GM is going to have to recall more than 600,000 trucks and SUVs made between roughly 2021 and 2024 equipped with the 6.2 liter V8, which is – Murphy’s Law – the top-tier/most expensive V8 available in GM trucks and SUVs, including the Cadillac Escalade – on account of catastrophic engine failures, some of them occurring within days of the vehicle leaving the dealer’s lot.
“Some of them” being something of an understatement.
GM admits to having received 28,102 “complaints” related to crankshaft, connecting rod or main bearing failure.
The word doesn’t quite cover it. A loose door pull or prematurely flaking fake plastic chrome trim warrants a complaint. A catastrophic engine failure in a vehicle that’s just a few weeks or months old is cause for heads on pikes, especially since it hasn’t been handled the way it ought to have been handled. Instead of offering to buy the vehicles back – the right thing to do – GM has done the short-sighted thing.
It is offering to “check” all the vehicles that have the potentially fatally flawed 6.2 engine.
Does that mean the engine will be removed, disassembled and inspected? That’s the only meaningful way to check whether bearings are sub-par, as by physically examining them 0 which requires major disassembly of the reciprocating assembly (pistons, connecting rods, crank, etc.).
Probably not.
And even if it did mean that, it will not fix the real problem, which is reputational more so than physical. The people who own one of the affected vehicles probably no longer have much confidence in their vehicle. Would you? Knowing that close to 30,000 other people who own one like yours had to deal with a catastrophic engine failure caused by either sub-par parts or sub-par manufacturing/assembly processes? That there have been “potentially related alleged crashes” – potentially/allegedly caused by the locked-up engine resulting in sudden/unexpected loss of control of the vehicle.
That there have also been “42 potentially related fire allegations in the U.S.”? Not to worry. “In the majority of these cases (a) the causation of these incidents is unclear and (b) the alleged fire damage is contained to the engine compartment and consistent with damage that can occur, in rare instances, during engine failure.”
Would it restore your confidence to know the dealer has “checked” the engine . . . whatever that means?
And if it means actually tearing down the engine to check the connecting rods, crankshaft and main bearings, would you feel good about that? Engine disassembly being a rather involved procedure involving many small parts and many fine adjustments.
And it’s more than just that, too.
Disassembling an engine generally entails removing it from the vehicle and that means disconnecting lots of wiring harnesses and other connections that were all connected on the assembly line. If any of these connections are not re-connected correctly during re-assembly, the result could be new reasons for complaints, such as those arising from intermittent electrical glitches and perhaps worse than that. If you’ve ever seen the warren of wires and hoses and lines and connections of peripheral parts under the hood of a modern car, you will already know why there’s reason to worry when a repair requires major disassembly.
Engine replacement – which GM offered customers whose engines went kaput – is similarly problematic and also something worse, because while the new/replacement engine may not have the sub-par parts and have been assembled properly, it’s a replacement engine and there will be a record of that. Put yourself in the position of someone considering the purchase of a used/traded-in GM truck or SUV. You run a Carfax or similar and discover that the vehicle you were (past tense emphasis) considering had to have its engine replaced. Would you want to buy that vehicle? Take a chance that it “checked” out?
Probably not.
This is where ought to have done comes in. GM is probably legally correct insofar as offering to “check” the engines and replace them when they self-destruct. But this is going to leave a very sour taste in a lot of GM vehicle owners’ mouths. Because it is a near certainty that these vehicles are no longer worth as much as they were prior to getting their engines replaced – and the same goes for those that didn’t have to have them replaced.
Put another way, the fact that a large number of these vehicles did have to have a new engine installed affects the reputation of them all, in the form of steeper depreciation – and all of the owners of these trucks and SUVs will get to pay for that. How can anyone have confidence that the negine in their truck or SUV will not one day fail? That theirs is not also affected by sub-par parts and sub-par assembly/manufacturing processes?
How would you feel about GM if – let us say – you had purchased a $100,000 Cadillac Escalade and before a month had passed, the Caddy was needing a new engine? Would it ease your “complaint” to be offered a replacement engine – knowing your Caddy would never be exactly what it was before it needed a new engine and that you’d probably never feel the same way about it again?
