GM recalls 1.5 million sedans

[SebC]

Total confindence, eh? No wonder they're going bankrupt.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/13/gm....l?iref=topnews

The possibility of engine fires has prompted General Motors to recall nearly 1.5 million passenger sedans manufactured between 1997 and 2003, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Monday.

As much as the Detroit three (especially Ford) are pimping the quality of their cars, it'll take years for them to be able to back up those claims... there's initial quality, and then there's durability. Different things.

[Phanuthier]

Cue : US-car apologists talking about how long they've had a GM, Ford, et al without having problems but thew blew a tire on a Toyota.

Its funny sometimes talking to a non-science person about reliability, they'll say they had a car for x many years and it doesn't have a problem. As a pre-emptive strike, it should be mentioned that reliability isn't the lifetime of your car - reliability is usually measured by looking at the probability of failure of a component/sub-system in a system, and how components are assembled in such a configuration to minimize the probability* of failure of the overall system (series versus parallel, et al). And, a measure is made on whether the failure of a component will cause a major failure and what is the tolerance of it in different configurations, i.e. does it require redundancy.

So, if you are driving a GM car and you are on the lucky souls that didn't have their car breakdown inbetween Lac La Biche and St Paul, there are (example) double as much Toyota lucky souls that didn't have their car breakdown either. Conversely, if you have a Toyota and you are one of the poor schmucks calling AMA for a tow at 4am just outside of Calaway Park, there are (example) double as muny poor schmucks out there hoping they are within a cell service calling for a tow as well.

* Probability is often measured in terms of MTTF (Mean Time to Failure)

[Regulator75]

Looks like my 2001 Impala is going back to the shop... I don't mind the car, but I swear it was built by Monkeys.

I think this is the 3rd or 4th recall, since 2001.

Damn you GM.

[awildermode]

1. Open mouth
2. Insert foot
3. Repeat if necessary

[TimSJ]

Toytoa announced a recall on 1.35 million cars at the end of January, but I guess we all don't want to talk about that right now.

Recalls happen all of the time.. whether GM, Toyota, Roll Royce.. not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

Toytoa announced a recall on 1.35 million cars at the end of January, but I guess we all don't want to talk about that right now.

Recalls happen all of the time.. whether GM, Toyota, Roll Royce.. not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

But isnt it trendy to pile on the domestic brands?

[Bobblehead]

Yeah, last Thursday I got a recall notice on my '04 Tacoma. Rust issues on the frames of '00 - '04 Toyota vehicles.

This is one reason why automakers are so hesitant to issue a recall. The publicity is horrible, even if they are trying to do the right thing.

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

Recalls happen all of the time.. whether GM, Toyota, Roll Royce.. not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

no doubt thats true, however Toyota doesn't have a reputation of poor quality, but GM does. Why is that?

[Hack&Lube]

Geez, I don't know why the PR guys never figured this out decades ago. They should totally hire me. It's all in the wording.

Why call them recalls? Call it the *Free* Automotive Improvement Program or a *Free* Safety Upgrade or the *Bonus* Maintenance Update and people would bring their cars in in droves! They would all be lauding the car companies for all the free stuff they were doing to improve customers cars (from what were originally catastrophic defects but don't tell them that!)

It's like your computer. If a company tells you that you are getting a free update, hardware step-up, or firmware fix, you'd be happy. If they said your computer was recalled. You'd be grumbling!

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Geez, I don't know why the PR guys never figured this out decades ago. They should totally hire me. It's all in the wording.

Why call them recalls? Call it the *Free* Automotive Improvement Program or a *Free* Safety Upgrade or the *Bonus* Maintenance Update and people would bring their cars in in droves! They would all be lauding the car companies for all the free stuff they were doing to improve customers cars (from what were originally catastrophic defects but don't tell them that!)

It's like your computer. If a company tells you that you are getting a free update, hardware step-up, or firmware fix, you'd be happy. If they said your computer was recalled. You'd be grumbling!

They do. That letter I received mentioned their MAY be issues, bring it in, if there are issues they will fix them, and if there aren't any problems they will rust-proof and extend the warranty (on rust damage to the frame). It all sounds great until you sit back and think, "Hey, my truck was just recalled!"

[HitterD]

http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/new...spx?ID=2009043

http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings...tings-by-brand

I just wanted to fuel the fire a little bit here. For those not Familiar with JD Power and Associates, they publish vehicle dependability studies annually.

For those of you in this thread defending Toyota, they have scored very well consistenly over the years, as has Buick, however.

If you look at this years results (based mostly on the 2006 year for vehicles as they need 2-3 years to guage the dependability), you will notice a pretty even mix of domestic vs imports in both the top and botton half of the dependability study.

I've long thought that the common belief that import cars are more reliable than domestics was overblown. While this is only one study, it does indicate that the dependability of both imports and domestics are pretty close.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Yeah, last Thursday I got a recall notice on my '04 Tacoma. Rust issues on the frames of '00 - '04 Toyota vehicles.

