Contrary to what some might think, I don’t get any great thrill out of documenting the decline and fall of what was once the world’s largest and most profitable corporation. It’s a sad story, but as long as I keep running into the products of its sins sitting on the streets, it’s a story that’s hard to ignore. We’ve done 22 Deadly Sins so far (listed below), and they’ve been written up in arbitrary fashion, as they presented themselves. But what should number 23 be? And how many more should there be?
On The Purpose And Nature Of GM’s Deadly Sins
#7 1976 Chevrolet Malibu Classic
#8 1984 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham
#11 1975-1979 Cadillac Seville
#12 1990 Pontiac LeMans (Daewoo)
#17 1980-1985 Cadillac Seville
#18 1991 Chevrolet Lumina Euro
# 20 1991 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight by Brendan Saur
#21 1986-1991 Cadillac Seville
Here are some GM deadly sins. It involves 2 cars and 3 engines.
1. Cadillac Catera: The Catera was Cadillac’s second attempt at competing with entry-level luxury imports (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus). It was a sales dud and it had reliability problems. My parents had one for several years. It spent quite a bit of time in the shop. They now have a Lexus ES350 which was far more reliable. Also, there was the hokey “Caddy that zigs” sales campaign featuring a cartoon duck.
2. Pontiac Aztek: What was GM thinking? It looked like a Citation on steroids.
3. Oldsmobile diesel: Back in 1978, Oldsmobile wanted to build cars with diesel engines. So, they converted the legendary Rocket 350 into a diesel and installed it into Cutlass and Delta 88 models. It even found it’s way into Cadillacs. Trouble is, that engine cannot handle high compression ratios. So, it blew many a head gasket.
4. Cadillac V8-6-4: In 1980-81, gas prices were rising and the 6 liter Cadillac V8 was a gas guzzler. So, they used a computer controlled device that would shut down cylinders when the car is cruising along. Going into 4 cylinder mode. Trouble is, crude technology kept it from being reliable.
5. Cadillac HT 4100 V8: In 1982, Cadillac downsized it’s V8 to just 4.1 liters. That engine produced an anemic 125-135 horsepower. The results were disastrous. The big Cadillac DeVille/Fleetwood Brougham, Eldorado and Seville with that engine cannot get out of their own way. You would have beenbetter off buying a Buick Electra/Park Ave/Riviera or Oldsmobile 98 Regency/Toronado with the 307 V8 and get more engine for the money.
The U Platform minivans.
The Chevy Avalanche. What a useless, ugly tank of a tr… well, what was it supposed to be? An ugly 1/2 ton car with no trunklid? A hiking shoe with wheels? They get even worse with age, what with faded paint and plastics with wax embedded in them. If I want a giant 4-door to tow a boat with, I’d much rather find a ’74 Impala. Who uses the 4-wheel drive on those anyway.
Just a good donor car with its LS motor.
This is a hard question, because when considering GM’s deadly sins, I’m always able to think of some redeeming quality when I think of the larger cars. Not so with the smaller cars. The Saturn’s justifiably been listed as a deadly sin, as has the Cavalier… the Saturn began with some promise, whereas the Cavalier eventually improved.
The Chevette was awful the entire time it was on the market. And like the Cavalier, it was based on a reasonable platform. I understand Chevy wanted to upwell customers into a number of the brand’s bigger small cars, but many buyers were willing to pay slightly more for a higher quality car of the Chevette’s size (think Civic as the best example).
When you think of the Kadett C, the Isuzu Gemini or even the Vauxhall Chevette and Latin American Chevette, it’s clear Chevy could’ve done more with the T-platform in the US.
OK, GM has built some pooches. So has every other car company, yet I don’t see them getting anything like the regular bashings that GM gets here.
And lets not forget that GM dominated the global car market for decades.
That seems to be forgotten in all the GM bashing here. They were doing a lot right, for
a damn long time.
Actually it’s not forgotten at all. GM was doing a lot wrong for long damn time in order to have fallen from their lofty market share to eventual bankruptcy.
You need to read Paul’s intro article “On the Purpose and Nature of GMs Deadly Sins” to understand where he’s coming from with this series. My take is that GM was Paul’s favorite car company, so he’s offended with their many missteps, more-so than other manufacturers.
