Popular Mechanics reckons “GM’s current precarious situation didn’t come about overnight.” Ya think? “Over the past few decades,” writes PM scribe John Pearly Huffman, “GM put some truly terrible products out on the market. Unreliable, uninteresting and flat ugly, these were cars that simply destroyed GM’s reputation.” The usual suspects get their due as PM hands it to the Vegas, X-Cars and Azteks that we all know and hate. But there’s a touch of controversy too. The EV1 was certainly no runaway success, but was it a “car that destroyed GM’s reputation”? I’m not so sure. And then there’s the 1991-1995 Saturns, again not without its flaws, but probably not a permanent stain on GM’s character. Where’s the last-gen Malibu, a car that cemented the mental association between GM and rental fleet mediocrity? Or the Volt, which proved conclusively that GM is no longer a reality-based automaker? I guess everyone has their favorites…
69 Comments on “Popular Mechanics “10 Cars That Damaged GM”...”
Back to TopLeave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You can also login using Facebook Connect.
Only 10?
I had a ‘73 Blazer that was an absolute disaster. 11 MPG on the best day ever and I can’t list all the things that died. When towing my boat, the floorboards got so hot that they would burn you.
The worst GM I ever drove, though, was the Cadillac Cimmaron that once I test drove. The trim on the seat fell off when I tried to adjust the seat. The engine was rough and the transmission shifts would give you whiplash. To boot, the salesman treated me like a poor relative.
Hmm.. ’shopped headstone needs more Photoshop..
“only 10?”
My sentiments exactly. GM didn’t need to build bad cars to damage their reputation. Their corporate culture did it. GM does build a few truly good cars. They also build some (a lot) of truly bad cars. But so do all their competitors. It’s what you do when you realize you’ve made a mistake.
I couldn’t disagree more with the SL, unless they actually meant the 96-02 version. It started getting rather uncompetitive. This was a competitive (initially) car that brought people who otherwise wouldn’t have bought American into the fold, with the above average reliability and an above average dealer experience. And it had what every automaker dreams of: loyal repeat buyers. The SL accomplished its mission of getting them in, GM/Saturn screwed up by not keeping the car competitive or offering a better car than the Opel LS. The Vue was too late, and those small SUV buyers went to CRV/Rav4.
I think they’re right about the EV1 in the top 10, at least from the perspective of those who care about mother earth. It cemented with them never buying GM again. And those folks are pretty vocal.
I agree that the EV1 and the Saturns don’t belong on there. I don’t think the Chevette should be on there either. It was a very popular car among high school students in the early 90’s. It was cheap to buy and drive, and it was reliable. It didn’t have enough power to get new drivers in too much trouble, and its RWD setup provided excellent opportunities for intentional low-speed winter fishtailing and the real-world driver training that comes from that. I don’t think I’d be nearly as competent a driver if I hadn’t spent so much many hours driving sideways in those things!
Late 70’s Chevette was my first car.
Within a week of purchase the shift knob came off in my hand. Thus began a parade of one broken bit after another.
After about a year my dad – a die-hard GM man if ever there was one – said, “wow this car’s a piece of #$%!, let’s get you something else.”
Next car was a Honda, and I’ve not owned a GM product since.
“Only 10?”
56 if you count badge engineering ;)
I’m with Cicero-10 falls far short.
The 80’s alone could fill that and more.
Personally I wonder if the Aztek’s “looks” are the full story. The public has often warmed up to some pretty ugly vehicles.
But does anyone need a minivan (regardless of what GM said we all knew that was what it was) that seats 4 (5 in a pinch) and a roofline that prevent carrying tall objects?
Slow and thirsty also.
Totally pointless vehicle.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Bunter
The Volt should be on this list. Come out initially with a low, sleek design and lots of promises on performance, then promise that this is it. Then do a complete 180.
There was a production Volt prototype outside my building yesterday as I left for work (sorry, no camera phone). Even with all the coverings and zebra paint, you could tell that this was not like the show car. The front end was about as tall as my S-10…..so much for sleek and cool looking. What a POS….I am glad I am not assigned to that project!
GM had been forking us for a few Generations, finally some of us had woke up to the real pain of riding down the Hershey Highway. Now enuf consumers wanted to just closed their Hershey Highway all together.