That you’d probably take a bath come resale/trade-in time?
How about your friends – who know all about what happened to the GM truck/SUV you bought? Think they are going to be cautious about buying one themselves?
Either way, it’s a mess – for the people who bought one of the trucks or SUVs with the 6.2 engine and for GM, because these trucks and SUVs are the most profitable and best-selling vehicles in GM’s lineup. The cost of lost future sales may prove to be higher than whatever it would have cost to buy back every one of the vehicles sold with the sub-par engines and apologize to the people who bought them.
But the greatest tragedy here is that the 6.2 V8 itself is a great engine sabotaged by either sub-par parts or sub-par manufacturing/assembly. It is not a poorly designed engine, in other words. GM probably tried to save some money by purchasing lower-cost bearings from a sub-par supplier and GM’s customers paid for it. As of course GM will pay for it. Or there was some assembly line snafu resulting in the same.
But it’s not a case of a sub-par engine, as in the case of the Vega of the ’70s unsleeved aluminum engine – which wasn’t fixable because it was a piece of junk.
GM has, in other words, made a piece of junk – reputationally – out of an engine that isn’t.
And that’s a tragedy.
. . .
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If you had 200 million people injected with a mysterious concoction that you claimed was a “miracle vaccine” and you could get tried for mass murder if the public found out it was intended to destroy human immune systems and kill many people, and if your were a “public official”, would you demand “autopsies” of all Americans who “died suddenly” and would you demand “a national study” to determine the efficacy of the “vaccine” created with zero long term testing? Or would you provide incentives to funeral homes to “cremate” and have “experts” attack doctors who dare question the “unnatural” number of deaths and the new “turbo cancers”. Who would want to endure the attacks funded by the Big Pharma billions that own most of the mainstream media? So, if you have zero interest in government for “assessing” the efficacy of the “experimental untested vaccine” how will you know that it didn’t kill tens of millions of people? Just like, how with the general public know if GM can still make a V8 engine worth buying?
Hi Kent,
You ask: “how will you know that it didn’t kill tens of millions of people”? Well, because tens of millions of people would be gone – and I think that would hard to hide. Just imagine the logistics involved in disposing of tens of millions of dead bodies. They’d literally be stacking up like cordwood. Are you seeing that? I’m not. Just saying.
Mind: I am not saying the “vaccines” are innocuous. Far from it. I believe many people – probably tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands – have been harmed and many people have been hastened to their deaths. The whole episode is likely, in my opinion, to one day go down as the most egregious case of “vaccines” harming people ever.
But – again – mass deaths in the tens of millions? That seems a bit much – because I see no evidence that it is true.
Here’s one admittedly anecdotal sample: My gym is just as crowded as it ever was. Yet probably half or more of the people who go there got at least one shot. One of my friends – a nurse – had to get the shot. He’s not dead. None of the people he works with – all of them required to take the shot to keep their jobs – are dead. If the shots were as lethal as some say, why are none of them dead?
There are statistics showing a huge increase in the “total deaths all causes”. Insurance companies have documented this as an occurrence after the 2021 vaccination started. Edward Dowd has written much about it. The estimates are in the tens of millions globally who have died as a direct cause of the vaccine. And even more who have been disabled. It’s all in what you study, or what you don’t pay attention to. How many people in the world know what you know about the harmful overall effects of the EV initiative across the world? Hardly anyone. That does not mean you are not right.
And then there’s the fact the “vaccine” has been shown to accumulate in the OVARIES, effecting FERTILITY.
One could count mass pregnancy prevention as a “mass die off”, couldn’t one?
One of my co-workers has the 6.2 in his almost new GMC Sierra pickup. To say it’s been a problem for him, is an understatement. I see the local dealers courtesy car parked in his space pretty often.
Another co-worker has a GMC Acadia that has been problematic in the transmission and electrical departments.
Guessing this won’t affect Mary Barra’s bonus this year.
All is ok. the solution for engines that haven’t blown up is to replace the oil with 0w-40 and a new filter.
How this fixes manufacturing/assembly defects is beyond me, but they are doing amazing things with oil these days.
