GM in deep with this Ignition Switch Issue

[The Fred]

What amazes me is the people who refuse to take their cars in for recall work. I have many Toyota customers who are just too busy (or lazy) to take their car in and get the throttle recall done. I fix cars for a living, Toyota won't let me do the gas pedal modification but I can do the ECM software update which by the way works very well so if you are on the brake and the gas at the same time the ECM strategy slowly kills the throttle.

I have one customer with a V6 Camry that did actually run away on him. He smoked the brakes before realizing to shift the transmission into nuetral and letting the engine run on the rev limiter. Once he restarted the engine all was well. The dealership did nothing, this was before Toyota realized they had issues. Methinks he had skid marks in his undies.

Get a recall in the mail GET IT DONE!

Fred

 

[k0ua]

I never understood why the Toyota victims of the runaway, did not shift to neutral. Am I missing something here?
An incident happened to my wife on a new 1983 Camaro we had just purchased. This vehicle did not have factory cruise control, so as a part of the deal we requested that cruise be installed by the dealer.

They installed it and very shortly on the way home my wife had a "stuck throttle". But instead letting it hit a tree, she had the presence of mind push in the clutch and put the transmission in neutral. As soon as she could she managed to pull up the accelerator pedal with her foot and get it unstuck.. She nursed it home. Of course when she came home she was pretty excited and wanted to "share" her experience with me..

I drove the thing around for an hour and could not duplicate the problem.. and then it happened to me. I took off the big round air cleaner from the 350's carburetor, and looked at the linkage and vacuum servo they had installed. I could not see anything wrong. Then I noticed the scratch on the bottom of the air cleaner housing.

Apparently the mechanic had added a piece of metal to the normal throttle linkage to hook the vacuum servo to to pull and hold back the throttle.. This piece of metal was just a bit long and rubbed and intermittently stuck on the air cleaner . Whoops..

I cut off just a bit of that extra metal sticking up and we never had another problem.

Back to the Toyota's, could the drivers not been able to place the transmissions in neutral? I don't understand this. Likewise in years gone buy I have has engines stall while moving for one reason or another, and managed to put the vehicles in Neutral while rolling and do a restart to regain power steering and power braking.

I haven't had this happen recently, but some of the cars we drove in the 70 and 80's sure would die on you.

 

[Rock knocker]

I think this is the real end of GM.

 

[MoKelly]

I think this is the real end of GM.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

MoKelly

 

[Bird]

I think this is the real end of GM.

You might be right, and I can't say I'll be surprised. However, if enough people think the accidents were the results of the drivers' own ignorance . . . well, I also won't be surprised if in the long run, it helps GM.

 

[Diamondpilot]

You might be right, and I can't say I'll be surprised. However, if enough people think the accidents were the results of the drivers' own ignorance . . . well, I also won't be surprised if in the long run, it helps GM.

I said back 5 years ago when GM got saved they would be back in the same predicament in 10 years or less. I would have never guess a bunch of lawsuits would do them in but you could just see not enough had changed between the OLD GM and NEW GM.

I will say even though in or anyone in my family will never touch another GM the stuff they are making today is twice as good as 5 years ago. While they have not totally caught up they closed the gaps, especially in the trucks.

Chris

 

[ruffdog]

The finance people were saying that GM will be in a better position in the long run than Ford taking the Dept of Energy money. Only the future will tell. If the Ecoboost engines keep blowing up, that might be a issue for Ford.

 

[dodge man]

My wife had a Grand Am when we got married. I was driving it one day and the cruise stuck on. I also put it in neutral and pulled over. The engine was reving up against the rev limiter the entire time. Some people just panic and don't know what to do. Even if the engine dies you still can steer and brake but some people probably aren't used to the feel and panic.

We had a brand new Ford truck about 15 years ago. It had a plastic plug over the intake of the throttle body. I'm sure this was suppose to come off as the engine was breathing through a tiny hole. It had been driven several hundred miles when someone went to pass and it sucked the plastic plug into the throttle body and jammed it wide open. Nobody hurt but it required a tow. What can you say, stuff happens smart people that don't panic know how to react.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Where are all the BUY AMERICAN - DON'T BUY CHINESE because it's junk people? Look around, like I said ALL companies Chinese, American, Japanese, etc. all make junk and endanger peoples lives. First was Toyota with a Billion dollar fine, then GM, now Chrysler.

All companies will figure a way to save a nickle of every product which brings them MILLION. Have you measured the size of your toilet paper roll - same price but it's 20-30% shorter that it used to be. That's 30% MORE MONEY to the toilet paper makers. Same goes with cereal, sodas, etc. I was at the store yesterday and a coffee brand I buy in a plastic container had HUGE finger indents in the side that were never there before. Those indent finger holds take up 15% on the inside diameter of the container - or 15% LESS COFFEE, and yes the same price.

GM could have spent less than ONE DOLLAR to fix it and they chose not to. Now they get off Scott free as it was " THE OLD GM" that did it, the bankrupt GM. It's all a calculation. It's cheaper to pay for the dead people when they sue, rather than pay billions in repair costs - it's cheaper.

 

[Labrat]

The media is having a field day blaming engineering and management but it all starts at the top with the board of directors and wall street investors that demand double digit returns and don't care how they get there. That is why bean counters get hired. They cut and hack to drive down cost and once they've beaten engineering and suppliers until they scream uncle they beat them some more. Then they start threatening jobs and plant closures. I think many of us have seen this way of doing business and it makes for a very stressful environment. Unfortunately in the end the consumer pays the price.