To name a few Corvair the VW imitator, as we say imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery, Corvair had just about copied everything so well that is like buying knock off Louis Vuitton hand bag from Hong Kong’s blackmarket hawkers, that even a Vuitton expert had a hard time to tell it apart.
The real problem was some how GM was too cheap to put in a proper rear anti-sway bar to cause the rear end lift at high speed. Causes a lot of untimely & un-necessary demise for her operators.
When I went to school in Toronto, a few guys told stories about how these cars had killed , maimed people relentlessly.
Nonetheless the car that had propelled Ralphy Nader to total stardom.
Chebby Vega was a a lemon in a Strawberry skin. Many folks thought GM had the answer to their prayer of small economic cars. It turned out u need a small fortune to keep her running.
A friend for what he did was bought a new Vega to move out to the wild wild West from Ontario. That was the first & last trip for the car, by the time it arrived it didn’t arrive with flying colours, it arrived with flying white handkerchiefs tied neat to the antenna. The 2000 miles trip proved too much for the little engine. He tried to talked to GM, u think GM would have dropped a hot blonde from a Helicopter to his rescue?
Solly no dice, u’ve bought the car for better or for worse.
I know need to say more about recent times, basically they don’t build anything up to snuff.
My Bro had a 87 Vette, he had his share of griefs, namely injectors problems. Not with standing a bunch of minor stuffs that u feel your car had been very much blessed as to count your blessings & shut the F up. Can anybody explain why none in our family weren’t driving new GMs now?
Just talked to a Diesel mech, he says the newer Diesel trucks weren’t delivering the fuel economy what it cracked up to be.
Something we need to ask, are we paying too much for the enviro future?
Thank God that I only owned one out of the group (Vega)and I bought when I was 16 and didn’t know any better…..
I think they’re right about the EV1 in the top 10, at least from the perspective of those who care about mother earth. It cemented with them never buying GM again. And those folks are pretty vocal.
Self professed environmentalists aren’t the only folks who “care about mother earth”. I’d be willing to bet my earnings against those of the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car? that I’ve recycled literally tons more than they have.
I agree with you about the greenies being vocal though (and self promoting too). At a book fair when I challenged Laurie David’s co-author about some of her own hypocrisies regarding energy use, I got shouted down by her environmentalist sponsor and was threatened with arrest for throwing a wrench into their efforts to indoctrinate kids.
Regarding PopMech’s listing the early Saturns, most of the folks I’ve known who owned those Saturns weren’t car enthusiasts and didn’t really care if the transmissions had 3 speeds or 4. It wasn’t so much the first Saturn cars that was a problem, it’s how GM mismanaged the brand. In GM’s mind, Saturn was a brand for people who didn’t like cars.
Ronnie Schreiber
Motorobilia
It’s not that the EV1 was a bad car given its known limitations, just that it did damage GM’s reputation, especially in CA with its “environmental-friendly” Hollywood types. And that’s the point – GM should have never allowed a limited build car to be “leased” to the public when it wasn’t ready for prime time, or at least perceived released only for a PR stunt to prove that electric cars didn’t make sense and few would “buy” them.
The Saturn SL1/2 did have some interesting and unique features, the best of which was the superb Hal Riney advertising campaign for the launch. GM never capitalized on the launch success down the road and hence practically ruined the brand. In some ways, it proves that brand dilution has been a problem for GM. As for the car, it was just ok.
rpn453 :
I don’t think the Chevette should be on there either. … It didn’t have enough power to get new drivers in too much trouble, …
Damn Shove-it damn near got me killed at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Between the lights, the windshield wipers and the A/C, there was precious little power left for that sorry piece to get out of its’ own way, let along the oncoming car!
Pahaska :
The worst GM I ever drove, though, was the Cadillac Cimmaron that once I test drove.
Remember – it was the “Cimmaron by Cadillac”, not “Cadillac Cimmaron. As if they (Caddy) could distance themselves from that lovely piece of engineering.
Thank you, Roger, for foisting that cheap car on the US populace. Not like GM was building anything significantly better at the time, of course…
At least the landau trim and gear shift T-handle on my mothers newly downsized Monte Carlo had the decency of waiting about 18 months to fall off…
Bruce
I remember the GM diesel fiasco in the early 80’s. One of the engineers that worked on this project was fired because he insisted GM should not use this engine because it would not hold up.
