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Why cant GM sell cars?

Started by denise 20352, November 23, 2005, 10:35:43 AM

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denise 20352


   My neighbor has a friend who bought a brand new Cadillac.  Within six months, it developed a problem that cost her $1400 to have repaired.

   It seems that there are two modules behind the instrument panel.  If one of them goes out, it turns on the check engine light.  When the other one goes out, the car quits running.  Imagine her shock when she was told that the repair wasnt covered by warranty, and she was charged $1400 just to replace one of those modules!  To make matters worse, she was told that the reason for the expensive repair was that they had to take the dash apart to fix it.  She buys a defective car, and they rip her off for the labor???  Can you imagine how that made her feel?

   We have a software product that is a total piece of junk, and we all know it, but I was surprised when I toured one of our clients facilities and found out that they absolutely loved it.  The reason is that we provide such good support for it.  When the customer has a problem, we work with them and get it fixed.  We dont charge them money for doing that...its part of standing behind what we sell.  Were still selling that product, moving the coding projects from India back to the US, and gradually working out the bugs and making it into something better.

   The Cadillac buyer is a real estate agent, and tells every one of her clients the story about her car problem.  That is hundreds of people!  Then they tell their friends, and  thousands of people hear about it.  Then people post it on message forums, and guess what.   Rumors that American cars are junk didnt drop out of thin air.  They were spread by word of mouth, among people who have had bad experiences, not only with their car problems, but with the dealers and the companies who refuse to stand behind what they sell.

  GM says that their problem is that they need to declare bankruptcy and raid the pension funds.  I would agree that union labor costs are part of their problem, but maybe they have other problems?  Is taking away peoples pensions going to convince people to buy GM, or might it possibly take some decent product and service?

-denise

denise 20352


   I decided to try one more time to get someone at Jim Click Lincoln-Mercury to buy my car back.  I finally got through to someone who might possibly have been on the management team.  I explained that I had taken the car in three times for service and still had steering problems that made the car undriveable to me, that the car had been in storage for months and the tags were expired, and asked that they would take the car back at a reasonable price.  He said that he would look into it and call me back.

   I did get a call back, from the service department.  They asked me to bring the car in so that they could look at it.  I told him that after being charged for a wheel alignment, and told that my driving, and not the car, was the problem, having brought it in three times already, I would really like to just sell the car back.  He suggested that I could trade it in on a new one and I told him, no, I had already bought another car, I just wanted to sell it back.  He said that I couldnt do that, and I asked if I could speak to the manager again.  (Why is the service manager talking to me about selling the car back?)  He said that he would have the manager call me back again.

   When I got home from work, I had a message.  The same manager again...he said that the service manager had told him that I wanted to trade the car in on a new one, and to come on in and we would make a deal.

   Now honestly...will Ford ever sell me a car again?  Will I not get the word to thousands of people about how unhappy I am about this?  Ive already had over 500 hits on my "Mercury Legend in Junk" webpage, in the first month.

   I seriously doubt that I would ever buy a new car again, but if I were going to, after years of not wanting anything but American cars, I would do a lot of research about which Chrysler or foreign car to buy.  If Ford goes under, that would be sweet revenge to me.  If GM goes under, its their own damned fault.  I havent formed an opinion about Chrysler yet, but you can bet that I would want to hear yours, if I were thinking about buying one.

   And now while Im thinking about it, Im going to write to our elected officials and ask them not to use taxpayer money to bail out GM or Ford.  The carmakers may laugh at me and tell me that there isnt anything that I as an individual can do, but they have offended enough people that they might not be laughing for long.


-denise

Mick

Hi.
Yes, they can sell.  But to feed #^percent*@¶Æð¥ in$urance companies, not the autoworkers.

A shoemaker has to make shoes, not venturing onto furniture. The automobile industry has deviated from its activity of producing automobiles.
Automobiles are no more. They are now computers with wheels and the industry is tangled in a mess of wires.

Mick

Jim Skelly, CLC #15958

I find it hard to believe that Cadillac wouldnt cover the cost of repairs while the vehicle is still under warranty.  It sounds more like the shady dealings of a dishonest service department.  If your friend hasnt pursued this through the Cadillac Customer Assistance Center, that is the place to start.  If that doesnt result in a refund, then contact Cadillacs General Manager.