BigOldChryslers: I’ve suggested the same thing. It’s not indiscriminate bashing. The source material is right here on CC: “On The Purpose and Nature Of GM’s Deadly Sins”
GM worked hard to bankrupt itself. It’s not bashing to attempt to dissect why and how.
I still love my ION, the 99 Cavalier I bought as my first new car, the X Cars [especially the Citation ], the N Calais I owned which my brother still has, the 95 Saturn SL1[he has that one as well].
It doesn’t make them good cars and it doesn’t make them any less “Deadly Sins”. But I’ve had my fill from GM.
That’s always the impression that I’ve gotten, too – although maybe not really “offended” so much as just documenting the reality of the situation. The failure of GM is one of the most interesting and nuanced stories in automotive history. That’s why it’s worth coming back to again and again.
Roger Carr has written many incredible articles that are effectively a “Deadly Sins” of the British auto industry series, and no one has ever accused him of “British-Leyland bashing”, nor should they. It’s a myth that GM gets uniquely and unfairly negative treatment on CC.
yet I don’t see them getting anything like the regular bashings that GM gets here.
GM gets bashed because we expected better of it. Noone else in our lifetimes had GM’s volume, or GM’s money, or GM’s market share, or GM’s capabilities. 50 years ago, GM was twice the size of Ford, but they phoned it in until their market share was cut in half, profits turned to losses and they went bankrupt.
“GM gets bashed because we expected better of it. No one else in our lifetimes had GM’s volume, or GM’s money, or GM’s market share, or GM’s capabilities. 50 years ago, GM was twice the size of Ford, but they phoned it in until their market share was cut in half, profits turned to losses and they went bankrupt.”
Absolutely! No other car company raised customer expectations higher, succeed in fulfilling those for so long then misstep-by-misstep disappointed and angered customers to the point of bankruptcy. Dour old Alfred Sloan lead legions of true car guys to create the greatest corporation and greatest selection of compelling, aspirational cars until hubris took over with new bean-counter management attitude infections beginning in the ’60’s. But like any behemoth rotting from within, it took decades for the infection to finally topple the giant.
The new GM now has a chance to redeem that long-term damage but it will again take savvy car guys and not bean-counters to perhaps return it to the greatness of old.
So, its OK to build mediocrity if you’re a smaller company then?
So, its OK to build mediocrity if you’re a smaller company then?
Building a mediocre product is a road to ruin for anyone, but you shouldn’t be surprised to get a second rate product, from a second rate company. In the 70s, Chrysler was second rate. Compare the reliability and owner satisfaction of a Plymouth Volare, to an Olds Cutlass of the same year. The Cutlass was the best selling car in the US for a reason. GM could hire the best engineers, and provide the best facilities, because their volume meant they could spend more on R&D, because they had more cars to amortize the costs over.
I agree. It would be nice to see Ford and Chrysler called out for the crap they made during the 70’s to 90’s. Just for a change of pace. here are some good deadly sin examples for Ford and Chrysler.
Since the Cavalier last week was a deadly sin for being launched with a slow 88 HP engine how about the initial Ford Escort with it’s horribly slow 69 HP 1.6 carbureted engine that when combined with automatic could barely crest 20 MPH up a hill. Or how about the 1981-1983 Imperial for it’s “it might run or not” fuel injected 318 that was based on a far cheaper Mirada. Or the Ford Fairmont for being one of the most horribly lightweight cheaply constructed noisy tinny cars ever made for the time. The Ford 255 V8. The lovely it might run variable Venturi carburetor. The junk Essex 3.8 V6 which ate head gaskets and cracked heads for lunch. The Chrysler Ultradrive transaxle. The 2.2/2.5 Trans 4 Chrysler engines that wiped out cams, suffered pin knock, had poor head gaskets and ate sensors at an alarming rate. The Ford Contour with a smaller back seat than the current Malbu ever thought of having. The Ford Pinto, 1980 T-Bird/Cougar, the 1981 Granada/Cougar, early 4.6 V8 engines that burned oil and blew intake gaskets, the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare’, use of the junk Mitsubishi 2.6 and 3 liter V6 engines in there products, the horrendous Ford of germany 2.8/2.9 V6 that had a plethora of issues with heads, gaskets and bottom ends and many many more issues.
