2015 Yukon - worst vehicle I've ever owned

Wrench589 · November 25, 2016

You don't have to look very hard to see examples of what the real problem with GM is - corporate culture. 25 years ago, a very close friend of mine was at a wedding and happened to be seated at a table with the recently retired Western Regional Service Manager for GM. After chatting about cars for quite some time, the fellow finally makes the statement that "after doing that job for many years, I realized that there were no problem vehicles, just problem customers!" This is the guy that sets the tone for an entire regions service organization. At that same time frame, foreign carmakers were cleaning up mainly because of the great service they gave customers.

Fast forward 20 years or so. I'm watching 60 Minutes or something like that and they are doing a special on GM in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown and government bailout. Showing how great GM is now and how they have re-invented themselves, right down to the corporate culture. They were interviewing a fellow that worked on one of the assembly lines, who said he'd been there 25 years and how great it was now that they finally had quality in play, not like it was in the 70's and 80's when the motto was to "never stop the assembly line....send the cars out with known problems and let the dealers sort it out". Now, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to put that together with the service managers mentality to see the real problem here. It was somewhat shocking to see this fellow admit such a horrible thing they did; I'm thinking he was so caught up in the pride of how they were doing it now, that he didn't realize how damning what he was saying really was.

But he's the kicker - nothing has changed. Who runs GM? Fresh outsider? Not a chance. Promoted up through the ranks. Career employee. Someone who would have been fully tainted by that 70's and 80's mentality. And don't kid yourself - the whole company would be "in on it"!

So here we are. The dealers struggling to change tires or whatever pointless thing they do to try to appease their customer. GM doing nothing. GM continues to exist, and possibly even succeed, not because of itself, but in spite f itself. Only because it is so big, it continues to plow through existence, like an iceberg smashing through a fleet of ships in the night. And in the morning thinking "man, am I a great sailor!"

Good luck to us all. And to those GM faithful, I can't understand any brand loyalty when it comes to my money. But, to each there own. I'm not here to judge. But, if you see them putting some white powder in the Koolaid jugs you've been drinking all these years, maybe don't drink it that day......

Happy turkey day!