Inside GM: "I've Been Working in Parts and Service in GM Dealers Since 1965"

“Yes, a long time. I’ve seen GM do a lot of things. Water pumps – massive failure in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Broken motor mounts – when they failed the throttle would go wide open… a fun ride. Implementation of emission controls – the plugging of the vacuum lines to the EGR valves. IMHO this is where everything started going bad. GM cars began to have more driveability problems than ever before. Worse, problems became harder to diagnosis. We sold a lot of cars during the 70’s; some good, some not so good. The Chevy Vega was the worst. Then came the X cars and we lost all direction.

About 1982, I was talking to a GM rep. He said they expected a 30 percent major failure rate in that model year. I said, “You mean, if I have 1000 cars, 300 will need an engine or transmission?” He said yes, and I believed him. They knew they had huge quality problems, but viewed them as a cost of doing business.

There were terrible rust problems, worse on pickup trucks. Try and find an 83 on the road. Good luck. We had four cylinders (2.5) engine failure at lifter gallery: head gasket failures. 231 V6: timing chain failure. And I will never forget the GM V8 and V6 diesel engines– and not in a good way. The V8 required an overhaul about every 18 to 24 months.

Big money rigs would stick together. The V6 had more head problems than anything. Did you know if a shop rag is left on top of the piston of a V6 diesel and the engine fired up it looks like it is snowing inside the shop? True story.

Let’s not forget the GM metric thm 200; this underpowered transmission “powered” the Grand National. On the positive side, we had the bulletproof thm 400 (3sp) auto. Great trans! The thm 350 was also very reliable.

I did love the Buick Grand National and the GMC Typhoon. I’m not going to say they were reliable, but wow! Were they fassssssssssst.

Then came the mid-80’s. Talk about losing your way! We had transmissions that would not shift; when you take them apart, you couldn’t find any viable failure. The reps told of being in restaurants wearing the GM lapel pin and asked if they worked for General Motors. They’d respond that they worked for General Mills.

This was the time of the [Pontiac] Fiero. I considered it a modern-day Corvair; it leaked everywhere and would catch fire and GM did not know why.

The mid-80’s brought in electronic repair orders and the storing of repair histories. Most of the time, you still [to this day] had to keep a paper file on hand.

The 80’s also brought the famous “customer satisfaction index,” on which we are all rated and live and die by. They’ve revised it from time to time, but they always ask the wrong questions or make it too long or too confusing. And GM sends them all back to the dealer. I’m not sure if all they do with them is tabulate the score; I don’t think anyone at GM reads them. They want the dealer to handle everything.

I’ve worked in dealers with a poor score and ones with a very high score. It’s very hard to satisfy a customer that was stuffed into the car and can’t afford it or we can’t fix it… something that happened a lot during the 80’s. Not so much any more do we hear “the car is commercially acceptable” or “GM is aware of the problem and engineering is working on a fix”

The came the 90’s, and paint would blow off of your GM carwhile driving down the road. GMC had trucks that ran on natural gas; we could not fix them. Who can forget the 700r4 transmission? They lost the sun shell and then wouldn’t move. No reverse. Nothing.

These days, we have some very good and reliable vehicles. We still fix cars, but we don’t have the major failures that we had in the past. I feel that GM has a future– if we can get past this problem they are facing. How to do it? I don’t know.

And through all these years, one thing has remained constant: we still work on leaks, squeaks and rattles. These three complaints have remained consistent.

I’ve always worked for GM dealers. I’ve never owned any other vehicles but GM. I’ve driven many types of other cars and see things on them that show up on GM cars about 5 years later. GM is always a day late and a dollar short.

This business has been good to me. I am not rich but have gotten by.

Do I think they should be bailed out? I’ve pondered this for weeks. My job depends on GM being viable. Part of me says help them out. But part of me says the marketplace must find it’s own level. I still don’t know. I do know no one from Congress or GM has asked me.”