I miss my 78 El Camino. I traded it in for a New Honda Accord in 84 which was a great car as well. Should have kept the El Cam and restored it.
Posted on 11/26/2008 7:02:07 AM PST by yankeedame
In the past, GM vehicles typically had problems with electical components after 40k miles. Ford’s weak spot was usually the transmission at 60K. I swore off (and at) both many years ago.
You know I had three of those Chevettes, which I bought for 500 bucks or so each used and I came to know it so well from the work that had to be done on them that I came to have a perverse affection for them, although some features of the design, such as the placement of the A/C compressor, were quite stupid.
The vehicle that put me over the edge about GM is also one I kept when I bought a new Hyundai in April-my 01 Aztek. It had all the usual Aztek failures, and yeah it’s ugly, but you never had to look at it while driving it and it is versitile and fairly frugal. My beef with GM was a transmission that died early at 60K and the attitude at GM customer service about it. I’d have been happy if they’d have gone 50/50 with me but they weren’t interested in helping at all. The rebuilt transmission has gone twice the distance of the old one.
But here’s the probllem with GM. Over the first 3 years, the following items failed-transmission, AC, fuel sender, lower intake manifold gasket, battery, O2 sensor, rear hatch struts, body control module-and the air cleaner housing is the worst item to deal with ever. To get the Aztek I traded a Suzuki Sidekick that went 120K on gas, oil, spark plugs and one set of brake pads. And GM sold it’s stake in Suzuki....
Honestly, I love my GM Chevey Avalanche. 60,200 miles and not a single problem, used it to tow campers and sailboats, firewood, 4x4 on snow and ice, backcountry and city driving. Throw the 3x kids in the back seat after school and they’re not crowded... I’ll happily buy another one it’s been such a good work vehicle.
Very close to my own sentiments. I own a Mazda, and it's a great little car. I also own a 2001 Dodge Dakota with more than a quarter million miles on it. Of course, it was a Daimler product, so it's still running.
No matter what the big 3 do from now on, until they get rid of the UAW, I won't buy another new vehicle made by them. In fact, I'm trying to reduce my entire organized labor footprint as much as possible. The union label means it stays on the store shelf when I see it.
The first car I ever owned myself was a used Chevette back in 1981. The driver’s side floor rusted out which was a common thing to happen to Chevettes.
I “obtained” a street sign that fit perfectly where the floor panel rusted out.
bump
Great article, but it would be even better if it mentioned the other marques that GM invested-in and proceeded to damage through insane product and technology choices.
Subaru, for example. One word: Tribeca.
If there’s one thing to hope for, it’s that Detroit has learned two key lessons from the Japanese: listen to the customers, and sweat the details. They can compete when they pay attention.
My one and only GM that I ever owned was due to my wife, while shopping she found a 89 Lesabre she liked (this was around 94), all the ratings on them were fairly good, and buying american meant that mechanics knew how to work on them right???
WRONG.
The coil packs went bad, and no mechanic could seem to figure it out, they’d replace the O2 sensor, it would work a week or two and then refuse to start, only to start without a problem 1/2 an hour later.. this went on for countless tows and “fixes”. Apparently every mechanic just hooked up the code reader the reader told them o2, so they replaced the O2.. turns out NO it wasn’t the O2, it was the COIL PACKS.. and they weren’t monitored by the computer. (I finally figured this out myself by doing some online investigating and ordered a mechanic to replace them) Finally this problem solved... less than a few months later the transmission dropped at 3am while we were on a trip and over 500 miles from home with another 500 miles to go.
The car had a whopping 60,000 miles on it, and was babied more than any other car I have ever owned even to this day.
That was my one and only experience with GM, and sadly for GM and her employees it will remain my one and only experience with them. I never held them in high regard and they basically proved me correct not to. Oh and just for the record, my coworkers buick just dropped its tranny 2 months ago with 60,000 miles... his was a 96.
I’ve owned many Fords in my day and never had a one of em die on me, I’ve owned Toyotas, Mazdas, VW’s, Chryslers as well... My fords cars had their idiosyncracies but they were reliable, ford full size vehicles I have owned are beyond compare, nothing else out there comes close. If ford could get the reliability and build quality of their full size divisions into their passenger cars they’d have no issues, as long as they let their Euro division style them... Man have they missed the boat on styling for a long long time.
I am willing to own just about any brand I have owned in the past again, with the exception of the GM family. I’d love not to feel that way, but honestly I will not put my money on the line with one of their products ever again, I can’t tell you how much money I wasted on that coil pack problem, and limping a car off the interstate at 4am with your 10 day old son in the back while you are trying to get to florida because your father in law has just had a stroke is something you damned well remember the rest of your life.
60,000 miles in the shop constantly and completely babied????
I basically spent the next day buying a new car so I could get to where I needed to be, too a huge hit on the trade in, and paid an incredible amount of stupid tax for going against my better judgement and letting the Mrs. buy a GM in the first place. Lesson learned.
In defense of the engineers who designed the Vega, let’s put some blame on the hard working, scum sucking UAW members at the Lordstown, Ohio plant who sabotaged it.
As for the Chevette, yeah that’s a management problem.
Me too. What a mistake.
All the UAW workers in the world can’t fix flawed design. UAW didn’t have anythign to do with the engine being a fatally flawed construct.
Believe me I won’t defend the UAW, but the vega was destined for failure on the drawing board.
I once bought a running Chevette for $50. My friends were universal in their opinion that I was robbed. I drove that car for two (long) years. After 730 days of constant foot-to-the-floor acceleration, I think I got it up to 65 miles per hour.
Yeah, my 2 Chevy’s and Ford drove me to Nissan and I don’t know when I would trust them with a $25,000 purchase again. Especially when I see how poorly they hold their value.
My brother had a diesel chevette years ago,it got 48mpg. The only reason he got rid of it is because it got beat up so bad that the drivers door wouldn't close.
Trucks have always been the saving grace of GM. Unfortunately, they crank out alot of crap cars.
No one wants to gut our manufacturing ability for the military. But we don’t want to prop up an industry that has shown for 30 years that it doesn’t really care about it’s business practices.
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