Quality.

You need to regroup and come up with a new arguement. GM has no more recalls than any other auto maker. Which means on a percentage they have fewer because thay sell more autos.

Brake pad specs are the same for most U.S. made cars. GM does not have a lesser quality pad for certain models. Even if you don't ride the brake you may have some other braking quirk that caused brake wear. You don't mention how many miles on those pads or conditions(city vs highway).

GM bond market has no bearing on GM quality and perks and bonus money have effect on quality either.

Another troll with a brain fart.

GM generally makes a good car these days....the Buick line especially. So if quality is your main overall concern, then I wouldn't discount GM on those grounds alone.

Certain GM cars have a problem with poor brake design that results in premature front pad wear.

They will replace them under warranty if the set that came with the car wears out fairly quickly.

Mine were replaced with less than 20,000 kms on the car. They will need to be replaced again this year.

Yow! That's awful Brad. Which GM vehicle is that?

James, and I had the nerve in another topic to say that you dwell on GM's bad news stories and never on their positives! Mea culpa. ;-) I'm saving a copy of your post so I don't make the same mistake again. *lol*

Wrong. Management rarely suffers, upper management that is. The workers at the low end of the food chain will be the ones to bear the brunt of fiscal troubles in the company.Upper management is going to rape the company until there is nothing left and then escape in their golden parachutes.

You are wrong my friend. GM managemant often go without bonus money when profits are down and the profit share for hourly workers suffer too. If you are a GM employee or retiree then you know what I'm saying. Upper management isn't going to rape anyone, the UAW is watching very closely.

...and I'm betting you may need to refer to it on occasion. ;-)

I'm tough on things I love...just ask my kids or my employees. :-) I'm not one to cut much slack or have patience for stupid idiotic stuff or bad treatment of others. But the interesting thing is that most will tell you that I'm fair.

A warm story. My oldest daughter is grown and married now. A couple of years ago she came to me and said to me how much she hated my approach to things and what I made her do at times growing up. She then continued by saying "Thanks for being so hard on me. All my friends are in hock up to their eyeballs, can't afford squat, into bad stuff, etc." She and her husband own a house at the age of 21 and 22 respectively..and he is still in college (well Iraq right now, actually, will finish when he returns). So, that made it all worthwhile.

Now if I can influence the lame-brain managers at GM to get some good consumer focus groups going so they can gather some good insight on how to get these cars selling, I'd feel better yet!!! And I'm sure that GM badges and chrome tailpipes aren't the answer. Those are even sillier than my DRL issue! :-)

2003 Malibu.

i have to agree that general motors has a good product at the moment and so do alot of others. not gonna take anything away from anybody on this one. but i agree about the focus group thing. lets face it body designs that keep getting more and more rounded are only selling because "everybody is doing it" 90% of the women and men for that matter that use thier trucks for what a truck was supposed to be for all have the same gripe. the body's are too rounded and make it difficult to see where the vehicle is....now this is where i agree entirely with your focus group thing. if they ran a focus group on this particular issue id bet they would find exactly what i just said. and if they built a vehicle to suit that complaint then they would corner the market on an easy to park and work with automobile.....

but then again what do i know?

LMAO! You're probably right James.

Nice story James. Your experience with your daughter almost mirrors mine with my daughter. My only regret is that she pushes herself as hard as I used to push myself. (I'm retired now.) If I had it to do over again, I'd wind it down a notch or two. Okay - maybe not. :-Þ

My daughter is a District Sales Manager with GM and I am constantly suggesting that she push her senior exec. to use Customer Focus Groups for a variety of issues, including product design and development, quality and customer service. No luck yet! (Now you know why I'm sensitive to unduly harsh criticism of GM.) By the way, I like DRL's! Anything I can do to make myself more visible to some of the idiot drivers on the road, the happier I am. But I do agree that they should have a simple on/off switch. Hmmm, sounds like the old-fashioned on/off headlight switch on my Vette. ;-)

You're a customer...so you know what you want.

Chrysler seemed to have started the rounded "aero" design fad in the early

90's with their "cab-forward" concept. I actually liked that design quite a bit. It is getting old though.

Now, some of the newer GM designs are not so rounded. Look at the Cadillac line. They're more chiseled/boxy in design. I don't particularly like the design, but Cadillac is selling better now with that design. Couple that with the boxy Chrysler 300/Dodge Magnum with the high belt-line selling like hotcakes too, I guess "boxy" and "chiseled" are back in style from it's late

1970's early 1980's roots?

Can wide neckties be far behind!? :-) After all, the Cadillac commercial features Led Zeppelin music these days..who'd have thunk it!

I have no doubt that you hit the right balance, from what I can see here of your Daughter's accomplishments.

Grrreeattt!! Keep the inside pressure on! No pain...no gain (as the saying goes). Now, once they get information from the focus groups, they have to drop the chip on their shoulders IF they find customers don't like certain "features" LUTZ admitted forcing on people (if that is one of the things that comes out of them), then they can regroup and refocus. Of course it would have been better to have known that *before* doing the R&D work on those things in the 1st place. I'll keep my fingers crosed.

And with the curent NHTSA rule, you should have that feature if it's important to you. No arguement from me on that.

You already know that my personal preference is the "old-fashioned" switch. ;-) But if customers want auto control systems, those should be avalable also (or owner programmable for one or the other to owner preference).

....and a DRL activation/deactivation switch would work for both you and me. You would leave it on. I would leave it off. The car is them marketable to both your pro-DRL types and my no-DRL types. Seems too simple, doesn't it? Somebody at GM sure has their head in the sand (or elsewhere) on this one. It's funny how just about everyone else, especially BMW, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Chrysler, Toyota, (and probably several others) understand quite clearly that making DRLs a option is important to marketing the product to the broader base. It's also interesting that it seems that less than half of the customers of those brands seem to be opting *for* the DRLs. So that no-DRL market that GM has completely written off *may* be much larger than anyone realises. I truly believe that it's huge. I think GM even knows it, which is why they're petitioning the NHTSA so hard to make them a requirement (so that GM is no longer at the disadvantage)...which is yet another bone-headed tactic to further allenite that segment of the market.

In my case, the pads were replaced under warranty, so it cost GM money to do it.

The next set will not be done under warranty, so I will buy quality pads to replace the crappy ones that GM uses.