A quick conversation with a friend about my wife's car
 

Hi,

I am not one to get into a huge political tiff. I do not have any political statements or affiliations on any of my rides. I might have a small sports team logo if anything. My grandfather once told me there are three things you don't talk about in a bar. Politics, Religion, and Women. I found that pretty sound advice from the man that I only knew until I was 13 when he passed away. However, I see forums as the new bars in a way. With that said here goes the conversation.

Side note. My wife is really an amazing person. She allows me to have my fun with the truck. Her job allows us as a family to good home for our daughter and pets. We can do things that I make sure we do not brag about to others since we have friends who cannot afford or do the same. However there is really one flaw but you will have to wait until the end to find out. My friend is a Ford guy. He has a Mustang Gt, the big lift mid 90s F350 crew cab, all his work vans are Fords plus he took my F150 off my hands when I bought my current truck. I gave him a sweetheart of a deal which he would have been a fool to pass up on. A few weeks ago he was over my house helping me with clearing my roof off due to all the snow we had. I joked with his son about the car and ownership. He joking said, he knew better than to own a GM. He was going to get one of the hand me down cars my friend owns, a pre GM Saab. Nice car. However, my friend said he knew someone who was interested in a car and would be looking for one in a couple of weeks. I said no problem I will call him when the time comes the wife makes a decision.

I called my friend while on the couch one night. My wife was sitting reading her E tablet, listening to some TV show in the background. She had made the decision about her car and what she wanted to do with it.

Me: here is the deal. My wife decided not to invest any more money into the car. She said your nephew and your self are more than welcome to come by after work or at night to work on the trouble. I will lend you any tools you need.

Friend: Well I am pretty busy at work. I am going to have blah blah blah come by and tech the car. He is going charge me $XXX to troubleshoot the problem. He thinks it is something very simple like a relay.

Me: Yeah sure. If you mechanic wants to call me for a run down no problem. However I want the car out driveway to make way for something else if we decide to get another vehicle at this time.

Friend: Is the car still under snow?

Me: Yes. Since your nephew is looking for a ride and is going to get it on the cheap, he is more than welcome to come out and dig out the back end and dump the snow in my neighbor's yard across the street. He needs to work a little to for the car.

Friend: Yes I agree. He is waiting for his tax refund check so he can figure out how much to spend on the car for the purchase and repair. He know the mechanic is going to cost X amount to figure why it doesn't start.

Me: Well tell you what. If we can get it out on the street for a car trailer, I will tow it to garage with my truck for you. My wife is looking to get it off the insurance and out of the driveway.

Friend: OK I understand. I rather have the car running for the kid out of your driveway if all possible. I don't want the car to crowd the mechanic's lot. I will see if he can come by in a week or so.

Me: Sure. Just give me a call to let me know when he wants to stop by. I would like to either be there or let my wife know he is going to stop by.

Friend: Yeah No problem. The price is reasonable even if we can get the car running. He will save a good deal of coin. What should I tell the mechanic what the problem is?

Me: (as dry as I could be) It's a GM with an Obama 08 sticker. It's a start.

Friend: busting out in laughter. I am going to tell him that. he will find that oh so funny as well as John when I see him at work tomorrow.

Me: Well I got to go dude. My wife is giving me the look. Have your mechanic call me if he needs some details on the car.

Friend: Alright. No problem. make sure you give your wife a hug... if you so wisely choose.

This Grand Am much like any other GM it has tried to kill me last summer while driving to work. GMs and I don't really get along. I never had a GM work issued or personal vehicle that hasn't been a headache. When I had a work issued Chevy van, it had low miles. I traveled alot though during the day. One of the mechanics asked why I had such low miles on a vehicle that is driven in circles daily. I asked if he was new here. He said yes he was. I told him the reason for the low miles is because it has sat at the service facility for different things to be fix. He said oh and walked away. One the regular mechanics who recognized me said yeah that shut him up.

In the 3 years I this van, it only had 52,000 miles on it. During that time I figured it was holed up in a shop for about 6 months for different problems. In that time, it had 2 transmissions, 2 sets of tires, 6 oil changes, 2 windshields, and a set of brakes. At one point during one of the trans replacement, the mechanic had 8 vans in the lot going back to the dealership. With another 6 at the dealer for replacement. My boss asked me how the trans went out on my van. I said I don't know and neither does the mechanics at the service facility. 2 days later he sent around a text saying because with the vans as there was a shortage of them in the company due to high trans failure. After seeing all this first hand, I would try not to by a large company fleet vehicle. most of the time they are just hammered on and not really maintained well in general.

