Throw in haphazard build quality and sheetmetal that you could practically hear rusting away, and the Vega truly rates as one of GM's great debacles.
But the Vega was actually a sales success. Chevy sold nearly 268,000 during the 1971 model year, over 390,000 during 1972, almost 396,000 during 1973, and over 450,000 during 1974 (sales finally collapsed during the 1975 model year). After all, its mini-Camaro looks were handsome and in an era of fuel shortages it was pretty stingy on gas. Plus, back then there were millions of buyers who insisted on buying only American products. But ultimately that meant there were just that many more people disappointed by the Vega. By the mid-1980s, Vegas were being junked so aggressively that some salvage yards in Southern California had signs up saying they wouldn't accept any more. When even the junkyard won't take a car, that's trouble
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2. 1980-1985 X-Cars
It's hard to imagine the hoopla that surrounded the introduction of the all-new 1980 Buick Skylark, Chevrolet Citation, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix in April of 1979. These four awkwardly proportioned "X-Body" front-drivers directly replaced GM's rear-drive compacts (of which the Chevy Nova was the most prominent) and promised a revolution in how the corporation designed and built cars. Chevy alone sold an incredible 811,540 Citations during that prolonged 1980 model year based on that promise. Unfortunately, the reality was that these four- and six-cylinder cars probably suffered more recalls and endemic problems than any other GM vehicle program.
The problem wasn't so much the basic engineering of the X-Body cars as it was that no one apparently spent any time doing the detailed engineering that determines a car's success. So customers complained of disintegrating transmissions, suspension systems that seemed to wobble on their own mounts, and brakes that would make the whole car shudder every time they were applied. There were so many niggling faults and a seemingly endless series of recalls that sales of the car almost tanked by its third year. Still, through 1985, a few million escaped to the public, souring hundreds of thousands on GM.
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3. 1976-1987 Chevrolet Chevette
The Chevrolet Chevette was already outdated when it appeared in 1976. Based on GM's "T" platform, it was a primitive, front-engine, rear-drive subcompact in a small-car world that was busy being revolutionized by front-drive cars such as the Honda Civic and Accord, Volkswagen Rabbit and Ford Fiesta. It was underpowered too, originally being offered with a 1.4-liter Four making 53 hp or a 1.6-liter version of the same engine rated at 70 hp.
Chevrolet saved itself a lot of development time and money by picking up the Chevette design from GM Brazil. The Georgia-built small car was a solid sales success too, selling almost 450,000 units in 1980 alone. But it was always a car that sold strictly on price, with no real virtues of its own. And it was a huge help to Chevrolet in sneaking in under the federally mandated CAFE standards. But it also meant that for 11 years GM didn't bother developing an advanced small car specifically for the American market.
In fact, when it finally came time to replace the Chevette in 1987, what Chevrolet did was create the "Geo" sub-brand and put redecorated Isuzus and Suzukis onto the Chevette's bottom rung on the model ladder. In truth, Chevrolet has never had a homegrown vehicle in this subcompact segment since the Chevette died, and that could be one of the company's greatest missteps of all.
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4. 1982-1988 Cadillac Cimarron
There's nothing wrong with the idea of a smaller, more athletic Cadillac. But it was a terrible idea to rebadge the Chevrolet Cavalier and attempt to pawn it off as a true Cadillac.
The compact J-Car program was already well under development at GM by the time Cadillac decided it wanted a version of its own. With little time on its hands and no desire to spend much money, what they came up with was a Cavalier with a different grille, a slightly modified interior and some hydraulic dampers between the body and front subframe. Otherwise, the 1982 Cimarron was powered by the same 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine as the Cavalier, backed by either a four-speed manual or three-speed automatic transmission.
Cadillac tried to sell the Cimarron as a domestic alternative to cars like the BMW 3 Series—that was just pathetic. Not surprisingly, practically no one fell for it and the Cimarron never sold well. But to many people, this proved that GM at the time had little regard for the storied and significant Cadillac brand.
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5. 1991-1995 Saturns
Saturn was GM's attempt at a do-over. Starting with a fresh plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and a fresh labor agreement in that location with the UAW, the idea was that GM would create a fresh dealer network that would sell fresh new products in a refreshingly straightforward manner. It didn't quite work out that way.
Actually GM did a rather good job of setting up the plant, dealers and "no haggle" sales schemes - Saturn buyers really did seem to enjoy shopping at and buying from Saturn dealers.
