Posts Tagged auto+repair
The mouth of Sauron
Posted by redlinedoc in Uncategorized on June 21, 2009
I’ve had my bouts with American cars and probably won’t buy another for some long time.
The first was with GM diesels. In the late 70′s there was a gas crisis and my dad decided that the best way was to go diesel. The local dealer sold not one but two impala diesels. One never worked all that well costing before its well earned retirement 0.72 cents per mile. The dealer never really got it right, going through one battery after another. Finally the car spit out its transmission parts, the torque of the engine far greater than the transmission design. The dealer offered to repair the transmission splitting the difference so that ‘no one would get hurt’… 1300$ would be my share. I went to the local transmission fixit place who completed the entire repair, 340$. Ahh well. The war of the batteries continued burning out one battery then another, the dealer only charging me the 75$ swap charge each time. Finally the dealer fessed up; he was only and oils and lubricant’s fixer for diesel and had no idea what was going on. Several weeks later the car gave a groan, spit out many parts on the ground. I gave the car to the local trade school. They could not understand why I would give them a car with a working radio.
I swore off GM.
Recently I read that GM had made a V-6 2.8L engine with a firing order 1-2 3-4 5-6. The crankshafts reliably cracked around 30K miles. The solution. Wait. Most of these cars have only 5oK warranties. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Some years later I buy a Chrysler PT cruiser. I did the research which suggested that the repairs were more than average. Little did I suspect it was a plan on the part of Chrysler. I got a plan with the car which included oil changes. The oil change guy at the dealership must not have been part of the dealership plans. He never saw the leaky high pressure lines and in doing the oil change managed to rip another line under the car.
Some time later, my mechanic, not at the dealership, goes to change the timing belt, a necessary repair. To do this requires complete disassembly of the right side of the car. Success. But now it needs adjustment. The plate to adjust this is located directly behind the front motor mount. One of the local dealerships suggests “cut it off and weld it back” REALLY!
None of that is as pertinent as the words from the leadership at Chrysler. As they were marching down the road to bankruptcy, one of their fearless leaders, who no doubt will be reinstalled and highly bonused and paid by the American taxpayer in the name of saving his job, announces that “we put a bad engine in that car (the PT Cruiser); but, we’re not making them anymore”.
Words of comfort, direct from the mouth of Sauron!
Last you a lifetime!
Posted by redlinedoc in I never saw THAT coming on July 14, 2009
I found myself unaccountably angry at statements from the auto manufacturers the other day. The mouth of Sauron from Chrysler tells us that to save money and jobs (and get a handout from Uncle Sam), that they’re dropping several lines, among them the PT Cruiser. Not much new. One of the reasons they’re dropping the cruiser is that they put a bad engine in the thing; but it sold. So what!?
So what? So I’m one of the poor schleps that bought a PT Cruiser but had some misgivings about the power train. I put a lot of miles on a car, somewhere around 36000. I bought their extended warranty because it came with ‘lifetime’ oil changes. I figured at 30-40$ a clip and I change oil monthly. Dutifully I took the car in for changes. Once day I heard a horrible racket from the engine. It was the power steering pump, I later found out. My mechanic looked at the car and realized (he called me under the car) to see the broken front motor mount, the torn highpressure power steering link and the torn oil line. Hmmmm.
Cars are for me rather like black boxes. These even -=I=- with my untrammeled vision could easily see. The oil had been changed a mere 3 days before! The dealer never did get back to me. I stopped using the oil change service.
The car will last until it dies. I keep it oiled and well fed but I know that time is not on my side. Now that its been orphaned things will only get worse. The fat cats at Chrysler will dine well and sleep without ethics. What saddens me most is that the country I love, the country I fought for, the country I raised my children in is eating itself, or rather being eaten alive by the corporations who made it.
There was a time when things were built to last. There was always a wink and a smile when some things had built in obsolesence. Where are the buggy whip manufacturers, the boom box makers, the 8 track fabricators .. but things were built with an eye toward building customers.
My next door neighbor when I was a kid used to tell stories of his dad who ran a general store in Coventry CT. One of the customers (in the late 1800′s) came in complaining about the axe he had. ‘Best axe I ever bought’ said he ‘ six new heads, seven new handles. Last me a lifetime’.
auto+repair, Automobiles, Chrysler, ethics, fairness, other+peoples+money, Sauron, vulnerable
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