Regarding your problems with the Mercury, you are dealing with a bunch of losers at that dealership.  Consider a lawsuit if Ford wont help and your state has a decent lemon law.

denise 20352


  There are some states, like Oregon, where they have a lemon law with some teeth, but AZ isnt one of them.  I talked to a couple of lemon law attorneys, and theyre telling me that the car has to be just about totally dead to qualify.  In the case of an intermittent problem, or something subjective, like, "It takes a crowbar to move the steering wheel", or "the engine knocks", all they have to do is say that there isnt anything wrong with it.

  I thought about trading the car in on the cheapest piece of garbage economy car they had, Im talking radio delete model, heater only, no trim, etc., or to put it simply, "the one that costs what they advertise on television", just to try to lower the payment.  However, since Im about $10k in the hole from what the trade-in value is, they would probably want the cash.  Im just totally screwed.  Ill make the payments just to keep my credit rating, and back into storage it goes.  My biggest gripe at this point is that I need the parking space.  Maybe I should put a for sale sign on it and park it at the grocery store or something.  It might get stolen, but that wouldnt be my fault, would it?

  Anyway, the dealer isnt the only problem.  I wrote to Ford about it, and their reply was not that of a company that cares anything about repeat business.  "We cant get involved in sales issues".  Maybe someone needs to tell them that they dont make money unless people actually buy the cars.

-denise

Eric Kahn clc 20839

it sounds like you might try to write to ford again and tell them it is not a sales issue, it is a drivablility issue

dont buy a vw if you like easy steering, my new passat has the standard european "more road feel= Higher steering effort" kind, I love the car, but I kind of like the Old US car "no road feel overboosted steering"

Dave Smith #17592

A brand NEW Cadillac is under a bumper to bumper warranty.   The only things NOT covered are customer caused problems.   The is no way a new car module failure would not be covered by any dealer unless the failure was caused by something added on, like perhaps an improperly installed remote car starter.  

  There is definately some part of this story your friend didnt share.  

Doug Houston

Sure, they have warranties, and you can pay extra to get an "extended" warranty. A friend, (and reader in this forum)  bought a new Firebird in 1990, as I recall. He got the extended warranty. A few thousand miles,and the intake manifold leaked coolant. The dealer fixed it for 100 bucks. A few thou miles more, the same thing. The car was getting close to the end of the warranty when once again, drip, drip.

I talked to a friend, who was high up in Pontiac Division about it. He called the dealer and told him to get the car fixed, and finally, the defective (from production) manifold was replaced. At the same time, another contact turned up a bulletin for dealers, telling that a run of intake manifolds with defective machiniong had been put on cars, and that they should be replaced. The dealer had been ripping off the owner for the deductable, and his gravy train finally ran out.

Its dealers who cause more lemons than the factory.

Another guy in this area told of a (former) Ford dealers little scam. A bunch of guys hung around a neighborhood gas/ service station evenings. One of them was a Ford "road man"; a service rep from the factory. They are feared by dealers, I understand. One of the bunch bought a new Ford from the local dealer. Several months later, he had the car in a service bay, tearing down the engine. The Ford guy saw it and asked: What he H--l is going on here? The car had a bad camshaft, and the dealer told him that it was out of warranty and would cost about $400.00. The road guy told him that it absolutely was NOT out of warranty. They sent a team in to audit the dealer. It was the old trick of charging the owner for work, then collecting from the factory. Within a week, new signs were on the Ford salesroom.

Most of us hate the idea of all of our industry going out of the country. What will we have left in a couple of years? Its the result of arrogance in fools who have been put in charge of corporations, and who have been dedicated to gutting manufacturing and reducing the industry to debris and ashes. The only ones who can possibly resurrect industry are the dimwits who wrecked it, and have no idea why the companies ever existed in the first place. If Alfred Sloan were in General Motors today, hed most likely be crammed into an obscure corner by the bean counters that tore down his industrial masterpiece.

It can bring tears.

Mike #19861


 There certinly has been a level of complacency that has set in within the entire US industry. There have been factions that have meen milking the cash cow for generations, and it has been ingrained in their being. It is thougt that this is a perpetual cow with an unlimited supply of milk. Well, the cow is about to die of malnutrition.

 Now, with the threats of bankrupcies, the bean counters will reign supreme. The very ones that helped wreck the industry to begin with. The executives and financiers will also continue to reign. The other signatures on the death warrant.

 Here we have the executioner running the hospital.

  Mike