GM was very successful in giving diesel’s an undeserved bad reputation with the American public that can still be seen today.
I disagree. To my mind, the cars that killed GM were the Corolla and Accord. Once Americans found out that they could buy cars that would outlast their payment books, they never went back.
It was NOT the EV1 that did the damage. It was what GM did with the EV1 that did the damage. In the eyes of the greens, GM drove a stake though its heart on the alter of the SUV gas-hog gods.
To name a few Corvair the VW imitator, as we say imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery, Corvair had just about copied everything so well that is like buying knock off Louis Vuitton hand bag from Hong Kong’s blackmarket hawkers, that a Vuitton expert had a hard time to tell it apart.
Copied? Perhaps the air cooled rear engined layout, and the original swing axles out back, but that was about it. The Corvair had a 80 HP six, not a 36 HP four, had unibody construction, not a platform chassis, had “A arm” front suspension, not trailing arms. By most standards, even the first gen Corvair was technologically ahead of contemporary Beetles. Were the Porsche 356 and 911 copies of the Beetle?
The real problem was some how GM was too cheap to put in a proper rear anti-sway bar to cause the rear end lift at high speed.
If GM “copied” VW by fitting the 1st gen Corvair with swing axles, wouldn’t that make VW just as cheap.?
It wasn’t the lack of sway bars that caused the problem, though sway bars would have reduced body roll and made the problem less severe. The problem was that, like all VW Beetles and Buses before 1969, 1st gen Corvairs had swing axles in the back, not true independent rear suspension fitted with axles shafts that had universal or CV joints at both ends. Because they were only jointed at the transaxle end of the shaft, body roll would result in “jacking”, the outer wheel dropping in relation to the body. Without an outboard joint in the axle, the wheel would tilt and not stay square to the ground, reducing the contact patch of the tire.
GM switched to a proper IRS in 1965, 4 years before VW.
Causes a lot of untimely demise for her operators.
Considering that Beetles outsold Corvairs, more folks were killed by that problem in VWs than Chevys.
When I went to school in Toronto, a few guys tols stories about how these cars had killed , maimed people relentlessly.
And we all know that stories told by guys you went to school with are credible accounts of automotive safety.
The car that had propelled Ralphy Nader to total stardom.
What propelled Nader to celebrity was the fact that GM hired private investigators to look into Nader’s life. He sued and won. It was the resultant publicity from the lawsuit that gained Nader great fame, not Unsafe At Any Speed.
Nader, like the producers of Who Killed The Electric Car, could have criticized other automakers but I suppose going after foreign companies isn’t as much fun as saying GM kills its customers.
Ronnie Schreiber
Motorobilia
Thank you, Roger, for foisting that cheap car on the US populace. Not like GM was building anything significantly better at the time, of course…
As I said in another thread, I think Roger Smith is more responsible for GM’s problems than Rick Wagoner. Wagoner didn’t right the ship, but it was Smith who set it on its course.
Ronnie Schreiber
Motorobilia
The 1991-95 Saturn does not deserve to be in this group, despite the oil use problem. These cars were actually fun to drive, and cheap to own, even if not nearly as reliable as Toyotas and Hondas. I suspect the real damage to GM’s reputation from Saturn came from the later models, which had none of the fun of the first generation. Note–Mr. Huffman if you are reading this–that the original Saturn SLx sold more units per year–almost 300k in the best year which was 94 or 95–than the four or five current Saturns.
@Ronnie Schreiber: the first Saturns were promoted as the practical person’s sporty car. It was. The cornering was quite flat, the steering very responsive. It helped that the car weighed less than 2500 lbs. I had shopped it against the Integra. One of my friends who had been a race car driver loved driving my Saturn, and other car afficionados who drove it remarked that it was fun. I bought it because it was the most fun of anything that I test drove that was less than about 15k (in 1993). It also looked cool. Subsequent Saturns have looked dorky (the second gen especially) to inoffensive.
I test drove the thing several times before I bought it. I would corner very hard, and take it on the highway, do very quick lane changes, etc. After I finally bought it, one of the salesmen said they thought I’d been sent by the factory to test them.