But Saturn's cars were thoroughly mediocre. Built around a steel space-frame with plastic body panels bolted on, there were gaps between the panels big enough to stick a hand through. Yes, the plastic panels were resistant to collision damage, but they discolored and faded quickly, and as they aged, they cracked. Beyond that, the first Saturns had four-cylinder engines that sounded like threshing machines but didn't make a lot of power. These cars were nothing special in either handling or looks, and they were neither particularly space- nor fuel-efficient. At least they weren't unreliable. But Saturn's cars were simply no match for competition from Honda, Toyota, Mazda and a half-dozen others.
So GM, which got so much right when launching Saturn in 1990, blew the opportunity to build a new, loyal customer base by not getting the product right.
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6. 2001-2005 Pontiac Aztek
When Pontiac introduced the Aztek crossover vehicle for 2001, it was actually getting a jump on a new market. Unfortunately, however, the Aztek was just about the ugliest thing anyone could remember being unleashed on America's roads since the 1958 Edsel. No, that's not fair — the Edsel was way better looking than the Aztek.
Pontiac had shown the Aztek in concept form back in 1999 and, generally speaking, the reviews were excellent. But while engineering the concept vehicle as a production machine, GM took an incredible wrong turn: the corporation decided to base the new Aztek on the existing platform of its front-drive minivans. And because the minivans had certain dimensions that would be expensive to change, the Aztek wound up with some of the most awkward dimensions imaginable. For instance, the minivans' tall firewall and resulting high cowl worked fine on those plain boxes, but left the Aztek appearing tall, narrow and oddly fragile.
Compounding the mistake of was the Aztek's horrid shape, and the whole thing was covered in awful, gray plastic cladding. Hideous.
In its defense, the Aztek was roomy and versatile and had solid, easygoing road manners. But that was nowhere near enough to compete with the Japanese crossovers.
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7. 1978-1985 Oldsmobile Diesel V-8s
From the late 1970s and into the early '80s, Oldsmobile sold the most popular car in America: the Cutlass. Olds was on a sales roll; it seemed nothing would be able to stop the division. Then came the Oldsmobile diesels, and stopping is exactly what they did best.
Instead of designing a new series of diesel engines from scratch, GM decided to base its new diesel V8 architecture on the existing gasoline Oldsmobile 5.7-liter V8's. Of course the modifications were extensive in order to handle the 22.5:1 compression ratio of diesel operation—much stouter iron block, new cylinder heads, reinforced bottom end—but it was still a series of modifications rather than a clean-sheet design. Soon after the 5.7-liter diesel V8 debuted in Oldsmobile full-size 88 and 98 models (during 1978), the engines started tearing themselves apart.
That extreme fragility was despite the fact that the 5.7-liter diesel option cost between $800 and $1000 extra per car and only made a puny 120 hp and a stingy 220 lb-ft of peak torque at 1600 rpm. In short, these engines were awful. But the 4.3-liter version of the diesel V8 was even worse—rated at only 90 hp, it was somehow even more fragile.
The diesel V8s (and a short-lived diesel V6) were eventually offered throughout most of the Oldsmobile line and spread to the other vehicle divisions as well. And when the engines inevitably blew up, the cars they were in would either head to an early death in a junkyard or have a more reasonable powerplant swapped in.
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8. 1981-1984 Cadillac V-8-6-4
There was nothing wrong with the theory behind GM's attempt to turn Cadillac's throttle-body injected 6.0-liter V-8 into an economy engine during the 1981 model year. The technology was called "Modulated Displacement" back then, and the idea was that as engine load decreased, fewer cylinders in the engine would actually be fired to produce power. In other words, at full throttle, the "V-8-6-4" was a V8, as it reached speed it became a V6 and when cruising it was a V4. That was the theory; in reality, most of the time these engines were just broken. Conceptually it's almost identical to what GM is selling today as Active Fuel Management on some V8s.
The old Modulated Displacement system worked by altering the rocker-arm fulcrum so that intake and exhaust valves on particular cylinders were held shut by their springs. Unfortunately the solenoids and primitive electronics that were supposed to make this work rarely worked themselves. And even when the V-8-6-4 was running on all eight cylinders it was only making a laughable 140 hp.
Even though GM abandoned the V-8-6-4 in everything except limousines after just one year, the damage was done. Here was one more half-developed, cynically marketed technology that GM just couldn't make work.
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9. 2003-Present Hummer H2
Going strictly on functionality, the Hummer H2 is a capable machine. It's very good off-road, it rides reasonably well on-road, it's plenty powerful enough, can tow a lot, and will hold a few people and a lot of their stuff. And since it's based on the same platform as GM's full-size SUVs, the corporation makes a lot of profit on every one it sells. Function, however, isn't the H2's problem.
