Buick Denies LaCrosse Deliveries Are on Hold

ABC News reports that “General Motors Co. said Tuesday the rollout of its new 2010 Buick LaCrosse is being delayed for a few weeks due to quality concerns. Speaking to analysts and reporters during a conference call on August sales, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales Mark LaNeve said about 300 to 400 of the cars were shipped in August, but further deliveries are on hold until the company works out what it called ‘quality issues.'” RF just got off the phone with Buick Communications Manager Michelle Bunker, who categorically denied her boss’s assertion. “I don’t know what Mr. LaNeve said,” Bunker admitted. “But we’re shipping cars to dealers every day.” Well, we know what he said . . .

“(It’s) probably not the end of the world because we need to build awareness around having this new LaCrosse,” LaNeve told the telephonically assembled throngs.

Awareness? Multiple quality issues is not the thing to be building “awareness” around. Still, LaNeve insisted the production setbacks “were not serious but were enough to delay us three or four weeks while we made sure they were fixed so that our customers didn’t have any problems.”

Bunker was slightly more forthcoming about the exact quality issues involved. “They surround fit and finish. For example, where the headliner meets the sunroof. There’s no room for error.” Bunker says that the LaCrosse production problems—I mean “issues”—are proof that GM’s committed to getting it right. And it’s no biggie, really.

“LaCrosse production isn’t ramping-up as fast as we would have liked. But we will be going to full production on September 14 as planned.”

Good luck with that.