I also find it quite a stretch to call a 1984 Pontiac Bonneville a deadly sin. First, this car was introduced in 1982 in response to a slow down in big car sales and Pontiac did not believe that full size cars would be around much longer with the then current gas prices so made the G-body Lemans a Bonneville. Well Ford did the exact same thing twice. The 1980 Granada name was slapped on the smaller tinnier Fairmont with more sound insulation and a mushier suspension and the same anemic engines carried over. Worse in 1983 they took the full size LTD name and put it on the same cheap compact sized Fairmont trying to pass that off a premium offering. How exactly is this different? If the downsized Bonneville is a deadly sin then so is the LTD/Marquis!
The 1978 Grand Prix. First off no A/G body ever belongs on this list. They were light years ahead of the dumpy Ford and Chrysler offerings in efficiency, performance with V8 engines, ride, handling, comfort and even trunk space. A better choice for a real deadly sin would be the 1980 terribly conceived T-Bird and Cougar complete with powerhouse 88 HP 200 six made available during the later part of 1980 moving around over 3200 LBS of pork.
If the 1976 Seville is a Deadly Sin then the Lincoln Versailles is a Super Deadly sin.
If the Corsica is such a horrible car what does that make a Tempo? An engine derived from an outdated straight six design from the 50’s. Plastic ball joints that failed during the first year of ownership. Horrible power sapping automatic trans axle. A carburetor when GM was using TBI in there J and A body offerings. The worlds worst power steering pumps that often caught fire. yes folks these were a real steaming pile.
And lets not forget Lincoln’s wonderful FWD Continental with the lovely sluggish Essex V6 initially and then later the powerhouse DOHC 275 HP 4.6 Intech tied to the amazing bullet proof Taurus 4 speed automatic that puked it’s guts the same was as attaching a 4t65 to a small block Chevy in a W-body!
I’ll be the first to admit GM has screwed up one time too many. The bailout is often brought up. But lets also consider that Chrysler was also bailed out. Twice! And worse they continue to languish on the bottom of CR/true Delta and Wards auto up to this current day for reliability.
I don’t disagree that Chrysler and Ford have built plenty of stinkers too. And Chrysler has been the topic of its own deadly sin series. Have we ever done a piece on a post 1956 Mopar where quality has not been one of the threads of the article? And you are right that they continue to struggle with quality and durability, at least in certain lines. I understand that Ford is spared strict “Deadly” sin status because the company did not actually die, as GM and Chrysler did.
My only argument is with your count of two “bailouts”. Chrysler’s 1980 bailout consisted of the government guaranteeing loans which Chrysler later paid back in full. Nobody was out any money on the 1980 bailout. The 2008-09 version for both GM and Chrysler was, of course, quite different.
Hummer: The whole brand. The day it came out under GM, I knew they would eventually be lambasted by everyone for what amounted to obnoxiousness on four wheels. The fact that well paid GM executives couldn’t see this just amazes me.
SAAB: The whole brand when under General motors. The concept was a lot like Saturn, we can’t seem to fix our existing brands, so we’ll create / buy another one. But, wow, what a fantastic opportunity for a 6th GMT360 vehicle.
GMC: Diluting Chevrolet sales figures since 1912.
I make two nominations.
The first is how GM handled the 1961-63 “senior” compacts from Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Instead of developing their unique features for another generation, GM took the easy way out and turned them into “Mini-me” versions of the full-size cars for 1964. That worked in the short run, but it reinforced the message that doing things the cheap and easy way was the surest path to success. By the time the market and regulatory climate had changed in the 1970s, GM’s ability to successfully innovate had seriously atrophied. GM kept looking for the “cheap and easy” way to meet the challenges of government regulation and foreign competition, with disastrous results.
The second Deadly Sin isn’t a particular vehicle, but rather GM’s (ultimately futile) attempt to maintain the Sloan brand ladder in the 1990s and early 2000s. GM spent a ton of money trying to differentiate vehicles on shared platforms. The corporation tried to distinguish them in ways that were lost on most customers. By 2000, GM vehicles from different divisions were largely competing with each other for the dollars of an ever-shrinking pool of GM loyalists.