I disagree. To my mind, the cars that killed GM were the Corolla and Accord. Once Americans found out that they could buy cars that would outlast their payment books, they never went back.
Good point, but actually, the early Accords rusted terribly, at least in places, unlike California, where it actually snows and road crews use salt.
I remember the GM diesel fiasco in the early 80’s. One of the engineers that worked on this project was fired because he insisted GM should not use this engine because it would not hold up.
One irony is that GM owned Detroit Diesel at the time and could have had them engineer a proper diesel engine.
The Olds diesel and Caddy 8-6-4 were yet more disasters on Roger Smith’s watch. To be fair, the 8-6-4 concept was sound, since cylinder deactivation is pretty commonplace these days. It’s just that 1980s vintage technology wasn’t up to the task of implementing the design.
On balance, I’d say that Smith’s embrace of robotics and his push to modernize GM’s manufacturing were his only successes.
Ronnie Schreiber
Motorobilia
BTW, a case can be made that the Corvette and GM muscle cars also damaged GM in the long run.
Indeed, the Corolla and Accord certainly did more damage to GM than Saturn or the EV1 ever did. The rest of the vehicles on the list are easily justified, though.
Of particular interest are the volumes that some of these vehicles sold. The Vega sold over 1.5 million from 1971-74, and the X-cars sold over 811k in the first year (and back then, the majority wasn’t rental/fleet sales, either). Those two GM vehicles, alone, would seem to have been a one-two punch that a whole lot of people will never forget.
X-cars deserve. My boss had one, he bought a white one because white is the “iron color”, it lasts the longest of all the colors, everything else being equal. Problem is, the car started to get an orange tinge, like it had Hepatitis. Turns out they forgot to primer it — it was literally rusting from under the paint layer. He went back to Volkswagens…
Man, you must be a real gas at parties.
As for the list, putting Saturn on there is just retarded. It’s the ONLY car that people who shopped imports ever considered (I bought one and liked it); the ONLY small car GM made that CR actually said would be reliable; and it kicked butt in fuel economy over the absolute garbage they sell today to that segment.
For me it was the Chevy Beretta/Corsica twins. Rumored to be designed for National, the examples I drove were rentals. Slowness and poor gas mileage in a compact car.
I agree the diesel Oldsmobiles probably did more damage to GM, and diesels in general, than any other single example mentioned.
1982 Buick Century – every transmission shift felt like a sledgehammer to the lower back and gave the inpression something broke in the drivetrain
Strange that nobody seems to have mentioned–unless I missed it–the mid-’90s Impala, that enormous, bloated whale of a car that even at the time seemed ludicrously oversize.
Ronnie:
“When I went to school in Toronto, a few guys tols stories about how these cars had killed , maimed people relentlessly.”
“And we all know that stories told by guys you went to school with are credible accounts of automotive safety.”
Well, I’ll give you first hand experience. I had a ‘63 Corvair (bought used one year old) and twice experienced the dreaded wipe out. Fortunately both times happened when I wasn’t hooning and no traffic around (both times on a wet or damp road) so no damage. Too bad GM waited until ‘65 to correct this design flaw.
You missed the mid eighties V-6 which was derived from the venerable smallblock. The part that sucked was how they didn’t re-engineer the crank and the engine was permanently off balance. We had one in a Caprice and another in a Cutlass Supreme.
Add to this the failure of the 8-6-4 and the diesels in quick succession, and something simple and expected (running engines) was no longer a given.
We called it the Supremely Gutless.
In addition, don’t forget the full-sized (FWD) cars of 1985. The previous downsizing in 1977 came off rather well, but the ’85s just looked absurd. The Cadillac de Ville and Eldorado were especially ridiculous. Nobody wanted to spend that kind of money on a car people laughed at. Sales dropped, as I recall.
Everyone bashes GM for killing a BAD car???(EV-1)
And yet all I here on this forum is how G.M should dump this and that….
The car Didn’t work,period!!!
The liability to G.M.in our litigious society forced them to crush em…
Maybe if they had been introduced in ANY other state than California it might have been possible to cure the many ills B-4 the lawsuits began.
By the way…no credit to G.M.for giving it a try?
Not on this forum…..
