Re: Automotive News

Posted by Mr.Pushbutton  On 2009/9/24 20:12:11

I think they are fighting 30+ years of pissed off customers who bought one or more GM cars and had the thing $300-$500 them to death after the warranty is up. Things like loosing Air Conditioning, electrical problems, paint lifting off of the body and other things that happened to their cars that cost a-plenty.
If they want customers back, and back to stay,forget about the 60 day deal, forget about lifetime power warranties like Chrysler, guaranty that no repair will cost over $100 for as long as you own the car from new, for the first 100,000 miles.
Maybe, just maybe this would force them to consider their cost engineering re: this guaranty, like Western electric had to do when the phone company had to repair their onw phones. I know many stories of engineers at GM who knew how to make components that didn't fail, only to have management want fractions of a cent out of every part, and that's what failed. They shave fractions of cents to cut the engineering to the line, then dump truckloads of money on the same part when it fails.
The competition came along and they are good at getting these things right the first time, and making a boring car that doesn't set your heart on fire with passion, but a car that will run 250,000+ miles for over a decade of ownership and not have all of the comfort systems or suspension or other item fail and cost the customer increments of $100 every time something goes wrong.
This has not been acceptible to the US buyer for a long time, and that is what GM is up against.