Comment by hinkley
2 years ago
I learned a lot of things from my father. Unfortunately a lot of them were what not to do. Don’t buy cheap tools that you’ll have to replace three times in the lifespan of one that costs 50% more. And don’t buy GM.
Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
And there is absolutely no forgiveness in my soul for the Chevy Citation. I joked when I moved to Seattle that the main problem is since there is no salt, there are still Citations on the road and that is unnatural. Their place in the natural order is the junk yard.
After owning my 1988 Chevrolet Beretta for about a year, the paint came off in one big sheet one morning when I was brushing a light dusting of snow off with my wool toque.
The first call to GM revealed that it was the acid rain (acid rain in the 1980s was what global warming is today -- the cause of all evil). Exposing my car to rain voided the warranty.
The second call to GM revealed that ultraviolet light destroyed the bond between the paint and the primer. Exposing my car to sunlight voided the warranty.
I spent hours researching this issue through the trade mags and published court filings. Plenty of legal findings about implied warranties of fitness for purpose. Evidently GM had an unpublished policy that it would pay the cost of a repaint to dealers for this situation, and the dealer was expected to provide the work for free.
Of course, the greasy grin of the dealer as he quoted full price while knowing he would collect the same from GM was enough to make me drive the car with no paint for the next 10 years so everyone could see, and recommend nobody purchase any GM product ever again.
I'll say this though: that primer sure prevented rust.
I wonder if the irony of the situation is that some chemical engineer invented a new primer that sticks to metal extremely well and it turned out that it may stick to metal like glue but it doesn’t stick to paint as well as the old stuff.
But based on what peeled, I’d say thermal expansion or UV damage were involved. The former could still be the primer’s “fault”.
>I joked when I moved to Seattle that the main problem is since there is no salt, there are still Citations on the road and that is unnatural. Their place in the natural order is the junk yard.
This was the fate of many British Leyland cars, even the ones that people genuinely liked such as as the classic Mini and the MGB were practically hygroscopic.
I will say I was somewhat delighted by the number of good looking mustangs and british roadsters there were. And so many Beetles. My roadster had a little too much bondo for my liking.
I loved the Mini, but I loved my Maxi even more. That was the most useful car ever bar none.
I didn't realize the Countryman was bigger than a midsized sedan until I parked next to one the other day. Walking back to my car something seemed off. Wait, that's a Mini??
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Why in the world did GM make a car with the name Citation? Are there any good connotations of that word?
>Are there any good connotations of that word?
Of course there are: "a mention of a praiseworthy act or achievement in an official report, especially that of a member of the armed forces in wartime" Don't focus on the North American usage of "a traffic citation". Citation is almost a contranym, which is a word that has at least two meanings that are opposites of each other, i.e. bolt, bound, buckle, cleave, clip, consult, ...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_contranyms
There’s also the aircraft series:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_family
Those are named after a race horse. Car may also be for the race horse. Or maybe the car’s named after the plane(s).
I would love to drive a Chevy Potoooooooo
Simple, it's so that every time someone reads "citation needed" on Wikipedia, it triggers the buy impulse.
Citation just means to be noted for something ("Cited for valour.")
But in the context of motor vehicles, the term is highly associated with infractions and monetary fines.
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I think it's funny how GM came out with the "Cavalier" to compete with Honda's "Civic". Or that matter, there was a Chevy Cobalt (e.g. a "Kobold" is a demon that causes mine accidents) or an AMC Gremlin.
...But cobalt is both a color and an element...?
Sure, the name is derived from "kobold", but that's like saying you should never call anything good "terrific", because it derives from the root "terror". Etymology isn't destiny.
There's always the business-school legend about the failure of the Nova with the Spanish market.
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It's also the name of a brand of private jet, and of what used to be the most successful racehorse in the world.
I'd guess both the car and the plane owe their names to the horse.
Technically Chevrolet did but the entire thought process for that vehicle was questionable so the name is IMO a harbinger. This is not a place of honor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_family
Relatively famous business jet.
A few other GM vehicles have this issue, Chevy in particular. A well known example is the market failure of calling a car Nova (No-Va) in South America.
Except that's not actually true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
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> Mechanically they may be reliable, but 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
Could be an older component stopped being available. Like when Apple switched to environmentally friendly lead free solder, but then the NVidia laptop GPUs got so hot they unsoldered themselves.
> 90’s GM forgot how to make paint stick to metal and had to pay to repaint a massive number of vehicles that simply pealed if parked outside for too long. How?
Dodge Ram Trucks had exactly the same problem. I also have no idea how two different companies with 100 years of history simply forgot how to paint cars.