GM should give a 10 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty for all new vehicles and those sold in the past 9 years

The intake manifold problems of most of GM's modern V-6 engines are but one example of poor engineering and/or poor manufacturing control which have caused hundreds of thousands of customers to be burned. These are not used car hand-me-downs, but people who put out their hard earned money and got screwed.

If GM were serious about treating customers right it would start with a

10 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty. Why doesn't GM do this? If their stuff is good, then a vehicle maintained by-the-book should not have any powertrain failures in 100,000 miles. This should also be made retroactive to all GM vehicles sold in the past 9 years.

This would be money well spent on building the brand image. Much more sensible than throwing discounts down the rat hole of marketing foolishness. If GM were building top quality vehicles then this extra warranty would cost almost nothing.

Increased rebates and incentives destroy resale values of previously sold vehicles. Extend the warranty and the resale value of previously sold vehicles actually goes up.

John

Reply to
John Horner
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Trolling again? The intake gasket problem has been solved. Why would GM or any other auto maker give more warrantee than the others?

Kia & the asian upstarts need to to lure unwary customers to their junk.

Reply to
No One You Know

Hmmm, first I am accused of never providing a realistic suggestion, then I am a "troll" for doing so. Make up your mind Mr/Ms no name.

If GM makes well built products then what possible reason could there be not to give a long warranty? If the product is well engineered and well built then there is no reason for the powertrain to fail before

100,000 miles when a customer maintains it by-the-book. GM would need to require that the customer document proper maintenance.

As far as the intake gasket problem being solved, how do you know? It hit my three year old Olsmobile which is powered by a 3.4l V-6 engine GM has had one version or another of in production for well over a decade.

What are your suggestions for GM to pull out of the sales and financial tailspin it is clearly in? More rebates? More Red Tag Sales Events?

John

Reply to
John Horner

Why do you say the intake gasket problem has been solved? What has been changed in the basic design of the GM 60 degree engine?

Reply to
=?x-user-defined?Q?=AB?= Paul

Horner is right..I got burned myself with the faulty intake gasket, and thats why I decided not to buy the 3.9 G6 coupe cuz it uses that same basic design v6 that has been failing the last 10 to 15 years because of a poor design. Now if GM thinks they have their shit together with the new engine then warrantee it for at least 8 years then I will bite. Otherwise my GM days may be over. Then again I dont care if they put an airplane engine in the G6 sedan cuz that thing is so ugly they would have to give it to me.

Reply to
Muhammed Mustafo Goldstein Jr

The facts are 90% of people with a 3.1, 3.4 or 3.8 will have an expensive intake gasket failure before reaching 100k miles. The rest will have the failure before 200k miles unless extremely lucky. Now why would I buy the new 3.9 v6 when GM let the problem with the previous engines go on for 10 or

15 years knowing of the problem hitting customers fo $800 a pop for the repairs. The 3.9 may well have the same problem. Sounds like gauranteed money for the GM shops, now its come back to bite them in the ass. I was a hard core GM fan growing up as a kid in the 60s and 70s admiring everything from a 57 chevy to a 70 454 Chevelle, but lets face it those days are over and GM screwed itself.
Reply to
Muhammed Mustafo Goldstein Jr

Like it was solved at least twice before, only to keep on happening?

Perhaps they got it right this time....time will tell.

Reply to
Brad Clarke

Unfortunately John, GM can't do that as they would go broke even sooner. Wagner prefers to administrate a slow demise where the pain can be felt by the customers, employees and the public at large. Eventually, if they need to, they will try to buy new customers with longer warranties. They already spent your money and more so they won't be giving any back.

PS. GM tried what you are suggesting years ago with their 8V71 diesel engines that were failing cylinder kits at early mileage. They issued one FIX after another. They bought back engines and overhauled others up to 300,000 miles. Customers soaked it all up and went to Cummins for their next spec.

Reply to
Al Bundy

You forgot Chrysler. Chrysler covers 7/70 on an 03 Stratus and 04 Sebring the Wife and I have. I had a 03 Malibu...but it only came with a 3/36 warranty. I dumped it before it could get the gasket and piston slap problems. It was a POS car anyway in comparison to the cars we have now. At least the sludge problems of the 2.7 Chrysler engine can be owner mitigated by using Synthetic oil.

Reply to
James C. Reeves

This is an excellent suggestion. I don't think GM would loose much on this deal...at least it would be far less that $3K-$6K per unit that they loose now with these crazy profit-busting sales. And those costs would come over several years, not up front.

However, I still personally wouldn't buy a GM vehicle again. I like some of their models, when the lights are off and you can actually see them. But all of them are most annoying "lights-in-your-face-all-the-time" cars. I just don't want to even drive such a annoying vehicle.

Reply to
James C. Reeves

The question was " if " GM made a quality car. They don't and would go broke much sooner with a 100k mile warranty.

I'm done with them and their cars.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Bitch'n

You are probably right :(. GM's management and union leaders seem to have completely missed the lessons of the demise of the once powerful British-based auto industry which self destructed in the 1960-1980 period. There is now not a single remaining UK based automotive company of any significant size. Even the niche players like Rolls-Royce and Lotus are now owned by other companies (Germany's BMW for Rolls, Malaysia's Proton for Lotus).

General Motors = British Leyland ??????

