What this says to me as a potential customer is: “We (GM) do not have enough faith in our products to back them. In fact, we are really hoping to sock you with some expensive (profitable) repairs in the future. So tough s**t customers.”

Adios New GM.

I thought we were talking about reflashes?

Link to the Fed Warranty: Emissions Warranties for 1995 and Newer Cars and Trucks

Quote…
A. PERFORMANCE WARRANTY

* Your car or light-duty truck fails an approved emissions test; and
* Your vehicle is less than 2 years old and has less than 24,000 miles (up to 8 years/80,000 miles for certain components); and
* Your state or local government requires that you repair the vehicle; and
* The test failure does not result from misuse of the vehicle or a failure to follow the manufacturers’ written maintenance instructions; and
* You present the vehicle to a warranty-authorized manufacturer representative, along with evidence of the emission test failure, during the warranty period.

The EPA rules regarding “design and defect” items (the part that you say covers the ECM) has to do with total failure of the system. A customer with a general complaint getting placated (those that I cited earlier as ones that result in unnecessary reflashes) would not be covered.

And as you said, this also means Subaru and GM hav the same warranty on ECM… Subaru has a longer warranty on TCM as you stated. Subaru has the same warranty on fuel system (3/36) that GM does.

According to their ads, the local pizza shop has the “best” pizza on the West coast. GM says they have the “best” one because it lasts the longest of the transferable warranties. Are you holding GM to a higher standard because you helped to fund their recovery?

Many have posted or stated other manufacturers do the same thing so GM should get break (pun intended) on this revision. Bull. They need to exceed other warranties if they have any hope of winning business. Then other companies will follow.

Bad move.

Oops, forgot. We’ve got a law school dropout at the head.

Heh! And they think they can compete with the Japaneese/Germans/Koreans.

re: the trunk, you shouldn’t be buying a roadster as your primary vehicle, anyway!

I disagree. I drove roadsters as my primary vehicles all the while when I lived in apartments, until my lifestyle changed and I decided that I had too much crap to haul around. That’s when I bought my Prius.

The roadsters served me well and worked fabulously when my lifestyle was what it was at that time.

joe_thousandaire :

A warranty is only as good as the company that provides it. Or to paraphrase tommy-boy “I could take a crap in a box and slap sticker that said ‘guaranteed’ on it, but then all you’d have is a guaranteed piece of crap’.

God, I was sooo lucky I wasn’t drinking my coffee when I read that. I’m still cleaning up after the last time!

It’s encouraging to see GM nip’n'tucking.

It would not surprise me that after these changes, GM can announce a reduction in forward warranty liability. Without having many of the documents handy, I believe the per quarter warranty provision was of the order of $2b+.

While it looks like “cheapness”, it should be encouraging, if and ONLY if GM has done the work with suppliers to make the part more reliable. For example, should the ECM/TCM be MORE reliable, GM can provision fewer dollars going forward in financial reports for failure on that item.

Measured over a whole year, maybe hundreds of millions need not be reported as provision/liability for warranty.

Speculation on my part, but this stuff is never as bad as it looks.

The 8/80 emissions warranty is federally mandated and covers the catalytic converters and ECU is all cars. A car does not have to fail a smog test to qualify–that’s misinformation on your part.

Subaru distinguishes between the ECU and TCU because the former is already covered for 8/80. 5/60 is less than 8/80, so no point in listing the ECU under their powertrain coverage.

GM did list the ECU because the 100 part of the 5/100 went beyond 8/80. The ECU effectively had an 8/100 warranty. Now it again has an 8/80 warranty.

The story here is valid. GM made a big deal about having the “best” powertrain warranty when it introduced the 5/100 powertrain warranty. Now it’s removing some items from that warranty. Thousands of people will have to pay hundreds of dollars more for repairs as a result.

I don’t see the need to make more phone calls than I made in about 15 minutes earlier today. A certain list of items were removed from the 5/100 warranty. The question arose whether these items were typically covered by powertrain warranties. The answer is sometimes, but not in most cases.