The senior compacts/intermediates are an interesting case because it’s easy to see why GM went the direction they did. The senior compacts had a lot of differentiation in areas that really didn’t translate into distinct identities or USPs for customers — three different automatic transmission designs, for instance — or that were troublesome. The 3.5-liter V-8’s early problems certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and the advances in thinwall iron casting cut into the aluminum engine’s advantages. So, I understand why GM said, “Why are we spending all this money like this?” but…
How about the 1990s Monte Carlos that looked exactly like a Lumina?
Or the Cheese-Wedge Buick Skylark?
Or the Toroflow Diesel?
Pontiac Aztec. UUUUUgly and what a piece of crap. My sister and idiot brother-in-law bought one new. It spent 21/2 years of the 3 they owned it in the shop.
Here’s the kicker. My idiot Pontiac loving brother-in-law still claims it was a good car.
Interesting , I also owned an Aztek , but wouldn’t consider myself an idiot.
I went into the purchase knowing full well about the black cloud overhanging the Aztek as far styling.
I didn’t (and still don’t) care, about the Azteks looks.
The price I paid was excellent,actually ridiculously low for the features of the vehicle.
Comfortable riding, roomy, good gas mileage ,and as Pontiac advertised, a very very versatile vehicle.
What I wasn’t prepared for ,and in hindsight would have stopped me from buying my Aztek was its terrible build quality ,and reliability
Like your brother in law , I think my Aztek spent more time at the dealership , than in my driveway. The weekly problems became almost comical
I chuckle when I read, or hear people calling Korean cars “junk” or “disposable crap”.
My Kia Rondo has been perfect in 90,000 miles of ownership.
If they can do it ,why not a giant like General Motors?
My Kia Rondo has been perfect in 90,000 miles of ownership.
If they can do it ,why not a giant like General Motors?
That is the point of the GM bashing, and, actually, the bashing of the big three. Many times, they were not even trying to turn out a good product. I have lived in Michigan my entire life, so far, so big three PR is local news. Consistently, since the 70s, big three management has blamed all their problems on the government, the union, or the Japanese, then headed for the country club.
The early Toyotas and Hondas were pretty bad, but they worked the problems and turned it around. The early Hyundais and Kias were pretty bad, but they worked the problems and turned it around. VW was tragically incompetent for decades, but seems to have turned it around in the last ten years.
The US big three? They offer products that look good on paper, but fail in execution. Infotainment systems that are glitchy. Bleeding edge powertrains that are half baked. They even fail at anti-freeze, like DexCool that, if not maintained precisely fills the cooling system with brown muck.
oh….there’s another candidate for “deadly sin”, DexCool
The first video put the coolant muck down to air mixed with the coolant. What happens if you mix DexCool with green antifreeze.
What happens when you use stop-leak in DexCool
Again, at the local GM dealer for one of the never ending problems with my Aztek. The service manager has the hood up ,explaining something to me ( I don’t remember what) when I happen to notice this same brown scum on top the Dexcool in the coolant recovery tank.
This was with less than 3 years on the coolant .
His answer to me about the brown scum “its normal”.
… I happen to notice this same brown scum on top the Dexcool in the coolant recovery tank…His answer to me about the brown scum “its normal”.
Apparently, it was “normal”, especially in a V6. “Normal” does not imply desirability however. Apparently GM didn’t do any testing before switching to DexCool, as it seems that DexCool dissolves the gasket materials used in older design engines.
The Wiki article about antifreeze says a lot of lawsuits were filed against GM for engine damage caused by DexCool. GM agreed to compensate claimants, but then filed bankruptcy, so the chances of people ever recovering anything are close to nil.
I think beginning with my 1995 Riviera my cooling systems all had Dexcool. None of them ever had brown scum. The SRX never had a coolant change during the 6 years that I owned it. There were no leaks and always serviced at dealers, so no one added some other type of coolant (which is probably the source of brown scum).
I put just over 90,000 miles on my 2007 SRX with no real problems. The front shocks did get replaced at about 90,000 although I had not noticed they were getting bad. Otherwise, the inflamous northstar V8 ran without a problem.
