The Unthinkable Happens: TTAC Salutes GM, Three Times

I sold my 1988 Silverado ExtCab to an illegal alien in Jan 2011, and I'm sure that he and his family will think it is the best truck they have ever owned. The reason is simple. I replaced every part that wore out or broke with the help of Autozone. And I replaced so many parts on that Silverado that the boys and girls at Autozone know me by my first and last name. There are plenty of people who are unwilling or unable to make repairs on their cars and trucks, and for those people, unreliability and breakdowns can be mighty expensive. Maybe more than they want to deal with or can afford. Yours is the exception, not the rule. I know people that used to drive Impala. These days they drive something else. Mostly they drive something with a foreign brand. Many of them have switched to Camry or Accord.

@HighDesertCat: What is wrong with a pushrod engine? They seem a pretty reliable design that has worked for many years. What is the advantage or all-aluminum, DOHC V6/V8 over pushrods? I really don't know, but the DOHC seems to be much more complex and more pront to problems, but then I just remember the Chrysler 2.7 disaster and similar issues with Toyota, Honda and VW. Just asking...

@highdesertcat I guess I am looking for clarity on your post. You sold the truck after 23 years of ownership and having replaced several parts. Seems reasonable no? I have replaced most every part on my 72 Chevelle, I don't think it is a bad car, just a 40 year old car. GM has made lemons, more so than most I would argue in the past. But I do think their recent offerings offer value. I had a company issue 08 Impala for two years, drove the wheels off of it. At the time you could buy the car with a 5k rebate in 08' (height of the crash). MSRP was 23k, if one negotiated, a 1 LT Impala could be had for 17k or less. Not too many large sedans could be had new at the time for 17k and safely run 150k with no issues. glamorous no, reliable yes.

@highdesertcat Zack, there's nothing wrong with pushrods. But in today's offerings where 4-valves per cylinder, DOHC and VVTiming is the norm, GM should join their competition. Pushrods should be used in the 3/4 ton and higher classes. Ford has a wonderful Ecoboost V6 that is without a doubt the new standard that every car maker should aspire to in forced-induction engines. GM has......nothing. The new Chrysler normally-aspirated Pentastar V6 is even better than the Honda 3.5 that was the standard of the class for many years. GM has...............nothing. The Toyota 3.5 is understressed and could easily run for 200K with only minor maintenance like timing-belt replacement. GM has..........nothing like it either. GM may claim that they do, but the people aren't buying it. The Pentastar might even be a candidate for forced-induction like a single or twin turbo, or even a small supercharger because of its lower-end architecture. It is used in sedans, CUVs and half-ton pickup trucks. Not too shabby! GM could reverse-engineer it for its own applications. In order to be competitive a manufacturer has to attract potential buyers with the latest and the greatest. Pushrods are not it. I read somewhere that the Northstar V8 with a little refinement could easily blow away the Tundra and the Titan V8s. The Olds V8 race engine could be revived and put to work in high-end applications, including the new 2014 Silverado/Sierra. All-aluminum engines are much lighter than cast iron blocks and have been used successfully for many decades by many other auto manufacturers. I know that my Tundra 5.7 handles and rides better than any of my previous trucks, because it has less weight over the front wheels. It's time that GM looks at their best-selling lines of vehicles, the Silverado, and bring it up to date with lighter, more powerful DOHC V8 engines or even a potent normally-aspirated V6 like Dodge is putting in the RAM for 2013. The name of the game is to sell. And in order to sell you have to attract new buyers. Even the taxpayers will forgive GM for its past financial transgressions if GM has some really hot stuff on the market. Does anyone complain about the 'Vette? First focus should be their new Silverado line. Then the Malibu. Putting the magnificent Allison transmission in ALL of GM's truck would be a huge selling point. The Allison is one of the world's best transmissions in ANY application. I have never heard of anyone blowing up an Allison or of an Allison self-destructing. Properly outfitted you could bang-shift an Allison like a B&M Hydro and it would outlast all of them. If GM wants to make the Malibu its best-selling bread-and-butter sedan, GM needs to add more value to it. Take the cue from what the Camry provides: quality, value and reliability. To do that, GM needs to mount an ad campaign that dazzles the demographic with brilliance. Trying to stir up patriotic fervor to buy GM products only serves to remind taxpayers they're still on the hook for this failed automaker. A negative mindset if there ever was one. You don't see people griping about Chrysler now because we're done with Chrysler. We bribed Fiat to take Chrysler and Sergio turned Chrysler into a cash cow for Fiat. I'm a believer. I bought a 2012 Grand Cherokee for the wife. Morgan, I bought the '88 Silverado new in 1988 and within the first few weeks it had to go in for warranty. Then one or two months later, another warranty issue. I cannot immediately recall everything that went wrong but there were several warranty visits that had to be addressed within the first couple of years. After the warranty expired that's when all the fun began and that also was when I had to tool and wrench on it with Autozone's help. The truck was never abused, but it sure had a lot of things fall off, or fail on it with relatively low miles on the clock. As I recall, it had less than 105,000 miles on the clock after 23 years of ownership when I sold it in 2011. One reason was, that I bought an F150 XLT 5.4 in 2006 and used it as my daily driver because I had lost confidence in the reliability of the Silverado since I live miles from nowhere with only US54 and US70 as my paths to civilization. But the F150 also had issues. So I decided to buy my first-ever foreign-brand half-ton pickup truck, the 2011 Tundra 5.7 SR5 DoubleCab Longbed, and I have not been disappointed. It does everything that my Silverado and F150 did for me and the Tundra does it smoother, handles better, is less noisy in the cab, and has had no warranty issues in over 20K miles. Oh, whatta feelin'!!! Only our 2008 Japan-built Highlander with over 80K has been better. It has never been back to the dealer or repair shop for anything. It's all original except the tires. I can only hope that my wife's 2012 Grand Cherokee will be as good as her 2008 Highlander has been. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm too old to do the tooling and wrenching now.