I don’t see a single comment here that explicitly states that these items are not covered at all. Even if this was the case, this would not alter the above facts.

You’d like to believe that GM deserves no criticism for reducing its warranty coverage. But, as someone here noted, if you offer something at one time, then take it away, you’re going to get criticized. Especially if the price of the vehicle isn’t adjusted accordingly, and there’s no indication that it has been.

GM isn’t the only one to be criticized for such a move. In recent years some European manufacturers started providing free maintenance. Then most of them stopped doing so. They took a hit for this, even though American and Japanese luxury car manufacturers never offered this perk.

Chrysler would be taking a hit right now for backing off of its Lifetime Powertrain Warranty, even though no one else offers it, except that no one is taking Chrysler seriously at the moment. It’s more like, “Oh, are they still around?”

Does Subaru offer a 8/80 warranty? Is that a special add-on? or maybe certified pre-owned? I guess there’s the federally mandated 8/80 SNAFU on all cars sold in states with smog testing; but that doesn’t apply to everyone since it can only be evoked if a car fails an emissions test. If you wish for more crisp shifts at 77K miles you’re not going to get a TCM reflash when you complain to the service manager. I don’t think any automaker touts this 8/80 a part of their regular or extended warranty since it’s a federal regulation that is difficult to explain. That’s why you won’t find it on the OEM websites.

I think some states have special emissions warranties out to like 10 years for ZEV, but it usually covers specific items like catalytic converters and not necessary major engine components. And there’s the special hybrid warranty mandates. I think all of this is beyond the scope of GM’s letter.

Either way, fuel system repair warranty out to 100K is basically unheard of and really should be unexpected… except most of the comments were quick to criticize the statement as if the entire warranty on fuel systems was rescinded. To be honest I doubt customers really know what they’re getting with/without this coverage. They just feel like they got boned a bit by Government motors.

Which means all GM did was butcher itself by amending an existing warranty to draw attention to the notion that the coverage was removed. Who out there knows the EPUS warranty cost for fuel pumps between 36K miles and 100K miles? Oh yeah, GM does. Silly GM.

ECM/TCM reflashes are also silly to cover on a universal basis out to 100K – and I totally understand why GM would want to avoid the hassle on the extended coverages. But at the same time they could have kept the offering to make peace with customers. It’s weird Subaru draws a line between the ECM and TCM. Again, this wouldn’t be an issue if GM had avoided drawing attention to it.

Evo owners are a special case.

That link you found is the only one I found online. I called a dealer and someone in the service department there checked the list of covered parts for me. She was actually a bit surprised to find the fuel system parts on it.

It’s possible that Toyota expanded the list of covered items in response to GM’s 5/100, so after the 2005 MY. Most of the manufacturers with 5/60 powertrain warranties have only had them since 2007 or so.

Looking at the Subaru list, it does include wheel bearings and the transmission control unit. (Engine control unit will be 8/80.) Wheel bearings happen to be a common failure on Subarus, so that’s a good one to have in the list.

Of course, covering a wheel bearing to 60k is a lot different than covering it to 100k. This is one part that will tend to fail based on mileage, not age. I’ve replaced three wheel bearings on two different cars around 65k in the last year or so.

If you read my #4 you’ll see that I said agreed that it was an insignificant number. But, I also know that the number is costly enough (even though the number is insignificant the related repairs often expensive enough) that it does make an impact to the overall warranty costs. It’s the same reason that Mitsubishi went online and found owners who were AutoX-ing their cars and taking them on track days trying to exclude them from warranty coverage.

The costs add up, and in my opinion reflashes after 36K miles are usually due to repair shops just placating a customer or due to problems with tampering. And thus, I think it’s reasonable to exclude reflashes from the extended warranty.

