Saturday, March 11, 2006

Chevrolet Recall

I just read that GM is recalling somewhere in the amount of 900,000 pickup trucks for a faulty tailgate cable. Well good for them. Now there is a fix that really needs a recall on. But the 3.1 liter engine that they stuffed in all those Luminas and Mini vans with the badly engineered intake gasket is something they won't touch. I have a 1998 Lumina that has had the intake gasket [which is hard plastic] replaced twice. The first time it was just in the warranty but the second time it cost me $600 to repair. And...We were told it would have to be done again most probably after the next thirty thousand miles. The GM mechanic told us that Chevy had sent out a bulletin to dealers about a possible fix but customers have to pay for it. Evidently they didn't do that epoxy garbage on ours. Sounds like to me the epoxy would essentially weld the dang thing together. After that you'd never be able to even rebuild it if you wanted to.
I doubt very seriously that I will ever purchase another New Chevy product. Chevy engineers will pat themselves on the back for a minor problem fix but not a REAL problem.
And they scratch their heads wondering why people are buying foreign cars. Because they are better built these days. DUH! When you spend your hard earned money on a vehicle you don't want to be having to repair parts after 40 thousand mile. Or finding pieces falling off on the road.

Oh! One more gripe about the Lumina and the Monte Carlo with the same makeup is the battery is so damned hard to get to that Auto Zone won't honor their claim to replace the battery for you if you buy it there. Of course none of their ads tell you that.

If you want to see all the complaints and nightmares about this Chevy 3.1 engine then use the search mode for 3.1 Chevy intake leak.

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