Gene Kearns wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:04:11 -0600, Canuck57 penned the following well
considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

|
|"nada" wrote in message ...
| Vic Smith wrote:
| I posted this to the GM group, which I sometimes participate in, but I
| really like talking to boaters more than anything.
| Boaters are.....just cool!
| Anyway most here have some GM experience, and I know you all like to
| talk about unions.
|
| *********************
|
| So I go into the local GM dealership this morning to get the lower
| intake manifold gasket set for my kid's 95 Bonneville. The "new
| improved" gaskets. Aluminum framed, not plastic. The car's got 80k miles
| on it, and too many GM owners took real big
| hits when the lower manifold gaskets rotted away or plastic upper
| plenum melted away. I bought a Dorman upper plenum elsewhere.
| Way too many with as few as 40k miles, and for cars at least as late
| as 2003 with the 3800 Series 2 engine have the problem.
| Can cause hydrolock, bent rods, warped heads, wiped bearings, etc.
| Some catch it in the early stages and only pay $400-1200 to get it
| fixed. I've spent some time in Pontiac, Buick and Chevy forums reading
| about the pain and expense this poor design has caused.
| There was only very minor relief from GM for these disasters. Hell, the
| new LIM gasket didn't come out until 2006 or 2007. My kid is putting in
| the improved LIM gasket and the improved Gorman
| upper plenum as a preventative measure.
| The plenum was 61 bucks through Amazon and the gasket was
| 75 bucks at GM.
| Then there's going to be some brake and carb cleaner to clean things
| up, and some thread lock.
| So it's going to cost about $150 in parts, and at least 3 hours of the
| kid's labor. Luckily, he loves doing this stuff. Anyway, one parts guy
| goes to get my gasket set, and I ask one of the
| other guys, probably the manager, who's sitting on his ass rifling
| through paperwork, "What do you think about the new GM?"
| He doesn't hardly look up, and why should he?
| After all, I'm just a customer.
| He says, "I feel good about it. We've got the union costs under
| control." Mumbles something about health costs.
| I said, "Yeah, that union health care was hurting GM, and health care
| is a problem all over."
| He wasn't interested in my comment, and goes on a bit ragging the
| union. Didn't hear it exactly, because the other guy came back with
| my part and pointed me to cashier window about ten feet away.
| The cashier was waiting for me.
| So as I give her the invoice and my credit card something is bothering
| me. When I asked that guy about the "new GM" I was expecting
| to hear something besides bitching about the union.
| Maybe something about how good the Malibu and Impala are selling, or a
| new goal toward engineering excellence and customer satisfaction.
| I walk back to the parts desk and said, probably a bit too loudly,
| in order to get this guys attention, but I was actually ****ed.
| "Hey, see this?" I held up the $75 gasket set.
| "The union didn't design the 3800. GM engineers and GM management
| did that. Wasn't the union. Sure as hell wasn't Toyota. And if they
| did they would have made it right. You want customers, you better
| give them reliability. There's more than one side of a story."
| He admitted that as I walked back to the cashier to sign the receipt
| and get out of there. Didn't really want to say anything else to him.
| **** him.
| Anyway, a bad experience. Hope this asshole doesn't represent GM's
| future.
|
| --Vic
| Every one of these jerks thing the Unioniozed Workers are getting
| something tghey want but didn't go after. It is hateful envy.
| Those that work at the corner market applied to work there.
| Those that work at GM, Boeing, or wherever applied to work there.
| Thse that choose to be Entrepeanurs should have included choice health
| care into their planning.
| The average wage is supposedly 54,000+ in the US yet thes people bitch
| when an Auto Worker or whomever is approaching that level. They figure
| only Wall Streeters should b e making it.
|
|Be sure to enjoy driving it, US citizens at large now have over $100B less
|in the future to spend on autos. Make it over $1T if you include bank
|bailouts.
|
|No doubt, fewer autos per capita is the future.
|

Yes, and that began with NAFTA. A "global economy" means the playing
field gets "leveled."

The Chinese farmer can, now, maybe afford a car.... and to offset
that, Americans (and others) will be forced to make-do with *much*
less....

No Free Ride.


It won't be a leveling of the field, it will be lowering the field.

If you missed the fall of the Roman Empire you are about to see what
happened in real time.