Chevy Vega, great looking car that would either rust to dust in 5 years or the engine would die. I owned a ’73 Vega with a rust free front end, rust free because it went through a quart of oil every 50 miles
Ford owes myself and many others for the 351/400M
There are many ‘regulatory’ root causes that contributed to these types of problems;
No more leaded bearings, now aluminum and less forgiving
Higher power density from smaller, turbocharged engines
Less lubricity additives in oil such as zinc
Thinner oils
Longer time/mileage intervals ‘recommended’ between oil changes by manufacturers
Oil pump belts instead of gears
Start/stop
These are some of the major features adopted by manufacturers for fuel economy and pollution regulations contributing to low end failures.
Allegations of Loss of Nerve”
Like Stalin’s plucked chicken grateful for a few kernels of corn, Ford’s CEO abjectly praises Trump’s very minor tariff concessions:
“Ford welcomes and appreciates these decisions by President Trump, which will help mitigate the impact of tariffs on automakers, suppliers and consumers. We will continue to work closely with the administration in support of the president’s vision for a healthy and growing auto industry in America. Ford sees policies that encourage exports and ensure affordable supply chains to promote more domestic growth as essential.”
Not good enough, Jim. Get down on all fours, crawl across the carpet, and lick the soles of my cowboy boots.
Eric, what you are describing is a catastrophic failure of ideology, management, quality, manufacturing which could sink GM. Why would anyone buy another GM product if their flagship diesel motor doesn’t work flawlessly like a Cummins?
Not surprising to me a GM product was wanting for quality, when I was growing up our family owned a Vega and several Pintos, neither were great cars.
My impression of Ford and GM really went into the toilet when my first wife bought a 1982 Honda Civic – which was flawless and got superior gas mileage. There was no comparison – the Honda car started every time. It was reliable unlike no GM or Ford.
GM made the Geo Metro – which also has lousy quality – but superior design and fuel economy since it was a rebadged Suzuki Swift. (Suzuki, unfortunately is subpar like Mitsubishi compared to Toyota and Honda.)
What GM did was take a Suzuki design and sell it as the Sprint then they cheapened the quality when sold as the Metro. (The Sprint was carbureted while the Metro injected). The Sprint door latch and window crank were better quality and did not break like the Geo – which used inferior plastic hardware.
The greatest feature IMO of the Geo Metro was the single TBI injector – whose spray pattern could be viewed by removing the air cleaner and shining a timing light – which freeze framed the fuel spray. Either the single injector was working or not – making diagnosing easy.
The other fantastic feature was ending the rocker arm pushrods on the G10 engine and going to overhead cam pushing on hydraulic lifters – the simpliest valve design ever. Imagine an engine with no rockers or pushrods.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/lhYAAOSwQJRnZHQA/s-l1600.jpg
If only Honda had built the Metro to their standards. The biggest flaw in the G10 engine was the EGR port – which you can see in the photo, bottom right hole, to the right of the exhaust ports, was where the exhaust gas would go through the block back to the intake manifold – and it clogged – which would burn the #3 exhaust valve.
My friend has a 1989 metro built in Japan, doesn’t have that port or EGR system – his engine has 350,000 miles and no problems. Made in Japan is better then made by GM.
I owned a Pinto (actually a Mercury Bobcat) 3-door hatchback, bought it used, ran it for several years without any issues. It was cheap to operate and maintain. I even had the appropriate rear bumper sticker: Caution, this car explodes on impact. Stay back!
My Kawasaki has around 75,000 miles on it and when I put in new plugs last week I noticed that one of the plugs was loose and the crush gasket had never been crushed. The only people who ever touched the engine before me was the manufacturer or their dealer.
Hard to believe but as I was the one that changed them I know it was true. The gaps had only opened up from .7/.8 mm to .9/ 1mm. Not bad in my opinion. Needless to say I went overkill and tightened them with a torque wrench.
