Chevy--wonder if this is my last one

[daveshoe]

We usually buy 3 year old chevy cars for cash and run them for another 100K or so. We have a local dealer who provides free loaner cars if you buy one from him. That being said,some of the engineering of these things is driving me nuts. I have been working 12 hour days 7 days a week,so when the power steering started making noise,my wife went to the parts store,got the correct fluid,read and marked the owners manual for the location of the power steering pump fill just to help me out. This thing is under wiring harnesses and engine supports and it took me 5 minutes to find the cap/dipstick. No way I will get fluid in there tonight because it will take a homade funnel to put it in. When I finally got the cap off to check the fluid,all the garbage in the motor made me drop it to an inaccessible location. I will buy a new cap today,so the car will sit in the driveway.

Who engineers this stuff,anyway? Her is a list of complaints for GM to fix.

1. The steering wheel on my '96 rubbed and made noise. The steering on the '02 has a service bulletin that describes pulling the steering unit out to grease it. [GM trucks share this problem]2. The intake gasket allows water to get in the oil. If you have a GM that uses water,'ya better get it fixed right away before the real damage takes place. According to the service manager,this is a known problem,and the gaskets last about 75000 miles[and cost several hundred to replace]Being the ''intelligent ''person I think I am ,I purchased a different engine family in the '02 to avoid the intake gasket problem. You guessed it--same problem with a different engine. 3. The rear on both cars will not hold in line a wears tread off the inside of the tires. Repairing it does not help that much,as it is cheaper to just replace the tires.

I am not asking for much--just a car company that can build a car that you can check fluids,change filters,and solve known mechanical issues with replacement models. If you know of any,I am listening.

 

[Joe G.]

Wow!! We have a '99 Chrysler LHS (same thing as the 300) that we bought because my wife liked how it looked and drove. It's been a wonder car so far. Only one thing we had to have fixed. The power steering felt a little bit rough (still worked) so we had it replaced. It's got a lot of power, comfortable, and gets great mileage. The only thing that is really hard to get at is the battery.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

I am not asking for much--just a car company that can build a car that you can check fluids,change filters,and solve known mechanical issues with replacement models. If you know of any,I am listening.

Your best bet would be to buy cars from the '80s or early '90s where you can actually work on them at home. The newer cars are made so the average Joe can't work on them. Makes the dealers more money when you have to bring them in for everything.

 

[GIT-R-DONE]

My 04 Impala is one of the best cars I've owned yet. It is VERY EASY to work on and everything is easily accessable. From changing the oil to the belt.



Maybe some of the newer ones are more difficult, but that is one thing that I do look for before I buy a vehicle. If I do have to work on it, how hard is it going to be to work on.



I aam not a big chevy fan at all, but against the competition, dodge (I wont even own a ford) and for the price, I will consider them again, when the time comes.

 

[Crash&Burn]

On the tire wear deal... ... ... ... My wife's Excape wears tires in very strange patterns even thou the alignment is perfect... Fords answer: rotate every 3500 miles

 

[rbattelle]

Who engineers this stuff,anyway?

The lowest-bid supplier.



With GM, they strangle their suppliers until they lower their costs. Most of the surveys over the past couple years have shown that suppliers HATE GM first, and Ford second (Toyota and Honda are generally among suppliers' favorites).



So GM gets the suppliers to sell them parts for nothing (sometimes at a loss on the promise of more money later, which never pans out and suppliers like Delphi, Visteon, Federal Mogul, etc. go belly up). Then they toss a few specifications for the product over the wall to the supplier and the supplier engineers do the best they can and toss a product back over the wall to GM.



GM sticks the part in the vehicle. Job's done!



Problem is, since the supplier and GM don't bother to discuss the technical details of the integration of the part, you're left unable to access your power steering dipstick because the power steering pump maker didn't know where the wiring harnesses were going to be, and GM didn't care. All GM cares about is minimizing per-part cost.



See the cycle? Miserable. And who gets blamed if something goes wrong? The supplier, of course! Certainly GM does nothing wrong. Ever.



I suspect more vertically-integrated companies do this stuff MUCH better. Both my Hondas ('07 Accord, '02 Civic) are pretty easy to work on. Honda is far more vertically integrated than GM.



Ryan