I hope the car will be out of the drive way by next week. If not I will just pull it out of the driveway with the truck and borrow a trailer from a friend to take it to the junkyard for junking. I might ask if I can hit it with a bulldozer the yard has. That would be justice enough for me. Too me it takes up space and useless like any other GM I have known.

Had no real interest to wade through all this just to get to the point---seems one was very difficult to discern.

But going against FTE's general membership policy where no GM car/truck ever produced was a good one that's simply not true---not even in the slightest.

For every gaffe GM has made Ford has at least one of their own. Pick an era, both manufacturers run neck-to-neck in bad ideas that made it to the show room.

Same with problems after production too; recalls, elimination of a product line quickly after introduction----none of the Big Three were ever the leaders in bad auto/truck ideas.

Today we have Toyota, Nissan, etc etc also contributing to bad ideas in vehicles---what seems to work on the drawing boards don't always translate to something useful in the real world.

Agreed, that was a little long to hold my attention (not that my attention span is all that great to begin with). Personally, I think car preference runs in the family and whether you're a Ford guy or a Chevy guy really just boils down to whatever your dad had. At least, that's the case for me and everyone I know.

We bought a '97 Olds Silly minivan in early '98, followed by an Exploder in May '98. The Olds is still running without any major work I'm told. The Exploder had the expensive ESP option, which more than paid for itself in transmission, rear axle and a couple other not-so-minor items.

Every maker has winners and losers.

We must have different definitions of the word quick.

Fords rule, all others suck.

Case in point seen the latest on GM, being investigated by the feds on why they let people die instead of a recall. But the fed gov installed the GM CEO, WTF?

^^^^ :D There's never a shortage of "facts" to support any claim, no matter how ill-advised or foolish it appears. In this case GM clearly is at fault but how that relates to this meandering conversation OP waxes on about eludes me.

Yes GM screwed up big time and needs to pay through the nose for being so lax in their oversight. Same with the Gov't agency supposed to be over watching this same sort of stuff in the name of consumer safety.

Like anything that proves to be a huge problem at such a level more than one person or entity is at fault.

Hi,

First off my apologies if the post was a bit long winded. I sometimes go that direction. If IDed the people in the conversation first, it would help why I had the conversation with my friend in the beginning. My wife still supports the president on the GM car. My friend is not a big fan of GM or the president. Hence the butt of the joke. Ironically, this vehicle is going to my friend's nephew. He is basically the GM version of my friend and I. In his case, no Ford is good enough.

Any event, I got the car running somehow yesterday. Since it was warm out, I think there was a problem with ice up in the lines. Don't know for sure. The way I see it, if it starts when they come down. I will have it sold. I called my friend up and told him come on down to pick it up. He said his nephew would if his tax check would come in. However, my friend has already stated he will make sure his nephew will give me a few more bucks for the car since it is running. The kid is excited he is getting a GM car. I'm excited to get rid of the car.

As for the last part of the original post. It was out of shear frustration. The other part of the frustration was the simple fact, I take the time to maintain this vehicle and this is how it treats me. Any signs of trouble it was repaired. Any thing that could not be done by me in the driveway, it was to a shop. Researching this car's problems was a nightmare. I would read tons of posts on forums to find out it could be from a simple fuse to body control modules to GM doesn't know what to do with the vehicle and you are SOL since it is a Pontiac. I personally had negative experiences with GM products that I would not want to own another one.

My apologies too if I seemed abrupt or not receptive to your frustration---I do know how some things just *$#&#^ us off soooooooooo much we're not sure whether to spit, ***** or start breaking things---all of which are acceptable actions under some conditions. Been there, done that more than a few times.......... :D

Add to that occasionally our best efforts sometimes don't produce even the most marginal results, we're stymied why Karma doesn't reward at least our efforts.

In the end it seems the pending deal will work out for everyone so maybe there's a lesson in that? If not at least that POS is gone! :D

In my case, if my wife supported the Prez with a bumper sticker on her car & it was a GM that would be grounds for my divorce. LOL.

Like has been said I have had good luck with many vehicle brands & I have had bad too. But I buy what is cheap. I have both Ford & Dodge trucks & like them both. To be honest the Dodge has had less issues, but it has lower mileage. Me & GMs are done unless someone pays me good money to take one. Because that is the only hope of breaking even after having to fix it.