The problem with the H2 is that it's proudly politically incorrect in an era when the forces of political correctness are winning. The H2 gets crummy fuel mileage, its looks come straight out of the military at a time while the military is fighting an unpopular war, and it's freaking huge. Some people may actually like peeving off their neighbors by being rebellious in their vehicle choice, but an antisocial image is tougher for a large corporation to pull off.
GM was introducing the H2 (and establishing Hummer dealerships) at just about the same time that Toyota was taking the green-tech high ground with vehicles like the Prius and other hybrids. The H2 came to embody GM's presumed environmental callousness and the environmentalist fringe was vandalizing both Hummer dealerships and random civilian-owned vehicles. But worst of all for GM, when gas crested past $3 a gallon, the H2's sales cratered and they haven't recovered.
The Hummer H2 is a self-inflicted headache GM doesn't need.
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10. 1997-1999 EV1
Even today, the two-seat GM EV1 remains one of the best-engineered, best-working pure electric vehicles ever released to the public. With clever engineering throughout its aluminum structure, an incredibly aerodynamic body and a whole bunch of lead-acid batteries, the first-generation EV1 was able to go maybe 75 miles if driven with extreme care. The second-generation EV1 with nickel-metal-hydride batteries upped that range to about 150 miles.
The problem with the EV1 was that it was almost impossible to drive in traffic with anything approaching the ideal technique the car needed to stretch its range. So its real world range was often down around 40 miles and driving it was often a white-knuckle thrill ride as the driver tried to stretch out every last electron to make it to a charging station.
GM built the EV1 to satisfy a mandate from the state of California that 2 percent of a manufacturer's fleet sold there be zero-emissions vehicles (that number would rise to 10 percent by 2003). However, the EV1 and electric vehicles built by other manufacturers finally convinced the California Air Resources Board that the zero-emissions mandates weren't achievable by then-current technology. This led to the cancellation of the mandate.
So GM canceled the EV1, and when the leases on the 1117 it had produced ran out,GM took them back and crushed them. To the committed environmentalists who had leased one, that was completely unacceptable. And suddenly the world was full of conspiracy theories about why GM "killed" the electric car (see the movie clip below). If the Hummer H2 makes GM seem callous toward the environment, the way GM handled the EV1 makes the company seem downright hostile. It's been a public relations nightmare.
However, the experience GM gained by producing the EV1 may pay off in the long run as many lessons learned with that car are being ported over to the new 2011 Chevrolet Volt.
Sometimes even the darkest clouds can have shiny silver linings.
having owned three Citations and still owe one 1985 x-11 citation! They were not a bad car and the flaws were easy to repair! Most basic fwd a-body cars parts will work fine on a citation!
Ohhh, maybe that was it. It was just messed up.
Heck, I don’t know. I just know we had to run the heat when the thermostat went bad. And my ex-husband isn’t around for me to ask. This was in 1993.
Not THAT ugly , and it didn't begin to rust out as soon as you drove it off the dealer's lot . 1974 Honda Civic .
I had one! V-8 four on the floor. Had to pull the engine to change spark plugs.
Not always correct. If the water flows too fast, it doesn't do the heat exchange and it runs hotter. If you're going to remove your thermostat, rip out its guts but keep the copper ring part to kind of restrict the flow. Learned this on a Vega.
Leave the thermostat out of your RX7 and life just got expensive.
You know it's bad news when the temp goes from normal to pegged in seconds that you've got problems. With a Vega, it's a blown head gasket.
In thirty-eight years of designing heat exchangers, that part about more water flow is a new one. It doesn’t matter if the heat comes from an internal combustion engine or a gas burner in a building’s hot water heating system; if the water flow goes up, the water temperature coming out of the heat source goes down. There must be another explanation.
The water pump might be cavitating, meaning that the pump suction causes the water to vaporize completely or partly, and water flow is actually decreased. There might be another cause. Did anyone ever look inside a molded lower radiator hose? Did anyone notice the coil of wire inside? That coil of wire prevents the hose from collapsing due to pump suction. If the pump is attempting to move too much water, the suction pressure may be high enough to partially collapse the hose enough to restrict water flow. Corrugated after market hoses do not have the wire, but they will collapse.
If your car without a thermostat does not overheat while it is idling, and gets hot at higher speeds, pump cavitation or a collapsing hose is probably what is happening. Basically, something is causing low water flow.
Chevy Monza.
With that argument; it looks like it's time to buy a Hummer!
Saturn: Cars for people who hate cars.
