GM intake seals settlements

And this is why GM sucks at this point. Screw over your customers for 10 years and then wonder why they don't come back.

Brent, and others,

I really appreciate your feelings and anger, but what I need is settlement information for negotiating with G.M. I'd appreciate it if we could confine the discussion to that topic. Once we have a settlement with G.M. I'll post the amount so it may help some of you.

Thanks again.

Dave,

When ours failed, GM offered nothing at all. The car was out of warranty.

The local dealer decreased his price for repair to a shade over US$300, in order to compete with the local independent shops. It was dealer goodwill, zippo from GM

I have yet to hear of anyone getting more than a 50% consideration for this problem from GM, even though just about every engine of that design and vintage seems destined for this failure. GM knows full well about the screw up and it "managing" the consequences of it.

In our household them managed us right into the arms of Honda, after having purchased our previous three new vehicles from GM.

Thx for the info, Dave. You don't know how many of us you've already helped. Please let us know when you learn additional settlements. I could use more details on what works. sam

Why would you expect any manufacture foreign or domestic, to repair your vehicle after the warranty had expired?

mike

I once had an engine oil seal blow. The vehicle was still under warranty. I had to engage an attorney to get the engine replaced. The manufacture wanted me to prove the proper grade of oil was used when the oil was changed, since the service was not performed at one of their dealerships. That manufacturer was Honda

mike

Actually, if it's a design defect...

My brother had a car where the clutch master cylinder failed out of warrantee. The dealer said it 'shouldn't have failed' made some calls and it was covered.

My motorcycle had an electrical failure, out of warrantee. Granted, it wasn't that big a deal, but I when I went to buy the parts to do the repair myself, I was given the parts for free.

Both times, the company was Honda.

Granted, that's the extreme in the other direction.

Look at it this way. How would you feel about the question from the post above if this same issue came up when GM was at 12/12000 warrantee? Or 24/24000?

But in the original posters case, here's a KNOWN defect that leads to a LIMITED SERVICE LIFETIME of the vehicle. It would be the kiss of death for used car values if it were mandated that at warrantee end you KNEW you had a big repair expense. Something that seems to be very close to reality with certain makes and models...

There really IS a perception of value here when the problem turns out to be a known defect that has turned into a common occurrence. That's why there's a lot of 'secret warrantees' out there.

So called "design defects" because they are wide spread were actually the result of governments mandates, such as gasket and paint problems, that where the result of not allowing gasket and paint manufactures sufficient time to develop and test proper replacement material. There are in fact not design defects but product defects, that are covered under the warranty. Warranties have limits however, and many of the problems occurred long after the warranties had expired. Many did not show up while still owned by the original owner, should a manufacturer offer extended coverage on a high mileage vehicle to somebody who may have not even purchased the vehicle from one of its dealers? Every manufacture suffered the consequences, not only GM and not only domestics, and they had to spend many millions to retain some of their customers or to "buy" the customers back.

What is a secret warranty? If there were indeed 'secret warrantees' out there, how would anybody ever know of them?

If I could get a decent price reduction to buy a vehicle without a warranty, I would do so. I have not purchased a vehicle that had any problems in over thirty years, back to when new vehicle warranties were for only 1000 miles or thirty days ;)

mike .

With these engines, you never knew when it would happen, or how much damage would be done.. Damage could be nil, or considerable, when these let loose.

Now, if anyone (but Mike Hunter, of course) were going to buy a car with a known ticking time bomb like this, it would probably make a big difference in price, or possibility of selling the car.

Mike keeps his cheerleading panties on all the time (but they are beginning to get ragged)

Of course another school of thought is that the Japanese mfgs like Toyota and Honda avoided these problems altogether, while still complying, and typically exceeding, the very same government standards. Many of these GM intake gasket leaks were fixed under warranty, but even the fixes are now leaking. Anyway you look at it, it is a manufacturing defect, either in design or in the materials specified, or both. And to the best of my knowledge, it has not been corrected to this day.

I imagine most of us are well aware of the paint mandates, but in what way did the government induce GM to turn out all of these engines with inadequate gasket sealing? And then not correct it year after year after year? Sounds like more Stay The Course BS to me. If the government ever starts counting leaking DexCool as an emission, GM will be in non attainment.

Lee Richardson '99 Alero 3400 V6, ready for it's 2nd lower intake gasket operation at

Where do you get the idea Japanese manufactures avoided gasket problems? Toyotas head gasket problems occurred much sooner that did the gasket problems for GM. There gasket manufactures used four different martial to replace asbestoses. Two worked fine, two did not. Of the two that failed, one went quickly the other lasted longer. Toyotas head gasket were going around 20K when the cars were under warranty. Those that were repaired with the original gaskets, failed again while under warranty. Toyota did not cover gasket problem after the warranty expired.

I was not until it became apparent years later that the asbestos replacement material was the problem that the other two good materials were adopted by the gasket manufactures world wide. GM gasket supplier used a material that lasted longer and failed after the warranty expired and thus the problem. It was not until Ford won an out of court settlement with the gasket manufactures that requires them to pay 80% of the total repairs caused by the gasket material, that Ford and other manufactures extended the warranty on their gaskets.

The gasket manufactures argued that engine failure do to gaskets was a maintenance problem. Head gasket failure indeed were not catastrophic, but failed over time, as I testified in my deposition in the Ford case since we in the fleet service business were first to report premature gasket failures in Toyotas. The gasket manufactures pointed out that we were replacing gasket BEFORE any engine damage occurred and if owners were properly maintaining their vehicles they should have discovered a "weeping" head gasket and replaced it, long before any engine damage occurred, as well. The court did not buy that argument and the gasket manufactures settled.

If you recall Toyota at first blamed "improper maintenance" as the cause of their sludge problem, until it became apparent that something else was amiss when the "Gelling," as they referred to the sludge, began turning up in engines serviced properly at their dealerships. We in the fleet service business were the first to discover a problem when we started to submit warranty claims after seeing sludge in some of their engines,

mike

Bullshit! Toyota covered bad head gaskets to well over 100,000 miles, long after the warranty expired. But more to the point, Toyota did step up and take care of the customer with the head gasket recall.

Right, but GM has had the intake gasket problem for 10 years or better and has done NOTHING about it. Does it take that long to design a gasket that works. Should the customer pay for GM's f*ck up ????

Same deal with Ford, when they found out they had a gasket problem they covered them under warranty. They admitted that it was a defective part and took care of it under warranty.

That's the american way, pass the buck.

Head gasket failure indeed were not catastrophic, but

What the hell would Ford care about Toyota gasket failures ???

The gasket manufactures pointed out that we were replacing

Bullshit! When coolant leaks into the oil it can take out an engine FAST. Do you expect people to check their oil every time they drive their car ??

Of course the court did not buy that ! It's a defective part, it's not up to the customer to watch it to see if/when it will fail.

That is correct. But what did Toyota doe when they found out it really was a problem ?? They covered it under warranty with no cost to the customer.

We in the fleet service

Then you should be able to see the pattern here as well. Most manufacturers stand behind their products when a gasket failure occurs but not GM.

Naturally you are entitled to your own opinion and free to believe what ever you chose, but everything I said in that post was correct. You are misinformed if you do not know GM extended the warranty for gasket failures based on time and mileage. ;)

mike

We paid for my wifes 2000 Alero 3.5 head gasket completely out of pocket to the tune of about $800. It came down to bickering over the gasket or replacing the engine later...