_
The Saturns helped ruined GM? I don’t think thats entirely true; of course they did feel like Styrofoam cups on wheels. There was a lot more factors than these ten cars that ruined GM. A lot more.
To my mind, the cars that killed GM were the Corolla and Accord.
Exactly. The car that killed GM is the car they never built – a domestic mid-sized car with reasonable performance and good reliability. SUVs and minivans provided a profit margin that allowed the fools at the top to avoid the pain of this mistake for nearly 15 years.
The error with the Saturn line was not necessarily the initial cars, they were good enough for the consumers who buy cars at that price point. No, the problem was GM’s failure to update the car at three years and completely redesign it at five years. Honda and Toyota do this like clockwork. GM and Ford do not, to thier detriment. They seem to be learning now, but the ‘new’ Focus is not new. The new Civic that came out at the same time was all new. To be competitive you must invest in R&D. The big three just never were willing to do that.
Ronnie Schreiber:
If I am not mistaken Rick Wagoner was hired and mentored by none other than Roger Smith in the New York Finance Office.
When Rick was promoted, he readily admitted that he wasn’t a “car guy”
Corvair
Vega
X-cars
8-6-4 diesels
Quad 4 engines that blew headgaskets (Achieva/Grand Am/Skylark).
3.1 liter V-6 with leaking intake manifold gasket.
3.8 liter V-6 with cracked PLASTIC intake manifold.
The Fieros that caught fire.
I don’t agree with;
Pontiac Aztek- It was ugly but that didn’t prevent people from buying other GM cars. Owners love them
Chevette- sold and did well for the most part. people still like them
Hummer H2- no one knows this is GM so it didn’t affect GM
Saturn- see Hummer H2 and the S-series sold in fairly large numbers for such a new car.
The X-cars, Vega and Olds diesels are good choices
Killing the RWD coupes in 1988 for the FWD models hurt I think.
My dad had a brown Chevette. It was purchased new the same year I was born, 1977. By the time I was five, the interior had deteriorated so quickly that there were blankets wrapping the seats to keep the shredded upholstery together. My best friend and next door neighbor John, whose father owned the local Ford dealership, incidentally, pretty much summed it up when he asked my dad from the back seat if the Chevette was “a hundred years old.” Ouch. Things didn’t get much better for us when that Chevette was joined in the driveway that year by a brand-new Pontiac 6000. Mechanically it made the Chevette look like a Honda when after only 9 months the Pontiac’s power steering pump would scream like a scalded cat during any parking-lot maneuvers, embarrassing my mom quite a bit, I recall. Everyone staring at us while it shrieked its way into a parking spot at 1 mph.
25 years later, two nights ago in Manhattan, I was driving east down Houston Street when, all of a sudden, before us was an actual, real life Pontiac Aztec. My girlfriend pointed it out to me by saying, “what… the Hell… is that?” Immediately I recalled my father telling me once that he seriously considered buying one.
I guess you could say that my father was, for many years, a true Detroit loyalist. It was “made in America” all the way for our family. This singular sentiment allowed GM and Ford to sell him cars for decades that were half-baked, badge-engineered, depreciation-heavy piles of shit. My father may have been idealistic, but not stupid. Today his garage houses a Subaru Outback and an ‘08 Camry Hybrid. Good luck, GM!
Too bad GM waited until ‘65 to correct this design flaw.
While the shortcomings of swing axles are now well known, I’m not sure that you can call a component that was used by a number of other contemporary manufacturers a design flaw. The best solution? No, but you you can say the same about drum brakes, which were standard equipment on most cars for a decade or more after disk brakes were introduced. While drum brakes won’t cause your car to spin out or roll like swing axles, they do fade and don’t stop as well as disks.
Swing axles were a standard engineering solution in the late 50s and early 60s. They were used on VWs, Triumphs (including the early Spitfires), Porsches and Mercedeses. Like I said, GM went to a true IRS years before VW.
One irony is that in the early 60s, GM was pretty innovative, certainly for American companies. The Corvair wasn’t a typical US compact car. Pontiac made an overhead cam inline 6 and there was the Tempest with the rear transaxle (and swing axles) and flexible drive shaft.