Can you provide me with a link or scan of the Toyota extended 60K warranty that explains the fuel coverage? I know of a owner of a 2005 Corolla that was denied fuel pump coverage (he was past the base warranty). And no, he was not happy about it.

All I can find online is this link:
http://www.toyotaownersonline.com/warranty/

Powertrain Coverage: 60 months/60,000 miles (engine, transmission/transaxle, front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, seatbelts and air bags).

The term “engine” is very vague; but apparently it excludes the in-tank pump. At least, that was the experience of my colleague.

Here’s a link to Subaru’s warranty page. Fuel system is not covered in their extended PT.

Active forum participants are hardly representative of the general population. Things that seem common on a forum (and twenty people posting about something will make it seem common) can still be rare in the real world.

I agree that PCMs probably rarely fail. And they’re still covered for 8/80 on any car, because of the mandated emissions warranty.

I also agree on your statements re: reflashes. Except that in many of these cases they’d be avoided if the transmissions felt right from the start.

The key things that are no longer covered by the 5/100 warranty are the fuel systems and the wheel bearings. Both are much more likely than the PCM to fail during this time period.

If you read my earlier comment or blog entry:

http://www.truedelta.com/blog/?p=389

You’ll find that Toyota actually does include both fuel system components and wheel bearings in their 5/60 powertrain warranty. I didn’t check Subaru. Honda covers fuel pumps and wheel bearings, but not the other items. Hyundai covers only drive wheel bearings. Nissan covers nada.

I’m talking five-year powertrain warranties. All of these items are covered under the manufacturers’ basic warranties, usually for 3/36.

If possible, GM could very well use this strategy to grow its market share in the same ways. Their product is already there. But they need the warranty and the no BS pricing.

To follow through with this would be common sense marketing. However, I seriously doubt they will follow this path. It makes too much sense to price your product fairly and stand behind it. So, despite GM’s bankruptcy, and what led them to bankruptcy, they are still too steeped in the ocean deep arrogance of “We’re GM, the biggest automaker in the US” mentality.

As such, I expect a continued Fail…And this latest bit of news proves it.

Oh well.

Don’t just slag GM. I declined to buy an extended BMW warranty after reading the exclusions. I don’t expect you to pay for shocks or brakes, but the wiring harness ? Radios and GPS ?

They know far better than you ever will what breaks.

Carnival Patron:
Honey, let’s see how good this guy is.
Now, what do I win?

Navin Johnson:
Anything in this general area right in here.
Anything below the stereo and
on this side of the bicentennial glasses.
Anything between the ashtrays
and the thimble.

That includes the Chiclets,
but not the erasers.

It’s ok for an butt hole to become a nice guy. It is NOT OK for a nice guy to become an butt hole. Once a nice guy becomes a butt hole, He will never be trusted again.

GM became a nice guy when they upped their warranty. You get the picture.

I was really considering buying a Colorado instead of a Tacoma. I even visited a Chevy dealership about it and searched prices on the internet. After this news about the “downsizing warranty”. They just lost another customer!

– ————-

1) Let’s be clear, there are not many legit warranty claims (with no TSB) when it comes to the ECM/TCM. But, there are a huge number of ECM/TCM reflashes done under warranty. It’s convenient these are “free” for the customer at the time of repair – but somebody is paying for it. And technically it’s a cost passed to everyone during an initial sale. Dealers often do these flashes because it’s an easy way to tell the customer they tried to fix a problem – full knowing absolutely nothing significant has happened to warrant the reflash. However, the dealer books the warranty cost and get some $ back because they couldn’t find a reasonable labor-op that fit the symptoms… and they have to pay for that diagnostic time.

– ————-

2) The items struck out of this warranty coverage are for the extended powertrain portion; not the base bumper-to-bumper. A car that needs a reflash in the bumper-to-bumper warranty time is still covered.

