A nightmare

This is being written by someone who since his first vehicle in 1985 has sworn by GM products all the way. In my mind, they were the best vehicles on the road…..until now……. I live in Mississauga, Ontario; Canda.

My wife and I purchased a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GT 4dr in Sept 2001. This is my 5th GM vehicle. At the time the car had 23,000 km on it. One could assume that the car was being turned back onto the dealer’s lot because the lease was up, or perhaps because it was a lemon. I assumed the first. Turns out I was dead wrong. Thankfully, I purchased the extended warranty which was around $800 extra, because over the next 2 years, the GM dealer poured another $1600 of work into this car in warranty work for all kinds of various things.

Like any car, mine has seen some wear & tear and is now up to 146,000 km, and there’s been the usual brakes & cylinders replacements, tire changes, and all the normal tune ups & oil changes etc that go with owning a car. I have no issues with normal wear & tear problems…it’s a part of life.

However, what has happened with my car in the past 4 months, has got me thinking, I’ve purchased my very last GM car. First up was the heater transistor needed replacing, although it had been replaced not 13 months earlier. $150.

Next up, the heater motor ran out of oil so it started to make a howling noise everytime someone touched the brakes. Thankfully a GM mechanic was able to force some oil back into heater motor and he did it at no charge, but put me on notice that it’s just a matter of time before the motor goes and the part itself will be $180.

Next up, throughout October & November, we started to notice that everytime we had the car parked on our driveway outside and it snowed or rained, that there was water on the floor of the front passenger side of the car. Turns out there was a leak up behind the heater somewhere due to rust. $550 to plug that leak, just before Xmas. GM has been selling cars in Canada for over 80 years. You’d think they know that salt is used on the roads here in Ontario in the winter, and build a car with metal that can stand more than 5 yrs on the road.

The next quality based issue was Jan 5th. I’m driving to work on a morning when it’s getting colder outside. I put my window down to have a smoke and it stops working. New electrical switch required to get the power window going. $372.

Since the beginning of December, I’ve spent $1090 on items that I don’t necessarily see as “wear & tear”….not in a car that’s only got 146,000 km on it and fairly well taken care of. I could see it if this was a car with 200,000+ km that some of the things that have happened to me in the past month, would happen through wear & tear, but not on this car, not this early.
In my opinion, GM has completely lost it’s focus when it comes to securing quality parts & components to build it’s cars and/or the quality of work that goes into building their vehicles is way lower than what it used to be. I’ve decided that I’m not going to be one of the people that continues to finance GM’s Quality Assurance Long Term testing program any longer, where the lucky winner gets to fork over money to fix GM’s problems, and they say thank you very much for the money and keep the data.

After each incident, I sent an email to GM on their website, documenting the problem. After the “patch the rust box” incident, I finally got a call from a CSR at GM while I was away on vacation for Xmas. We managed to connect just after new year’s. While she was nice and quietly listened to me, there were no offers to do anything for me, only that she’d look into a few things and get back to me. She finally got back to me and told me that there was nothing GM could do. I asked her to escalate my complaint to her supervisor. She told me that it would take a couple of days, but someone would call me.

Jan 7th, a supervisor/manager at the GM customer service center got back to me. She basically explained to me what the front line representative did, and that GM is under no obligation contractually to do anything for me, which I agreed with. I told the manager, I’m looking for an exception to GM’s policy. She explained that there is some leeway on GM’s policy (outside of their contractual obligations) but that my vehicle was too old for consideration to activate it.
I told the manager that I would like to have my file escalated to her boss to have a discussion with that individual. She told me that if I wanted my file escalated, the proper channel to use would be to call the dealership and get the name of the District Service Manager that looks after the dealerships in the geographical area where I bought my car. Instead of offering to provide me with this person’s name, she basically left me with the impression that I had to proactively call the dealership and track down this contact info myself.

I continued to ask this manager for the name of her boss, and she continued to tell me that I had to call the dealership where I bought my car from. We went around in circles three or four times with my query and this response from her. She has a boss, and I wanted to speak to that person. She refused to provide me with that person’s name or contact info. Near the tail end of our discussion, she told me, “we’ve been through this three times already, and the response is the same, and you’d get the same response from anyone else here.” I happen to find this manager’s handling of my call, quite rude and non customer service focused. I asked to speak to her superior, (perhaps not right that second but eventually ) and she refused me on multiple counts. I can assure you, that in my business, that would not happen. A 3 page letter has been sent to the president of GM Canada about my recent experiences. We’ll see if it even makes it into his office, let alone me getting some useless reply. As of January 19th, there’s been no reply.
To add even more misery to this pathetic story; Jan 15th, I take my car into a Goodyear Auto Service shop to get them to look at a “hum” that just developed in the past couple of days. I’m nervous that it’s the power train or transmission. Nope, it’s both front wheel bearings, tighten up a tie rod, and a wheel alignment. With taxes another $1900. Of course, today’s repair is normal wear and tear, but still adds to the overall total that I’ve forked over recently.
Not counting gas, insurance, highway toll charges etc, I’ve poured $2900 into my car from Dec 1, 2004 to Jan 15, 2005.

If you’re driving a GM vehicle, sell it or trade it off…..immediately…..don’t wait until you get stuck up the %^&*( like me.

The only way these big companies will get the message that their manufacturing quality sucks, is for thousands of consumers to vote with their dollars and buy non North American made cars. I sent letters a couple days ago to every single member of the GM Board of Directors in Detroit. I eventually did get a call from someone at GM Canada again, and like the former experience, there's nothing they can do for me, and the representative tried to suggest that because all of my service work has not been done at a GM dealer, that could be part of my problems. Please !!!! Me not getting an oil change at my GM dealer has nothing to do with my vehicle rusting out prematurely.

We need to let em have it where it hurts the most, right in the pocket book. If you have recently experienced manufacturing quality problems with you’re GM vehicle, don’t keep it quiet. Tell GM, go to www.gmcanada.com and click on their contact us link at the bottom of the home page.

April 25, 2005; the rusty leak on my car is back. After a rainy weekend, water is collecting on the passenger side floor. Going back to the dealership tomorrow. We'll see if they'll fix their mistakes.

Is it just me? Am I overreacting?