After two 5.0L F-150s that were great, I saved 20 grand by buying a ’23 Titan Pro 4X. Just towed 475 miles to camp at the beach in CA. The 5.6L engine is smoother, quieter and has more low end torque than the 5.0 Coyote. The 9 speed transmission is smoother too. No problemo going through the Tecate and Laguna mountains to San Diego. Engine and tranny stayed cool. So far so good. The drawback is the fuel economy towing a 7k travel trailer is 7 to 10 mpg vs the 5.0 Coyote’s 8 to 11 depending on the grade and wind. Too bad Nissan stopped making these, they’re dang good trucks. I had one new Silverado 5.3 and it was OK but I got rid of it in a year as it just wasn’t a great tow vehicle. After that no more GM for me.
Hmmm, Vic & Landru are driving Japanese vehicles, with no/minimal problems, while those with American/GM are eating huge repair and maintenance costs… I’m seeing a pattern here?!
Government Morons has been a crap company run by accountants for decades now, and only worries about profit, at the cost of destroying the core business.
GMAC financing has been a bigger $$$ maker compared to manufacturing for decades, should tell you all you need to know.
Not to mention scary Mary berra running the entire enterprise into the ground on purpose, it seems…
Almost like there’s an (((Agenda))) afoot???
Hmmm …
And Toyota recalled all the engines thought to have been compromised by debris left during manufacturing.
Recalled all for replacement, not merely for inspection.
Good luck convincing the $15/hour tech inspecting your GM engine that it needs to be replaced until it actually fails.
Will GM dealers soon look like Hyundai, where stacks of Theta/Theta II engines are piled high in one corner of the service department?
I wonder if this is a result of the “pandemic” protocols that GM employees had to endure (masking vaxxing, etc.). “Oh, I see, I have to mask up all day to keep my fucking job?. Woops, I guess forgot to lube those crank bearings. Woops, that rod bolt only got hand tight.”
I suspect there is some element of truth to this idea.
A hint….. DEI.
I think in many ways, DEI is being created as the “sacrificial lamb” when the actual cause is much deeper. Like, the Jews running the businesses in the first place. It’s much easier to sacrifice the lamb than the farmer.
Why is it always DEI or Jews? That seems to be the right wing version of the left blaming racism for everything.
Maybe it’s management that pushed for too much cost cutting, maybe it’s clueless junior engineers that replaced senior engineers because they’re cheaper (or DEI correct), maybe it’s a bad batch of crank shafts or bearings from a supplier.
Someone screwed up, but personally, it bugs me to blame a political target before we even know why it happened.
Cars have been getting worse due to cost cutting, overall. Everything is smaller, more frail, to save on materials and our advanced modern engineering simulation allows us to cost cut in areas where people were content to over-build in the past.
I suggest you do the following:
Look at the most recent big corps that have gone belly up (or come close to it).
Sears.
Radio Shack.
Toys R Us.
K-mart.
And who was in charge of marketing at Budweiser, again?
Corps that were considered “American staples”.
And see who was in charge of each one of those corps when they went tits up.
If you find a Jew in charge of each one? It would seem I’m correct. Come admit it.
If you find evidence otherwise, I suggest coming back and showing us just how wrong I am.
Toys R Us was wrecked by private equity. KKR CEO? Scott Nuttall, who by all accounts appears to be Jewish from a quick search.
Sears & KMart? Eddie Lampert….undoubtedly a Red Sea pedestrian.
Radio Shack? Alex Mehr….starting to notice a trend?
Noticing begets more noticing.
All I do is recognize patters. And the pattern seems pretty distinct to me.
Patterns, even.
Cabela’s, Paul Singer.
There is a rung in hell waiting for Paul to suffer eternally.
Why is it always DEI or Jews? That seems to be the right wing version of the left blaming racism for everything. OppositeLock
Maybe because it is? Stranger things have happened!
If it smells like a duck,,, walks like a duck,,, quacks like a duck,,,,,,, there’s a good chance it’s a duck!
“Why is it always DEI?”
Because it has permeated throughout all of society at every level. Civilization was for the most part built by a merit based society, and it’s downfall will be at the hands of barbarians who know nothing but destruction. The barbarians are now voting for the destruction of whole countries. Orange man, I fear is just a temporary reprieve.
