I am still blown away that this question was posed on this forum.

 

Got GM?

Oh wait, you do. A 13 year old Corvette at that. Yea, you're really not going to 'get' my post. Enjoy the tupperware interior.

 

[QUOTE=SpudRacer,Jun 19 2010, 01:01 PM] I don't why you read the post and find the guy "not rational".

 

GM got bit when there products were arguably the best in the world. They got so big that it has taken this long for the company to fall. Given how crappy many of their products were in the 80s and 90s that's impressive in and of its self.

Anyway, a single quote doesn't mean much one way or the other. Had the internet been active when my Mom was dealing with her '91 Camry I would likely have posted something similar about never buying another Toyota.

Without knowing what was wrong with the guy's car and what his expectations are it's hard to take away much from his post. That means it's both irrational to say the guy is off base and nothing is wrong as well as it's wrong to claim that this one post is proof that the Kappas are crap.

I would take that post to mean one person is pissed about his car.

 

Sorry, I don't buy the argument that GM sold crappy cars for 20 years and is still the largest auto manufacturer in the world. It stretches the imagination, no matter how popular the opinion might be 20 to 30 years later. Lots of people are fond of pointing out how awesome Toyota is using their sales numbers as proof, but if someone points out that during the 80's and 90's GM sales numbers were the best in the world, that is discounted as "sales numbers don't mean anything." You can't have it both ways.

You are the only one suggesting the Solstice poster "is off base and nothing is wrong." I merely stated that his post sounds like the griping of someone happier complaining than taking care of an issue. Just based on the quoted post, we don't even know what the issue was. Perhaps he's unhappy with the mileage? What is clear is the company told him the avenue he was using was unlikely to result in satisfaction. His next step was to complain online rather than see a dealer about the problem. I can't see that path leading to resolution.

He might be pissed about his car, but if he refuses to address the problem, I'm not sure how relevant his experience is.

 

I'm not saying that many of those cars didn't serve their intended function and the like. I'm also not claiming that GM didn't do some cool stuff in the 80s and 90s. However, in general I think that most GM cars of that era were less than the sum of their parts.

Take the Corvette for example. I think the C4 Corvette is a fascinating example of creative solutions and engineering design. The car had lot's of firsts and lots of cool design features. It was the first car to be able to pull 1G in a corner. It was the first car to use the composite leaf springs in a double pivot setup thus acting as both a ride and stabilizer spring. It was the first car to use LCD displays. GM solved some of the LCD issues which now allow every make to reliably use the things. However, I've also never really had any interest in the Corvette until the C6 came out. That was the first generation I actually really liked.

Anyway, I do think GM in the 1980s was running on momentum and somewhat helped by the fact that in the 1980s the Japanese weren't competing with GM on all fronts. If you read about the re-orgs that Roger Smith instituted in the 1980s you can see why GM was going to have trouble in the 90s.

Anyway, I think you are taking my quote a bit to literally and my bad for stating it as such. When I say "is off base and nothing is wrong". By nothing wrong I mean their have been no issues with any Kappas, ie one end of a continuum where we can dismiss this person's complaints as a non-issue. The other end of the continua is where we assume all owner experiences will be identical to this persons.

I think we are reaching a similar conclusion which is basically this is a single case for which we know very little thus we shouldn't conclude much from it.

 

How old were you in 1990? Were you in the market for a new C4 at any time? Is it possible that most people's perceptions of cars from the 80's come from used and abused examples and horror stories told by an older relative? It's not like people are going to go on about it when they had no real issues with their car. It's only the people with a complaint that feel compelled to go on and on years later about how bad things were.

I owned several slightly used domestic cars from the 80's, and if you compared them to a new car today they're obviously going to suffer from the comparison. But they were quite a bit better in every way compared to their contemporaries from Japan. And quite a bit more car than one got from Europe for the same money. But even then, Japanese and German cars had their fans who were convinced they were smarter than everyone else just because they bought imported cars.

People are going to believe what they want to believe. And use whatever justification they can to support their argument. That doesn't mean all positions are equally valid. If one looks at the facts, it's really hard to argue that GM cars of the 80's and 90's were inferior to anyone else's product.

 

Woe there, I don't think I'm actually arguing with you. I was driving in the 1980s and I've only now ever even considered a Corvette. My experience with cars from the 1980s is first hand while those cars were still late model cars. In many ways the '87 Taurus was a better car than say an '87 Toyota Camry. The original Taurus was anything but junkie. Too bad they were more problematic than the Camrys. That said, most of the stuff GM was producing was junk and little of it was better in fit and finish than the '86 Camry I owned. Again, that's not to say GM didn't have their bright spots even then. They even had some really cool cars (Fiero for example). But overall GM of the 1980s was not a quality organization.

 

Nunco, I didn't delve too far into your post as to avoid the urge to punch my computer as I normally do after reading your posts (I'm just breaking your balls), but I hope that you are not arguing that GM's cars from the 90's were somehow not complete shit compared to their Japanese counterparts.

 

"Complete shit" you say? How many did you own again? Oh that's right, you're just repeating hyperbole again.

It's fine to have an opinion, but when the facts don't match your opinions, I don't know why you'd argue the issue. Cadillac had displacement on demand DOHC V8's through the 90's as well as engine management systems that allowed the engine to run on zero coolant if a belt broke, the ZR1 was easily the highest performing car for the money bar none, Buick topped quality surveys year after year, the LS1 engine debuted in the mid-90's, etc., etc.

There isn't a whole lot of evidence to support the highly biased opinions you are spewing. There's plenty of examples to support the position that GM sales were on top for a good reason. Seeing as all you've got is personal prejudice, I'd keep it to myself if I were you.