GM REALLY dropped the ball with them. The amount of money thrown down the crapper in developement could have bought Toyota OUTRIGHT.
Then they drop tho oldest, most storied brand in their stable to keep that pile of everybody else’s worst ideas?
GM deserves to die. They’re too stupid to live.
I’m old enough to clearly remember and experience these debacles from GM.
The whole decade of the 1980s was a styling nightmare—boxes, boxes and more boxes.
And any GM car was a 60,000 mile car. At 60,000 miles, every conceivable part of the car starting going.
I remember touring a GM plant in Linden NJ in the spring of 1978. They were building the Caddy Eldorado, Olds Toronado, and the Buick Riviera—all on the same line, just changing the badging and other minor changes.
The big surprise came at the end of the line. One third of the cars failed to start, right off the production line. They were pushed to a 20 bay work area where mechanics labored to get the cars to start. Once started—out the door for delivery.
And these were the expensive, top of the line GM cars!
By 1986, I had enough of GM, and sold my last owned GM car.
I bought Chrysler minivans since then, and had one go 249,000 miles, and another is at 133,000 miles.
Had some Ford T-Birds which surprised me—they were very reliable cars. My last T-Bird just gave up the ghost after 15 years and 180,000 miles.
This article is very good for younger Freepers—we have had a lot of crap from GM for a long time. For the last thirty years, the Consumer Reports annual ratings for new and used GM products caused a run on black ink. They have not approached the Japanese in quality even though they have been making cars since 1903.
The thermostat opens when the engine gets up to temperature.
A stuck thermostat remains closed, preventing the coolant from flowing to the radiator, where the airflow cools it.
No thermostat means that the engine never gets to operating temperature, and because the coolant is flowing so fast past everything, it can actually cause hot spots to develop and the engine to fail.
You got lucky.
I like your handle and your tagline.
The '78 Malibus were beautiful cars for their time. In late 1977 my friend wanted a Ford Mustang II in the worst way. I told him it was a crap car, with a horrible repair record.And a zero as far as being a chick magnet.
I convinced him to consider the '78 Malibu with its fresh style, more room, more power.
Long story, short: he bought the car, got a girl, got married, had the car over ten years.
The car lasted longer than his marriage!
The '78 El Camino is a beautiful vehicle. Wonder how much that curved rear window glass goes for?
OMG, that line was hysterical!!!!
All I could hear was buzzt,buzzt,buzzt, with a few "Oh, Sh#t!"s in between.
Thanks for the belly laugh.
The Ford F-150 is the best selling vehicle in American history. One of the best vehicles I've ever owned.
A neighbor has an old F-150, uses it for work, with almost 750,000 miles on it, on it's 2nd or motor, and he drives it daily. What is surprising is how clean he has kept it.
My wife and I had a Chevette when we got married. I bought a bumper sticker for it that said: "0 TO 60 IN 5 MILES". The worst part is that it was not at all far from the truth.
My girlfriend had a Chevette, we were climbing a long hill between Phoenix and Flagstaff and by the time we got near the top we were going very slow...a rabbit hopped by on the side of the road and we laughed so hard- the rabbit outran her car!!!
I have owned the following: 1980 AMC Spirit (basically replaced the Gremlin - made from parts from the big three), replaced with a 1986 Plymouth Colt GTS Turbo (pocket rocket), replaced with a 1986 Mercury Lynx XR3. Followed by 1986 Pontiac Bonneville SSE (replaced two transmissions and it rusted out). Then purchased a 1993 Saturn SL2 followed by a 1996 Saturn SL2. Then in 1998, test drove a 1998 Toyota Camry LE V6. I never again owned an American car. Followed up with a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer, and now drive a 2006 Hyundai Azera Limited, which is the best car I have ever owned. GM lost me with the transmission issues on a flagship car (top of the line Pontiac). Our family vehicle is a Toyota Sienna which replaced a Honda Odyssey, which replaced a Dodge Caravan. The Sienna is awesome. Looking for a 2009 Sequoia now. I will not buy another GM. Nor a Chrysler. Might consider Ford - like an Expedition maybe. I am told the quality of the Big Three is better now - but still not quite up to Asian automakers. Patriotism only goes so far - I don’t feel guilty about it. My family (parents, siblings) all drive American and will never buy a “rice burner”. I laugh when they complain about having to fix this and that. Meanwhile, I drive my 100,000 mile warrantied Hyundai and love it.
I used to have to take my chevette on a short hop on the highway frequently. When tractor trailers would go by I would have to fight like hell to keep from being blown off the road. That was when it ran...in between frequent clutch and brake jobs.
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