The “Crapification of the U.S. Economy Is Now Complete”
February 9, 2022
Charles Hugh Smith
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb22/crapification2-22.html
“Products are now designed to be impossible to repair (eliminating cheapskate do-it-yourselfers) and by using the lowest-quality, lowest-cost components, manufacturers guarantee that the entire product will fail once the lowest-quality component fails.”
Ain’t that the truth MrBill.
I have a 15 yo GE refrigerator. The only reason it made it thus far is I changed out the ‘Main Card’ twice and a fan.
I have another I call my Garage refrigerator (Whirlpool) purchased in 1985. No repairs yet. 40 years of service. Of course you can’t play games on the internet or call it up to find the present temperature in the fresh food section, and it doesn’t wipe your ass. It only keeps your food cold. Americans just love the frivolous / nanny crap. The rest of us that just want a refrigerator / car / that works are SOL.
‘government contracts often forbid the inclusion of modems, GPS, and other data analytics tech’ — Burn It Down
Why have I not read about this in the Lügenpresse?
That’s a rhetorical question. As if Jalopnik is going to dig up the dirt and publish the hard-hitting scoop.
Yeah, that’ll be a cold day in hell.
“Allegations of Loss of Propulsion”
Americans’ capacity for euphemism never ceases to amaze.
It’s like getting hammered, face-planting on the pavement, then breezily waving it off the next morning as ‘allegations of loss of balance.’
GM’s gross screw-up on its 6.2L V8 recalls other incidents such as Boeing’s 737MAX with its lethal MCAS software. Basic manufacturing competence has been lost.
In the bigger picture, the US is a hollowed-out empire. It still swaggers around the world with its 800 overseas bases. But if a hot war broke out with a serious opponent, US forces would run out of ammo within weeks.
Meanwhile, a $60 million F/A-18 fighter fell off a US carrier two days ago, as it maneuvered to avoid return fire from the Houthis, who ‘we’ picked a fight with.
Don’t be surprised if Clown World has to close down for repairs.
Even that BS story about 3rd world militias shooting at a carrier – causing the plane to take a swim – fell through.
Likely just a bunch of incompetent sailors, perhaps not thinking straight after a spat with their Marine Corps dance partners.
Pentagon went to the Susan Smith defense playbook there with the “I dunno what happened….mysterious black/brown dudes did it!”
‘mysterious black/brown dudes did it!’ — Flip
Those wascally wabbits! :angry-face:
This may sound harsh, and while I do agree with the tone of this article..
Anybody purchasing, supporting and abating the criminals who are implementing this serious mass-control scheme.. deserve to lose and lose BIG!
If you are supporting nanny-tech, spyware and clown-screens..
EAT IT PAL! 😀
I agree. It’s a shame we can’t have NEW nice things. Good thing there are other options besides always having to buy the latest ting.
I was one of the thousands of Hyundai Sonata owners with a 2.0 liter turbo that had a blown motor due to a manufacturing defect (not removing the flash from the block properly after casting).
My car fortunately ground to a halt in my neighborhood and I was able to be towed to the dealership, where the car awaited a new long block for five months. Hyundai, to their credit, paid for a rental car during that time.
It’s not a fun process, trust me. When I got my car back, I immediately sold it to the Hyundai dealership and went and bought a new car with no turbo, no 10-speed automatic, no nannies and have never looked back.
The V-8 should be a core competency of GM. The small and big blocks have always been legendary engines. My guess is typical GM bean counting is why these motors failed. They tried to save a penny or two on a part that shouldn’t have been subject to cost cutting at all.
With this news involving the recalls of GM vehicles with that V8 engine and other issues with newer automobiles, what are the odds that it will make people even more skeptical of buying a new automobile in the first place? After reading and hearing about newer automobiles from this site and elsewhere, I’m increasingly not interested in a new automobile period, and wish to keep my existing late 1990s truck running as long as possible.
The problem is replaceament parts to keep it running. What is made is going to depend on what’s out there, so popular models. Not to mention the suppliers are the same ones making these junk parts in the first place. And those would be the higher quality options (e.g. OEM equivalent). Most aftermarket parts are lower quality intended to be as cheap as possible.
