GM is saying that they don’t have to cover cars that pre-date the new GM but when we were forced to bail them out we were told by Obama
“Let me say this as plainly as I can. If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always.
Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty.”
I think they are saying that they don’t have to cover any warranties that was done under the old GM so they don’t have any responsibility to fix your car if you bought it from the old GM.
Right now I’m really glad I didn’t buy GM back then.
You’re overstating the situation - read the article. They’re not saying the warranties don’t apply. They’re saying lawsuits over defects don’t apply. Normal warranty related claims would still seem to apply. The courts will figure this out, eventually.
Since when are defects NOT covered under a manufacturers warranty…
GM is stating that they are NOT responsible because those cars were built under the OTHER GM…The one before the bankruptcy. This is common in manufacturing…NOT just GM or the auto industry.
Legally GM probably will get away with this. The companies that actually WANT customer loyalty would honor the warranty.
Mike, I would disagree. When one company is assumed by another company, the new owners assume all legal liabilities of the old company. GM did not go Chapter 7 (liquidation), they went Chapter 11 (reorganization). Now they’re using legal shenannigans to get out of their responsibility and leave the consumer “holding the bag”. But I agree that they’ll probably get away with this.
And to think Obama used our tax dollars to bail this company out.
You may be right…But I thought that even chapter 11 you were exempt. I know they don’t have to pay you any unused vacation days if you leave while they are in Chapter 11…I learned that lesson…Lost 3 weeks once.
The companies that actually WANT customer loyalty would honor the warranty.
Yes, well, that’s the key point, isn’t it. For over 30 years GM has been busy finding every way it can to prove it doesn’t want loyalty. First they built cars that were general piles of crap for at least 2 decades. Then they pull this nonsense.
“And to think Obama used our tax dollars to bail this company out.”
Its funny that everything really tanked in '08 before Obama was even elected and that the Bush admin oversaw dumping huge billions of dollars on corporate aid/bailouts of all kinds, yet now everyone’s rhetoric has this all in Obama’s lap. Oh yes…everything was just fine until Obama…huh? This was all going on and fully geared up and in the works before Obama ever took office. And GW signed off on plenty before he took office.
As for the GM move…this is typical corporate sleaze, and I agree that they will likely get away with it - but possibly to their own detriment.
Sorry Cig, but this one was Obama’s deal. You can no more blame Bush for the GM buyout than I can blame Obama for the Iraq war, and both were bad deals.
a) I disagree that it was Obama’s deal as it was already well in the works before he ever stepped in. The dice were loaded and ready to roll.
b) So…given the context of the time, this was just one more thing on a pile of rolling momentum. You might say “I can’t believe that the US govt used our tax dollars…” But making this out to be something Obama did is just politically dishonest.
I don’t think MB is dismissing Bush…I agree Bush left us with a MESS. Started with a 400 billion dollar surplus and ended with a 1.2 Trillion dollar defecate.
But I’m with MB…GM should NOT have been bailed out…If this is a true capitalistic system…then companies MUST be allowed to fail…If we bail them out then capitalism FAILS…
a) I disagree that it was Obama’s deal as it was already well in the works before he ever stepped in. The dice were loaded and ready to roll.
Obama has free will. He didn’t have to sign. So it’s his deal.
That said, it wasn’t a terrible idea. The government is getting the money back, and we kept one of the last major industries in the country from collapsing (and with it the smaller industries that feed it). If you think the recession sucked as it was, you have no idea how bad it would have been if the Big 3 had gone under.
It was certainly a smarter idea, especially since Obama attached strings to the deal (get rid of your CEO who got you here and hire someone smart for the job, etc), than the bank bailout (in which the money should have gone to the people who couldn’t pay the mortgage rather than the banks, and in which there were no requirements for getting the free money).
I don’t think we can really blame Obama for the fact that GM is being sleazy, but I do think we can say “Alright, if that’s the way you want to play it, then we’re going to pass a law that specifically says we cannot bail out companies who have a history of pulling crap like this.”