John

Reply to
John Horner

John, you are such a doorknob! Why not a 20 year/200,000 mile powertrain warranty? If their stuff is good, then using your logic, a vehicle maintained by-the-book should not have any powertrain failures in

200,000 miles. Where does one draw the line of practicality? John, the answer to this question is held in assessing the odds of component failure. i.e. the longer the time period, the greater the risk of component failure. Not to mention the impact on powertrains of the varying driving styles from person-to-person. John, wake up and smell the burning clutch!
Reply to
Dad

What a surprise that you agree with Horner! Neither one of you would appear to have even a basic knowledge of the economics of Horner's suggestion. And together, your combined IQ's would fall well short of your respective shoe sizes!

Then why do you remain in this News Group? Take a look up above James - it say's alt.autos.gm up there! *lol* Quit tormenting us and troll on over the the News Group whose vehicles you will be buying in the future. My gosh, how you moan and whine!

I'd pay a surcharge to GM to keep producing their "lights-in-your-face-all-the-time" cars, if it would drive you and Horner out of the News Group. The only nice thing about reading whiney posts from you and Horner is that I know that the rest of day has to be better! Your "woe-is-me" posts make me realize how lucky I am, not be be a malcontent like you and Horner!

Reply to
Dad

James C. Reeves wrote: > You forgot Chrysler.

There are many reasons that we'd all like to forget Chrysler! PT Cruiser, Prowler, Viper, Stratus, Sebring, etc., etc., etc.

There's a ringing endorsement, if ever I heard one! LMAO! I might have known that you'd be driving some pussified anemic little wussmobiles! Those two vehicles have no style, no class and no power! Not unlike yourself!

Which like millions of others, you may never have had problems with. Gawd, you sound like an hysterical little girl! You see ghosts behind every door!

Now there's a real slam! James those two little wussmobiles you now have will depreciate far quicker and deeper than the Malibu. And they are possibly the ugliest cars to come out of Detroit since the AMC Pacer!

That sounds like wonderful quality you bought there James! You are one odd duck!

Reply to
Dad

Chrysler has been doing it for years. And, at the moment, their sales have been up for the year as have their profits. Deferring costs is a viable business alternative. Certaintly better than taking the hit up front as happens with cutting the sales prices to bare-bones.

I come from a decades-long GM family...both sides. I'd like to end the estrangement at some future point. The problem is, only one side is really trying.

Which *could be a GM*. I haven't written them off completely. ;-)

Except I'm not alone. If one wants to sell cars, one needs to listen to the customer base. Especially when there is no rational reason not to and most of the competition is listening on the subject matter and responded appropriately to them.

Poor reason. But if you have the money, knock yourself out. The problem is, that attitude to the customer won't sell cars.

I'm perfectly fine, thank you. Not sure why you want to make this personal though. The topic of the op was to post ideas on how to improve sales. You disagree with the ideas. Not a problem for me. I'm certainly not going to claim a low IQ on your part for it.

Now, back to the topic. What are your ideas (other than alienating customers to go elsewhere, that is)?

Reply to
James C. Reeves

Those products exist and many Chrysler models sell, especially the 300C these days (not sure why, they're ugly as hell). But why so seemingly bothered by their existence?

Their sales numbers have been improving over the past year or two. And they are making money (at least for now). So, results like that say yes those ideas the Op has put forth are worth looking at before dismissing "out-of-hand".

Can't stick to the subject matter at hand I see. I'm not sure what your opinion of me personally or with the particular vehicles I referenced has to do with the topic. Neither provide any ideas on how to sell more GM vehicles.

However, you may want to check the performance numbers and general statistics in any car rag...they are virtually identical in that year (2003). So in the final analysis, neither product has any glaring advantage over the other based on the raw statistics. Style and design are largely personal taste. GM makes some nice looking and desirable cars as far as I'm concerned. (I like the style of the 2003 Malibu). Some disagree (I just don't happen to disagree in this particular area).

Diversion noted...again.

The cars are comparably priced (see

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Fact is, *ALL* US made cars depreciate too quickly. Doesn't matter if it's GM, Ford, Chrysler. The Malibu and Stratus are no exception.

Opinion counts for just that..opinion. Some poeple liked the Pacer (I wasn't one of them). So what? I don't see the point on how Chryslers you think are ugly will help sell more GM's. Unless you can explain the rationale to your statement.

I will say that neither vehicle had been in the shop for warranty work during their first year. I can't say the same for the Malibu, I had..and I only had it for 9-months. The worst problem was that the body seams were not sealed. the car leaked like a seive when ever it rained. It took the dealer 5-days to fix that little problem and repair the damage from the water. My experience with the Malibu is not likely typical. However, the car was simply too much bother to keep...I'm sure you can appreciate that. I doubt many people would keep a car under the circumstances.

What is so odd about accepting a product fault that has a easy owner-applied solution? It's hard to claim (as you just did) that I am claiming product quality here since I had disclosed a fault in the product, don't ya think? Chrysler has it's problems, no question about it.

By the way, the topic is to discuss ideas on how GM can sell more cars. My example was to demonstrate that some of GM's competitors (Chrysler in this case) are offering increased warranty coverage as an incentive (and that supports the Op's suggestion).

Now so far, not a single idea on the topic from you. Zip. Nada. Do you have any? Or is your idea to keep doing what isn't working? Or do you prefer to simply call people names instead? How productive is that?

Reply to
James C. Reeves

You answered your own question. GM simply needs to chart out where the line of negative return is. If it is at 3/36, then they *are* building junk. My bet is that GM could go 6/60 with minimal additional cost and that warranty would boost sales significantly.

Reply to
James C. Reeves

I dont think GM believes in there product enuff to do dat.

Reply to
Muhammed Mustafo Goldstein Jr

People who do not have good arguments always resort to insult and other forms of personal attack. I guess that in your world GM is doing everything right and has nothing to worry about. Enjoy your world.

John

Reply to
John Horner

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