Well, I had a 1990 Chevy S10 Pickup. It ran like a champ. The 4.3 Liter engine was a rocket and the price was decent. I had it for 14 years, and finally had to get rid of it after it started shedding body parts and the radio conked out.
My buddy has aToyota Tundra. It is a good truck, but not as well build as Chevy,s trucks. It has a bunch of noises and for some reason eats brakes.
I Love Chevy trucks.
I swore off GM after my horrible experience with the Buick, the car was not even 6 months old when I had transmission problems with it. It was all downhill after that, it started burning too much oil,etc,., eventually it got to the point where we were making payments to the mechanic almost every month. Maybe the trucks are better built, but we're not interested in buying any pick up trucks.
I drive a Ford truck and it's my second one. They have annoying little problems but seem to last pretty well. This is going to sound stupid but I don't understand why GM puts GMAC on the front of their trucks rather than a symbol. GMAC on the front just looks cheesy to me.
I've have two theories -
1. Short term accounting which gives design managers incentives to cut a couple of hundred dollars off the "little things" which saves money now but leads to bigger repair bills and shorter lives, thus giving the cars bad reputations and fewer repeat buyers. By then the manager has been promoted and it isn't his problem any more.
2. Too many name brands which leads to artificial quality reductions on the lower end. The Caddy has to be better than the Olds which has to be better than the Buick which has to be better than the Pontiac which has to be better than the Chevy. One way to do this (other than the obvious size and features) is to just build the lower name brands at a lower quality standard than the higher brands. GM doesn't want people buying Chevies because they are just as good as a Cadillac. I'm glad GM is dumping some of the brands so they don't have nearly as many steps down from the Cadillac to the Chevrolet.
I was (and still am somewhat) worried for the Japanese makers starting to separate their luxury brands from their standard brands, although this might be not be done so much because the non-luxury brand is the main company named brand. If they start coming up with lower end brands with a separate nameplate from their parent company, watch the quality on them drop.
Note, neither of these theories have anything to do with unionization. The average union worker is just as willing and able to put on a 10 cent seal as a 1 dollar seal, even if the 10 cent seal will last three years less time. That parts choice is entirely management's decision.
I agree that Detroit knows how to build trucks an d SUVs but when it comes to cars Japan has us beat.
I agree with you on Chevy Trucks and Chevy in general. The quality in General Motors and Ford has risen, since the early 80's. I think it is on par with the Japs any day of the week.
Yeah, I've got a Ford truck and I always thought full-size American trucks were better ... but, now, that new full-size Tundra is certainly worth a second look.