Amen, Sam –
Almost all aftermarket parts are Chinesium. Some are better than others. But it pays to be careful – to the extent this is even feasible.
I bought new (chinese) rubber seals from LMC truck for vent window glass on the drivers side. In one winter, not even 6 months, it had cracks and dry rot. I got 2 for the passenger side as well I was going to do in spring, but after that, I left the one in from the 80s. Now the 80s one looks better. Pointless repair job.
Hi Sam,
Unfortunately, that is true. I ordered a part for my truck’s 3rd door a few years ago, as the original part that opens the door quit working, and now the replacement part seems to have quit working so once again, I can’t open that 3rd door to get access to the area behind the seats, let alone let a 3rd passenger in.
Some aftermarket parts (AC Delco = GM, Bosch = VW, Nippon Denso = Toyota, etc.) are the exact same thing as OEM parts, except for the sticker & the price.
Some are copies/knockoffs.
Occasionally the aftermarket will fix a problem & thus is actually better than OEM. Occasionally.
It pays to research this.
If there’s a silver lining it might be that most of these new car issues can be blamed on workmanship during assembly. So if you are competent or have a good mechanic you can evaluate the parts and not have to trust the shoddy work being done by the auto manufacturers.
You are of course trusting the work done by the supplier but it’s easier to find and fix problems on the bench. Things like engine bearings, all you can really do is verify their dimensions, you can’t know for sure about them metallurgically. It’s always an open question. I wouldn’t put it past the suppliers for anything not to be cutting corners.
But yeah, most shade tree mechanics, heck any mechanic, know most of the time a lifetime warranty from a parts store means you won’t be paying for the part ever again when you do the sure-to-be annual replacement of it.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60992514/toyota-tundra-lexus-lx-engine-recall/
Toyota has a similar failure in their Tundra/Land Cruiser V8.
Engine failures, yes, but not in V8s. The problems here are turbocharged V6 engines.
The engine and drivetrain are what makes the car go. You have to get that right.
You know it is going to leave a mark.
Well this man down at the used car lot
Tried to sell me four wheels and a trunk
I said, “Man, there ain’t no engine”
He said, “The engine’s just a bunch of junk”
He said, “You don’t need no engine to go downhill
And I could plainly see, that that’s the direction
You’re headed in, ” and he handed me the keys
I said, “No deal, you can’t sell that stuff to me
Oh no deal, I’m going back to Tennessee” – Guy Clark, No Deal
It seems that the heads of these big companies never learn from past screwups. Didn’t GM have a lawsuit against them years ago for faulty ignition switches? This is where they decided to use lighter springs in the ignition switches to save a penny or two. Because of the lighter springs, any weight on the key ring would cause the key to flip back into the “off” position and cut the car engine off and lock up the steering while driving. It seems like excessive greed and drive to obtain the biggest bonus for savings by using inferior cheap parts in manufacturing is biting them in ass and they never learn. The leadership in GM are “penny wise and pound foolish”. But then again, higher education has never made common sense a mandatory or elective course of study.
They never learn, because the idiots in charge keep bailing out the auto industry every time it gets itself into trouble.
Failure sucks, but it’s the necessary (if ugly) flip side of a market economy. It’s the “destruction” part of “creative destruction.” It’s part of the accountability that keeps the system somewhat honest. It’s a key feedback mechanism, and people keep turning h it off and expecting everything to just magically work. It will…for a while…but one day we’ll all wake up & it won’t work any more & we’ll be in a real pickle.
Problem is the marketplace can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent, so betting against it isn’t necessarily a smart play.
In the end we’re all going to get royally fucked, and we’ll deserve it.
Have you toyed with the possibility they are Not screwups. Putting the light the shit going on today,,, there ‘s all kinds of possibilities! In the USA (United Scammers of America) its either scam your buddy or go broke. Check out Asset Forfeiture. Our leaders and cheater buddies in law scamming have stolen far more then the honest types. The banks? The clerk calls her partner to let him/her know a person just left the bank with a large amount of cash.
Zero sympathy for buyers of Government Motors trash.
Quality was dying long before the bailout.