It’s possible that the negative publicity generated by Nader regarding the Corvair made GM more risk adverse and more conservative in their engineering.
Wow, I’m surprised that no one mentioned the disaster that was the HT4100. That engine did more damage for Cadillac than the V8-6-4 could ever dream of. Whoever thought that an aluminum block would work well with iron heads I hope was fired.
I had a ‘85 Fleetwood Brougham with a HT4100. I believe it was slower to 60 than a non-turbo diesel W123.
To be competitive you must invest in R&D. The big three just never were willing to do that.
GM & Ford spend about $15 billion/yr on R&D. We can debate if they’re spending it well or not, but you can’t say they aren’t investing in R&D. GM & Ford are in the top 10 global companies in terms of R&D. Interesting, Apple spends a much smaller percentage of revenue on R&D than any of the major car companies and some financial analysts have questioned the wisdom of spending a lot on R&D. I guess spending wisely is more important than spending a lot.
For me it was when my 2 year old x car burst into flames. Vowed to never buy a GM again and haven’t. The 4-6-8 Seville was no winner either.
Someone at TTAC needs to track down a Saturn person and get some facts about how GM killed it slowly. Find out about the abs, cruise control and seat belt improvements that the Saturn people developed but could not employ until the rest of GM caught up.
Then Saturn had to jack up the costs to what the rest of GM wanted to charge.
It is also an interesting story about the Saturn body panels that were virtually indestructable and how GM severely limited Saturn’s ability to advertise such because “heavy metal GM” could see no advantage to fenders that could bounce back from a boot kick with no damage.
Everything that came out of the GM10 program, for starters.
Aaaaaaaaaaack, someone had to bring up (a pun!)the Chevy Beretta/Corsica. I used to work in pharmaceutical sales, and one of my rivals worked at a company that sold dermatological products. They didn’t have to carry big sample packs, so the company downsized the sales reps cars…to the Beretta/Corsica. The pharma company threatened to never lease GMs again unless they took them all back. The sales people were spending too much time f**king around getting their cars repaired.
They missed the entire GM minivan lineup from the dustbusters through the last Chevy Ventures. Not a single reliable and competitive one in the bunch.
I’m in agreement with those that think that the Chevette and early Saturns do not belong on the list.
Despite all the odds against it – the Chevette was a pretty reliable car. It was just very, well, plain.
The Saturns were also remarkably reliable. My brother had one that went well over 200K before he sold it (and it still ran). I knew of others that had similar experiences.
Otherwise – excellent list and right on. Especially the diesel 5.7 – those never went beyond 50K miles without self destructing and the X-cars which had no redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
I’d like to add a few to the list:
The Buick 231 V6. This was a V8 with two cylinders cut off. Unbalanced by design. If you looked at the distributor you could even see the gaps where the two missing spark plug wires would have been.
The ‘78 – ‘79 Monte Carlo. Overstyled and unreliable. The fake chrome bumper trim falls off on the way home from the dealer. It was a miracle if you could get more than 60K miles from one of these – especially if you had the misfortune under the hood of the above mentioned Buick V6.
Any light blue or silver GM car of the 70s and early 80s. The hood and trunk won’t be blue/silver for very long.
-C
I think PM did a good job of picking the 10 most disappointing GM cars. The point then becomes, why? How could a car maker that thought of itself as an exemplary marketing institution keep coming up with so many duds? It’s not as if they didn’t have the engineering talent. Their list of automotive firsts is second to none. It seems to go deeper than that; ie poor management and seemingly non-existent accountability.
I’d look back further than ‘71 (Vega) or even ‘60 (Corvair) to the air suspension disaster of 1958 through 1960. You would have thought that one of the largest manufacturers of (successful) air-sprung busses could have tapped the in-house talent there to solve the leaking air-spring problem. Especially as they were affecting their most prestigious (and most profitable) halo senior cars, Cadillac, Buick and Olds.
But no. Bye-bye 50% market share.
The Buick 231 V6. This was a V8 with two cylinders cut off. Unbalanced by design. If you looked at the distributor you could even see the gaps where the two missing spark plug wires would have been.
…especially if you had the misfortune under the hood of the above mentioned Buick V6.
I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of the Chevrolet 229 V6. Honestly it could be both, but that Buick V6 was a great engine.