I gotta buy a new car soon and for some reason, I just don’t wanna buy something made by “General Motors”. It just sounds to hum drum to me.
I would very much prefer to buy a car that was made by a company with a fancy or exotic name like “Super Motors” or “Fabulous Motors” or maybe even “Great Big Huge Powerful Motors”.
Know what I mean?
American Motors Corporation Gremlin. It’s all patriotic. A drawback is that insurance does not cover small monsters dismantling your car.
Don’t gas up your car after midnight.
Not in my country. Here it was just plain stupid.
I am in no way defending GM but before you damn them all to hell, you have to look at it from the car company’s point of view.
Complaint comes in to a dealer, does it get forwarded to the car company? Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the dealer doesn’t get told, as the early complaints only surface later.
Anyway the car company gets a complaint. They investigate. The question becomes is it a fault with the car, or is it a driver induced problem, or normal operation of a system?
Don’t forget drivers lie.
Examples: This weekend I am driving a 2014 Mercedes for an issue that I am sure was caused by the owner stacking about 20 elastic bead bracelets around the shifter. It isn’t the car’s fault if the shifter won’t move into D all the way because a bead bracelet got in the way.
I spoke with a customer last week that wants his new Mercedes bought back because the ABS system works they way it supposed to. :dubious: I guess Mercedes tires are supposed to never lose traction.
Anyway a lot of complaints never get a 100% sure this is what happened finding.
It is only after many occurrences that you can build a pattern and go from there. Even once you have a pattern which of the many parts in the car caused the failure and why? Why do some cars fail, yet the very next car down the assembly line hasn’t failed?
these are not easy questions to answer.
Oh, and not what you’d expect Car companies don’t always change part numbers when a part is improved. In lieu of changing part number they may go by date code or something as simple as a colored dot on the part box. They send a message to the part distribution centers/dealers that says "scrap all parts #123456 that carry a date code of 2/14 or before. Or Look at your stock, return for credit all of part number 123456 that does not have a green dot on the box.
It is easier to purge stock this way than it is to supersede numbers
Extra weight on an ignition key ring causing problems goes back decades. It’s at least as old as steering-column ignition locks, which may be why GM ignored it. Now it’s bit them in the ass.
Thank you for your reply and for the information on the part numbers. I didn’t know that.
Perhaps I was premature in pitting them. I’m okay with being wrong if it means someone didn’t make a decision to put profit before human life.
On the bright side, now that the cars have completely lost their value, there exists a golden opportunity to get a car in decent condition on the cheap. I’ll take a Cobalt SS Supercharged, if you please.
The odds of this affecting you are extremely low. This is what draws peoples’ attention, 13 deaths over a decade in cars that sold a few million copies each when 45,000 people a year die on the roads? Just take the 15 pounds of keys off your keychain (which you should never have anyway as it will eventually damage any car ignition switch) and drive your car as you did before you ever knew about any of this.