Case in point is the GMT800, which had an all-new LSx V8 that debuted and had almost zero problems from the ’98 rollout with those engines – which easily run to 300k+ miles.
The truck came with (first ever in a pickup) standard 4 wheel discs, underhood lamp, cabin air filter and plastic emblems.
Fast forward to 2003 when the stress cracks began to show and to save costs, they reengineered the rear brakes to drums, changed the emblems to stickers and eliminated the underhood lamp and cabin air filter. (And they also changed several interior parts to junk which wore out quickly.)
If you got scammed by GM since 2008, it’s completely your own fault for either not paying attention or just being plain stupid.
I’ve had many high mileage and worn engines, none of which ever catastrophically failed. For some strange reason engines designed with the aid of a slip stick and built out of cast iron ran long after the car they were bolted into rusted away and now engines self destruct before even the first payment! Talk about planned obsolescence.
Same here. All GM engines no less.
So does GM outsource all subcomponents & essentially act as an assembler not a manufacturer per se? Henry Ford had the right idea –he was the originator of vertical integration i.e. he had total control over all production.
If only there were more regulations! 🤪
New car blues.
Buy the ticket, get taken for a ride.
Please understand none of the OEM’s view the retail customer as the “customer” anymore.
They serve the government first and foremost. They serve the dealers next. NADA is one of the most powerful lobby’s in the swamp. They serve the insurance industry and companies that determine lease residual values more than they serve a retail customer. They serve the auto union more than they service the customer because they are dependent on the union labor to even be able to assemble the car. The UAW is again a powerful lobby’s in DC which depends on its ability to get Goverment to coerce the OEM’s into paying for over priced labor as a means of sustaining itself.
Heck, don’t forget they make almost zero money on designing and manufacturing the car itself. The money is made via the OEM’s financing arm – not manufacturing.
Wise up people.
Burn it Down: “Heck, don’t forget they make almost zero money on designing and manufacturing the car itself. The money is made via the OEM’s financing arm – not manufacturing.”
The problem Burn is that if they don’t build anything that people want to buy they won’t make any money financing it. Perhaps that’s why the car companies love EV’s. When 7 years old cars are cheaper to scrap rather than repair or watching that 25 year old Camry drive by your stealership everyday. Guess which one of those they went with.
That’s why they are pushing EV’s; cars began to last too long and that cost’s them money.
“The problem Burn is that if they don’t build anything that people want to buy they won’t make any money financing it.”
Although true, there is a large pool of people that will continue to buy what ever is offered.
Even the comments section here bears this out. People can’t be bothered to have even a basic understanding of the industry and will continue to buy for all sorts of reasons even when that is at odds with their own best interest.
This ranges from optics such as “my customers can’t see me in an old vehicle”. Then there is the “my job requires it”. And let’s not forget the warped notion that people have that it’s cheaper to buy new than to maintain what they have.
The OEMs understand “customer” psychology and behaviors better than the customers understand themselves.
Every person who owns a 2021-2024 Sierra, Silverado, Suburban, or Escalade is about to take a bath. I don’t care that GM has to come out of pocket $7 billion dollars. If GM sold 680k at approximately $75k each (and this is the low end of the spectrum) they made $51 billion. They haven’t lost anything. Mary is still collecting her $30 million a year. Sure, they may suffer some loss of reputation, but we need to realize that we are not their target audience. People who purchase a new vehicle every 5, 10, or 15 years don’t contribute to Mary’s ridiculous and undeserving paycheck…fleets purchased by commercial enterprise and government agencies do.
The Cadillac episode is truly my second most regrettable purchase in life, a house in SC wins the title for most regrettable, but like most things it was an eye opening experience. Just as I learned to never purchase a home with an HOA I will also never purchase a new car again.
People who purchase a new vehicle every 5, 10, or 15 years don’t contribute to Mary’s ridiculous and undeserving paycheck…fleets purchased by commercial enterprise and government agencies do.
Absolutely correct – forgot that one in my rant
One other item of note: givernment contracts often forbid the inclusion of modems, GPS, and other data analytics tech that can be used to track the vehicle. Funny how that works!