My nomination for ‘Deadliest Sin’ in the 2.5 Iron Duke 4 cylinder (or as I called it: the ‘Iron Duck’-you stepped on the gas pedal and all you heard was a thrashy ‘QUACKKKKKKKKK!’ coming from under the hood). GM kept allegedly upgrading it: Crossflow head! Throttle body fuel injection! Roller lifters! Distributorless ignition!! Lets call it ‘Tech 4’! We’ll stick it under the hood of our highest volume vehicles! Never mind the “improvements” over the years were the engineering equivalent of putting a Band Aid on a compound fracture–they just really phoned it in with this engine. I think the front wheel drive versions (X and A body) versions were particularly awful-these things idled so rough, I thought the dashboard and steering column were doing to vibrate apart within the first week of ownership (must’ve been the option code FU2 Vibro-matic steering wheel….). GM really fell on their sword when it came to domestically produced 4-cylinder engines in this era.
Going to nominate the Corvair- not for the car itself, which while less than perfect wasn’t much worse than many others on the market, but for GM’s behaviour after “Unsafe” was published.
Instead of fixing the design, compensating the injured or killing the product, they went for a smear campaign of Nader…and got caught.
People will forgive bad things done for good reason, or good things done for bad reasons.
They will not forgive bad things done for bad reasons, and done incompetently!
The whole exercise left a sleazy air about the corporation that segued neatly into the general dodginess of the Watergate era.
Thanks for the list !
I think that the Cadillac Catera would be a good GM Deadly sin : It’s an Opel underneath. How do you want to compete with BMW and Mercedes Benz with an Opel, which is the equivalent of Ford ? That’s silly.
The Omega did theoretically compete with the E-Class and 5-Series in Europe, as did the contemporary Ford Granada/Scorpio, although even then, that was getting to be a tough sell because of the lack of a premium badge. You got more stuff and more engine for the money, but also much poorer residuals.
The Opel Senator B was even a bit closer to the E-Class. I only remember the (German) straight 6 engines in the big Opels from that era.
The Catera had a newly developed (English) V6, didn’t it ?
Yes the Catera’s V6 was 3.2 liters with an odd angle between the cylinder banks (less than 60 degrees, about 54 maybe?).
Right. This was the last 6 cylinder engine I remember seeing under the hood of a big Opel. In an Opel Senator B (1987-1993), early nineties.
Opel Senator B. Bigger and more luxury than the Omega in Etienne000’s picture above. Same platform though.
In France, Opel does not compete with other German brands. It’s more a ‘generalist’ automaker. They used to compete with the Renault Safrane, Peugeot 605 I think. But anyway, an Opel with a Cadillac badge is not the vision I have from Cadillac In my opinion. They did the same thing with the BLS, taking a Saab and try to sell it as a Cadillac. This didn’t work either !
Opel isn’t a premium brand (to its undoubted sorrow at this point), but in a lot of markets, the Omega — and the big Renault, Peugeot, Ford, et al — was in the same price range as the lower-end E-Class and 5-Series. The Opel and its ilk gave you more engine and more equipment for the money, but not the badge, which ended up being the downfall of that class in Europe.
Hard to fault GM for the first-gen Corvair; one of the elements to its tricky handling was the swing-axle rear suspension, an engineering solution even being used by Mercedes-Benz during the Corvair’s gestation GM’s “Dustbuster” minivans and the subsequent Pontiak are more deserving of scorn. Ignoring Pontiac’s rich history for the sake of Buick/Cadillac sales in China when there was more difference between Chevy’s and Pontiac’s lineups than between GMC and Chevy truck lines/ Selling Saturn Vues with Honda engines. Lastly, the whole ” rationalization” of GM’s products, which left no reason for marque loyalty.
Ignoring Pontiac’s rich history for the sake of Buick/Cadillac sales in China when there was more difference between Chevy’s and Pontiac’s lineups than between GMC and Chevy truck lines/ Selling Saturn Vues with Honda engines.
Actually, Pontiac was a made up brand, jinned from the corpse of Oakland, and lacked the provenance of Buick or Olds. It may have been a bit older than the other made up brands: Plymouth, DeSoto, Mercury and Saturn, but it was no loss, compared to forsaking Ransom Olds.