This is one reason why automakers are so hesitant to issue a recall. The publicity is horrible, even if they are trying to do the right thing.

Is it just me or does rust issues sounds slightly less dangerous than "engine fires"?

[Shazam]

JD Powers is useless.

CR's reliability ratings are better. TrueDelta's is supposedly the best, but I've only ever been told that.

Every car manufacturer has problems. Honda regularly screws up transmissions. GM's truck lineup and higher end cars (Caddy) aren't bad, but their low-mid range sedans are junk (save the Malibu). Ford's F-150, 350 are good, the 250 is a total lemon. The Escape and Fusion do quite well.

Having recently gone car shopping, I was mostly startled by the absymal fit and finish I saw by pretty well every car manufacturer, including Toyota. Their seat fabric is pitiful.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Is it just me or does rust issues sounds slightly less dangerous than "engine fires"?

I dunno, one is pretty obvious, the other is generally hidden until it breaks. Pick yer poison, I guess.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by HitterD

I just wanted to fuel the fire a little bit here. For those not Familiar with JD Power and Associates, they publish vehicle dependability studies annually.

For those of you in this thread defending Toyota, they have scored very well consistenly over the years, as has Buick, however.

If you look at this years results (based mostly on the 2006 year for vehicles as they need 2-3 years to guage the dependability), you will notice a pretty even mix of domestic vs imports in both the top and botton half of the dependability study.

BARF J.D. Power!

I don't trust J.D. Power and Associates any more than any PR firm. It's a for-profit global marketing company. I get a bad taste in my mouth when you see car commercials and it seems odd that only the domestic makers always seem to be flaunting their J.D. Power Awards (cheesy little glass trophies) on all the Ford, GM, Chrysler commercials. It reeks of used car salesman waving all the trophies he's won selling cars.

Go with Consumer Reports. They are non-profit and have years and years of testing and reliability studies. True, their system could be more clear or have more details but they actually buy their own cars from dealers as regular customers and they do their own car surveys of their own to get user reliability feedback on their cars over the years. True Delta is also good.

J.D. Power is crap.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Having recently gone car shopping, I was mostly startled by the absymal fit and finish I saw by pretty well every car manufacturer, including Toyota. Their seat fabric is pitiful.

Absolutely. The car show was a pretty eye-opening experience to me. Unless one is spending over $40k on something actually built and designed in Europe or Japan, every car is the same cheap feeling, rattle prone, plastic laden, assembled in Canada junk. Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM... pick your poison, they're all pretty much the same now.

That isn't to say foreign cars are significantly less error-prone, but the difference in pride/craftsmanship is palpable.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

Absolutely. The car show was a pretty eye-opening experience to me. Unless one is spending over $40k on something actually built and designed in Europe or Japan, every car is the same cheap feeling, rattle prone, plastic laden, assembled in Canada junk. Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM... pick your poison, they're all pretty much the same now.

That isn't to say foreign cars are significantly less error-prone, but the difference in pride/craftsmanship is palpable.

And yet places like CR and The Truth About Cars still gush about how Japanese cars rock.

[Dion]

But Ford has now caught up to Toyota and Honda, the group says, based on owners opinions of their new 2008 vehicles.

The top-selling products built by Ford, by comparison, shocked the industry a few years ago by matching the best Japanese brands. And they are holding that pattern, which means their high ratings are no fluke, Champion said.

"Ford is doing exceptionally well. The Fusion and Milan are still outstanding. Nearly all Fords are average or above average. Ford's reliability is now on par with good Japanese automakers."

Ford's V-8 powered F-150s trucks and truck-based SUVs were of lower reliability.

Ford appears to have solved its former problems by designing its new products from the ground up, which allows the company to "get their (manufacturing) systems in line and their suppliers in line" with quality goals

http://www2.canada.com/windsorstar/n...9-e58b1fb8b80d

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Shazam

And yet places like CR and The Truth About Cars still gush about how Japanese cars rock.

Its easy to rely on reputation. From the late 80s till about 2000, Japanese cars were awesome, particularly their compacts, subcompacts and midsizes (and they were largely built in Japan). Nowadays, they've settled in, allowed Americans/Canadians a chance to (poorly) assemble their cars, utilized the same cheap building material, and as a result, have comparable ratings to the same North American cars they used to trounce.

[Hack&Lube]

The Truth About Car's beef isn't with the "quality" of American cars but the quality of the industry which is in shambles, stagnated, and has terrible designs and visions and implementation and an incredible amount of waste.

Even if a company is making a good car (in terms of "initial quality" as J.D. Powers puts it), do you really want to make a $20,000 purchase from a company that is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy? Who's parts suppliers and supply chain are themselves bankrupt or in the process of falling to pieces?