Like he said, GM finally concluded they were in the parts business not the car business. Maybe time to get back to the car business. Styling, stamping, painting, assembly, into a dependable work of art.
Lutz may be annoying, but at least he cared about making good cars, unlike many others at GM who had different priorities.
“annoying” . . . that’s putting it nicely
“he cared about making good cars” . . . yet some pretty crappy cars were built under his watch
my mom said she finally got the notice in the mail for her Cobalt. Said dealers won’t have the parts until April to fix things though.
She had a funny idea as to why they wouldn’t have the stuff until April; saying GM wanted to wait until then because that’s when the second quarter begins and they wanted to show a bigger profit for the first quarter this year. And by doing the recall early in the second, they could try to make up for loss of profits as the months go on.
As corny as it sounds, it sounds plausible to me
Many times the recall will be issued…because the know they must…yet they have no true fix in place yet.
I’ve seen it many times.
“yet some pretty crappy cars were built under his watch…”
And that’s the curse of GM, where so many bean counters made decisions based on cost instead of quality.
When I worked at a GM dealership in the mid 1970s a muffler for a Chevrolet was $30. The same muffler for a Cadillac was $95! The parts, maintenance, repair business is much more profitable than selling cars. By the way, dealerships are not necessarily honest
Some interesting background on the Cobalt, plus a statement that GM knew when the Cobalt first came out that the ignition system was flawed but chose not to fix it, in part because of the cost:
All this over 13 deaths, mainly of morons who don’t know how to drive. No wonder the Russkies are making us look like fools.
@insightful
It never cease to amaze me how coldhearted some people can be
“morons who don’t know how to drive.”
Even if somebody is a moron, they deserve to live
“No wonder the Russkies are making us look like fools.”
The term Russkies is pretty outdated, and quite possibly derogatory
Who is “us” . . . ?
The Russians aren’t making me look like a fool
The Russians don’t need to make you look like a fool
You’re doing it all by yourself
You make yourself look like a fool
There is a Reuters article in the Chicago Tribibune newspapers this morning on this subject. It gives a little insight into how something like this can occur. It seems that a small, inexpensive spring could have been made a little stronger and that would have reduced the risk of turning off the ignition. The treat of going off shore for the part led the manufacturer (Eato) to use the less expensive spring.
Thirteen people seems like a small number, but there are likely many others that were injured in less catastrophic accidents. I do think that GM should be held accountable for this just as Toyota was prosecuted and paid a criminal penalty of $1.2-billion for their foot dragging in the unintended acceleration problems.
I’m late getting to the party here but I’d like to point out that an ignition switch never killed anybody. An undeployed airbag never killed anybody. Unintended acceleration never killed anybody. Hanging 20 keys from your keychain never killed anybody. People’s poor reaction–or no reaction at all–to situations like this may be what killed people.
Driving a 3500 lb car into other objects kills people. The Chevrolets still remained perfectly steerable and brakeable, though much more effort was required. But apparently no one anymore knows what to do when your car’s engine stalls.
What if we all take responsibility for our choices and actions and the things that may happen to us in the course of our lives instead of pointing fingers at others for not keeping us safe?
In fairness, no one who buys a new car expects the ignition switch to turn off accidentally at 70 mph, and therefore no one trains/practices/anticipates such a circumstance. As a mechanic maybe you would, most people don’t.
So expecting, say, a brand new teenage driver to suddenly know what to do when the ignition shuts off accidentally at 70 mph, may be expecting too much.
Should we now modify all driver’s ed programs to teach kids what to do when the ignition cuts out at 70 mph? Maybe we should. Maybe we should also have them practice reaction when the wheel falls off, or a tie rod end breaks. Then it will be OK for car manufcturers to sell defective products because we’ll all be perfectly trained in how to cope with any such emergency, and no one will die as a result.
While I understand your point about expecting products to be properly manufactured. My BIL had a wheel come off on his Merc way back. I had a tie rod end break, and I have had the car stall several times at highway speed. None of us were injured in the process. I guess if you drive a Buick 100 miles a day with 500K on it, you just are ready for things to happen.