I think the problem with Sloan’s ladder, was they abandoned it. As soon as the brands started invading the market segments of the other brands, they started losing their identity. When nearly every division offers an X body and a J body, what makes a Buick a Buick?
In the 80s, imagine if Chevy had exclusive use of the J body, Pontiac the X, while Buick used the A and Olds used the N. GM paid to develop all these platforms, but by offering every platform in every store, they were competing with themselves.
The so called ladder never really existed in the mid-priced range (Buick, Oakland and Oldsmobile). Cadillac was (around the World War One time frame) at the top of the ladder, and after WWI Chevrolet was clearly to low end. But Buick’s low end models seems to be price very close to the top end of Chevrolet. Oldsmobile moved around the price structure somewhat. Pontiac was one of 4 companion cars. Oakland was replaced by their companion car (Pontiac), while both the Buick and Olds companions were very short term car. Cadillac’s LaSalle lasted for about a decade before being replaced by the Series 61 (after renumbering).
By the end of the 50’s, the low priced cars (Chevrolet …) were full sized and with the introduction of compact cars the whole ladder idea was junk. I think this is where the Big Three made a serious blunder (or deadly sin).
In the early 1950s, GM’s product ladder was distinguished on the exteriors mostly by increasing the quantity of the chrome as they progressed from Chevrolet to Cadillac. Underneath, there were V8s, straight 8s.and straight 6s hooked up to automatics including Dynaflow, Hydra-Matic and Powerglide. When Semon “Bunkie” Knudson took over Pontiac’s reins, he infused the marque with a performance identity more sharply defined than that of Buick and Olds.
There was supposed to be a price difference too:
1951 Chevy Bell Air – $1630
Pontiac chieftain six – $1527
Buick Special – $1680
Olds 88 – $1785
top of line Olds 98 about $2500
top of line Buick about $2600
My point is this: The low end of Buick or Olds (not sure which is higher up, can’t tell from this) should not be within $50 of Chevy’s top end.
Another nomination – not a car though. The Sloane Hierarchy. The ladder of different makes that a buyer was supposed move up as they grew more affluent.
Did it really work after the early 1960s? Or did trying to keep a differentiation between makes end up sucking up too many resources, especially as emission controls and safety legislation came along?
Of course, eliminating Pontiac, Buick or Olds wasn’t possible at the time due to the number of cars sold, but it really seemed to become a golden noose sometime after the mid 1960s.
I don’t know if it’s exactly a Deadly Sin, but I’d love to read Paul’s take on the life and death of the EV1. As the years have gone by, it seems more and more like a massively wasted opportunity to me. The car itself was really incredible, and with the NiMH batteries its range was well beyond that of its modern counterparts… but I’m not sure that the success of hybrids and EVs was something that anyone could have seen coming back then. Tesla wasn’t even a glimmer in Elon Musk’s eye when the last EV1 was built, and for that matter, the “success” of electric propulsion is still relatively limited.
But I do think hybrid/electric domination of the industry is inevitable, and GM could have been right there at the forefront with Toyota had the EV1’s development been expanded.
GM made s big deal about the Malibu Max being a 5-door. They already had SAAB, who was famous for filling that niche, but they stopped making SAAB 5-doors right before the Malibu Max came out. DUH!
Sure hope someone mentions the Pontiac Montana SV6. What is an SV6 anyway?
Throw in its hideous siblings the Chevy Uplander, the Saturn Relay, and the Buick Terraza. Note to GM: sticking a bulbous nose on a minivan does NOT make it a crossover, okay?
Forgive me if this is a repeat–I scanned, but didn’t totally read, all 185 posts so far.
Aztek?
In the early to mid-80’s I began to notice that GM began to place non-qualified and mostly non-trainable people in key positions at the zone level. This “deadly sin” was a fatal blow.
For me, the gm’s most deadly sin was that they didn’t launch an fwd, reliable small cars in 1950’s or 1960’s.
It should have been a world-beater small cars to compete with the volkswagen’s beetle and later with japanese cars.
“Contrary to what some might think, I don’t get any great thrill out of documenting the decline and fall of what was once the world’s largest and most profitable corporation.”