– ————-

3) Some TSBs and recalls sent from the manufacturer will mention the need for a flash of the ECM or TCM. For example, some customers who bought SRT Chryslers cars needed a reflash because the transmission was shifting “sloppy” and many customers complained. Thus, a TSB was issued. These types of TSBs tend to be remedied very early in the warranty cycle so it is not a concern of the extended warranty. However, what GM is stating here is that they will not do warranty work for people wanting to change their ECM and TCM flashes very late in the game just because “they think the transmission feels wrong” after 90,000 miles.

If the dealer finds that there is a real problem with the synchros in the transmission, then the extended powertrain warranty covers it. If the dealer cannot find a discernible problem with the transmission (no odd clunks, no grinding, proper engagement for all gears at applicable speeds) then there will be no warranty for a TCM reflash.

I’m sure some goodwill claims will allow a known TSB issue to be fixed in the extended warranty term; but the key is having the TSB. Recalls are government-mandated to be executed so they are not impacted by the warranty provisions.

– ————-

4) Those aftermarket flash/mod things are usually done in a manner that isn’t traceable by the scan tools in the shop. That is, when the aftermarket “flash goes wrong” there’s not red flag citing that the car’s memory was tempered with; customers usually pretend to be ignorant and say they didn’t know what happened.

Read the vast Internet forums and see how often people reflash their cars. Sometimes their flashes actually cause problems (especially when they change shift patterns and fuel cutoffs). I don’t care if the volume is insignificant; getting rid of these high-cost outliers from your warranty liability is a good thing, and there is no reason to have warrantied flashes after 36K miles.

If the entire ECM or TCM just plain explodes – well I’m sure that will be a topic for debate; I would hope this were still warrantied, but I also know some people do some really stupid things to their cars. The number of legit total failures of the ECM/TCM is probably less than the insignificant number of people who buy those Diablo Tuners.

– ————-

In my opinion, reflashes shouldn’t be part of the extended warranty anyway; there is no reason for it once you clear the base warranty period.

– ————-

I also wish TTAC would publish items like what I’m typing here instead of just pasting a memo and watching people make conclusions such as… GM is no longer covering fuel pumps under the base warranty… or there are serious problems to be had when the reflashes are nixed from the extended warranty.

Look up the extended powertrain warranty from Toyota or Subaru, etc. You won’t find fuel pumps and injectors in there either.

Just a reminder for GM’s warranties:
Base = 36 months 36K miles (the budget-brands)
Base = 48 months 50K miles (premium cars)

Incremental coverage that kick in when the base coverage ends:
Extended PT = 60 months 100K miles
Roadside Assist = 60 months 100K miles
Courtesy Transportation = 60 months 100K miles
Rust = 72 months 100K miles (all except Saab 9-3)
Rust = 120 months INF miles (Saab 9-3)
Federal Recalls = Lifetime
(All are Transferable)

Define stripper. I’m old enough to remember the strippers my old man would buy. Base model 4 door Chevys and Fords. No radios, power windows, locks, steering, etc…

A base Camry or Accord is hardly a stripper.

The Accord LX looks better equipped than luxury cars of old:
http://automobiles.honda.com/accord-sedan/specifications.aspx

same for the Camry
http://www.toyota.com/camry/features.html

You are probably correct on finding a stick in stock, but they aren’t stripped.

They just dont seem to change.

Anyone who admires GM cars really should try driving the competition.
I cant name one person I know who likes GM after driving competitors models.

Buick needs to have an interior better than an Audi, better ride quality than a Mercedes, better handling than a BMW and all of it more reliable than a Lexus.

The Camry and Accord offer them *in theory* but good luck finding one at the dealership that isn’t a complete stripper. The Fusion and Altima are good for that reason, though, they exist in reality as well as in theory.

——————————————–

Not as hard as you think. About 400k Camries and Accords are sold every year in the US (each). If you have to buy a standard, you stand a better chance looking at them.

You wouldn’t want to drive a CTS-V? Really?

——————————————-

Who is going to pay for it? You or Bob Lutz?