Now from a realistic standpoint, a little 50 cent spring out of thousands of parts may be the culprit. I know engineers are smart but expecting absolute perfection when all these parts from a myriad of suppliers, domestic and foreign, seems to be mathematicaly asking for trouble. Especially since it is well known that off shore suppliers like to not properly harden their products, use questionable steel compositions and so on. If you like life, seems like you need take a little responsibility for defensive action. Stuff breaks all the time.
“no one trains/practices/anticipates such a circumstance.”
Well why not? That’s just dumb. When you teach your kid to ride a bike you teach him how to fall properly. When I took driver’s ed there was time devoted to what to do when a tire blows out. We were taught that you had 3 brake pedal pumps before you lost power brakes when the engine died. There can be just as much blame to the driver for crashing his car when the engine stalls as there is to the carmaker for making an engine that stalls. More, if I think about it.
“Should we now modify all driver’s ed programs to teach kids what to do when the ignition cuts out at 70 mph? Maybe we should. Maybe we should also have them practice reaction when the wheel falls off, or a tie rod end breaks.”
Yes, yes, absolutely and yes! To not train drivers in this manner is irresponsible. True, perhaps the methods by which I learned to drive might not be the normal experience, but as a 15 year old kid driving around with Dad on a Sunday morning and have him reach over and turn the key off I learned that always paying attention, knowing where to go and what to do is part of driving a car. My HS driver ed teacher was just as vigilant. She would cover the mirror and ask what color the car behind you was. If you didn’t know, no more training for the day. You’ve got to always be alert. Shit happens when you drive a car, and no matter the cause your inability to deal with it is no one else’s problem but yours.
My friends salient point after discussion was why not warn drivers about having too many keys on the keyring. It is my understanding the weight of the keyring was part of the problem.
@asemaster, I wish everyone got as good driver training as you did. The roads surely would be safer. But it still wouldn’t excuse car makers from making defective products.
I am NOT excusing GM
That said, there are certain automotive textbooks out there that mention excessive keyweight . . . and they show a keychain with about 15 keys (mostly house keys) on it, to make the point
I feel really bad about the people that died
Perhaps it would be good to encourage people to keep the car key separate, so that there isn’t all that weight swinging back and forth like a yo yo
I fully well realize everybody’s free to do what they want with their keys, but a little advice never hurt anybody.
Nobody’s forcing you to follow advice
Ehh, my HS drivers ed was courtesy of the Los Angeles School District. Some classroom training, some simulator, and some time driving a car with an instructor and 3 other students. Do they not do that anymore? Before we even set foot in a car we were taught what to do when a tire blows, what to do when the engine stalls, what to do if brakes or steering fails. Just seems like responsible training.
I’m not saying we should just sit back and accept pattern failures on cars in any measurable amount, but I don’t think it’s ok to just throw your hands in the air and say “the car quit, not my fault.” Ultimately, it’s your car and you are driving it. What happens when you are behind the wheel falls squarely on your shoulders.
Sometimes I think that driver education should be taught in older cars that may have a problem or two so that young drivers would have experience in dealing with these problems.
I once had a college student that worked for me that came from a poor family that didn’t own a car. She had taken driver training in high school, but had never been able to get a regular driver’s license. I told her that I would help her get that driver’s license. We renewed her learner’s permit and then I said that when I had to run an errand, she would drive. The first day we went out, the roads were ice covered and slick. She was scared–said that they didn’t go out on slick days in driver training. I told her that that was the first mistake. We went out with her driving–did a couple of laps around the parking lot and then hit the road. The old Maverick I had at the time didn’t start like “normal” cars–you had to pump the gas a little bit while cranking the engine. She turned out to be a very good driver and passed her driver’s test with flying colors. She ultimately got a good price on a car with a manual transmission and mastered that in no time. I firmly believe that one should learn to drive under real conditions and not ideal conditions.