Well, I was sort of thinking just leave Bush & Obama out of it altogether. (Although if we thought it made sense to exclusively blame a president I’d lay a lot more on Bush). Most of this is driven by the treasury dept & its head. Then you have that whole big congress thing.
What was done before & after GM wasn’t done by the presidents alone - nor did either president even generate the policies/plans etc. That’s part of what I meant about the dice already being loaded. Or perhaps you could say the gun was already loaded & cocked. Obama didn’t walk into a nice perfect system of capitalist markets & suddenly come up with the crazy idea that HE should dump $$ on companies. The mess was there as was the machinery.
Although if we thought it made sense to exclusively blame a president I’d lay a lot more on Bush
You an’ me both. My only point is that it’s not accurate to say that the auto bailout was not Obama’s deal because it had been in the works before he became President. While it’s true that it had, he did sign it - and it wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t - and therefore any blame or praise for it falls rightfully on his shoulders.
My main criticism of Obama and the Democratic Congress that we had for the first 2 years of his presidency, is that while they took steps to stop the collapse, they did not take any steps to stop future collapses. When you get right down to it, our economy still runs exactly the same as it did pre-crash. Because of that, another crash is virtually inevitable - the only question is when.
My only point is that it’s not accurate to say that the auto bailout was not Obama’s deal because it had been in the works before he became President. While it’s true that it had, he did sign it - and it wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t - and therefore any blame or praise for it falls rightfully on his shoulders.
You may think that way if you wish. I just see your logic - that if he didn’t sign it, it wouldn’t have happened (which is actually not necessarily true anyway) as being based on something that is very trivially true. Its just plain silly to individualize it that way. One could say that Obama was one of many participants in the entire event. And by the “entire event” I mean way more than just the case of GM. To single out the GM bail out and to single out Obama as somehow the master of it, as if its “his” is plain silly. Extracting one particular thing or one particular person from the entire context of the time doesn’t do much by way of carrying a good understanding of what happened back there through all of '08 & into '09.
I’m against using tax dollars to bail out private industry no matter who is behind the arrangement. That includes government backed loans for corporations the value of which has sunk so low that financial instititutions no longer consider them a viable risk, such as the Chryler of Lee Iacocoa many years ago. While I hold Iacocoa in extremely high regard and will always be amazed at what he achieved, I was against the use of our tax dollars to “shore up” Chrysler.
As regards GM, I (and now many analysts) remain unconvinced that GM has exhibited fundamental necessary changes. Had GM been “change or liquidate” they probably would have made fundamental changes. They would have had to. But fundamental change comes from having had to suffer, not from having had a “near miss”.
My problem is the bailout itself. And when having “misread” the pickup truck market as badly as they have takes a toll on their bottom line, I’ll not be surprised if we find them back at the till.
Cig, the same thing could be said of Bush. . . And it would be even more true since Bush was obviously a puppet of more intelligent forces who preferred to remain more under the radar (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove). At the end of the day, the President is the last obstacle for a bill to overcome, and so if he signs it, he bears responsibility for it. Again, regarding the GM bailout, I don’t really see why people are picking on Obama as though it were a bad idea - especially since those same people usually voice great love for Bush and his bailout of the banks, which helped no one except those who needed help the least.
As to whether or not GM will be back at the till, I think they’ve now shown themselves for the corporate slime they are. If they don’t want to help their customers, I don’t think their customers, who are also taxpayers, will be very interested in helping them.
That would be unconscionable not to honor recalls for defective parts in my mind, guess that is why I don’t get those multimillion dollar bonuses for pleasing the bean counters
Please read the article. GM is not trying to get out of normal warranty work, nor out of any recall-related work. This only is about class-action lawsuits.
I imagine 99+% of warranty claims will still be covered.
Medical news from the popular press has been often dubious in the past according to my wife who worked in medical research so it seems reasonable to be skeptical about legal advice from the popular press as well. They need a story with impact to sell what they have to offer and will sometimes go to extreme or distorted views to accomplish that.
We have an 08 GM car and if I learn that our warranty is useless, that will be the end of our GM car buying experience. You can believe that if you are GM, you would think the same about your customers; would want them to come back for another car one day.
