My dad bought a Tahoe that didn’t have its wireless phone charger because of parts shortages. Was told it would be addressed when the parts were available. 2 years later, none of that part is available but they can replace the entire center console for a couple thousand bucks. They wouldn’t cover it under warranty because he exceeded 36,000 miles and the extended warranty didn’t specifically cover “missing from the factory”. Needless to say, it’ll be his last GM vehicle.
Because of the war in Ukraine and the chip shortage, certain options aren't available for new cars and they aren't discounted either. They want full price with less options. Any dealership who promises to install these options after purchase are liars. I know first hand that the contract didn't contain that promise and the vehicle was sold as is. My recommendation is to shop around for the vehicle with all the options you need and not for a specific brand or model you wanted. Trust me, you will be reminded constantly how deficient your new car is.
My friend's dad did that with a Chrysler in the 80s- right through the glass and jumped out with a golf club. They took the car back and we learned as children to never use courts because it costs too much and takes too long. My friend's dad could have easily have been cast in The Sporanos and we always joked later in life about a couple of the episodes being about him. People were actually tough in the late 70s, Americans had a pair back then...
I once worked in a factory that made diesel engines. We had a manifold casting setting for over a year for a river tug on the Ohio river. It needed finish machined. I asked the foreman about it and he said we need to focus on getting new product out the door. Not long after the business turned down and the foreman came up to me very concerned that we needed to focus on customer service and we needed to get it finished and out the door. Of course his priorities were determined by senior management.
@@Alle8ia When they can always count on a bailout when they fail, they no longer seem to care about the long term, quality, performance, or anything else. It's the new model of Chroney Capitalism. Privatize profits, dump the consequences of failure on the taxpayers. It is slowly killing our economy. 😫😵💫☠️
Either horrible upper management or just mad managemer. If you're prices are set for a crew/shift of 10 guys but you know you can do it with 6 id make sure you have 7-8
Back in 2000-2001 when my family bought our first Aztek, its AC compressor went up. No harm, no foul, the car was under warranty. The dealership somehow couldn't get the part. Meanwhile they had a bunch of Azteks, Rendezvous, Grand Ams, and Montanas on the lot, that all used the same compressor. After fighting with them, a different dealership told her they were able to source the part. So she went over to the dealership the car was at and demanded it back. They acted all surprised someone would demand their broken car back, until she told them the other dealership was going to fix it. By that afternoon the original dealership somehow got a compressor and replaced it. We never went back to that dealership.
My first thought was the second dealer was going to install an aftermarket or remanufacturered part to get it working again, while the original dealer was going to sit on their hands and wait for a full priced, brand new one from the original manufacturer. When you threatened to take your business elsewhere, they did whatever they had to in order to get a replacement. And you still took it elsewhere. I hope whatever compressor they gave you continued to work as long as your parents had the car.
@annana6098 First of all, that car had been sitting there for weeks. Second this was a warranty job. Dealerships have to follow strict rules set by GM if they want to get paid at the end of it and have to document it. Finally, their OEM part failed two years later. That second time, we took it to our regular mechanic since it was out of warranty by that point. He did the job, and their part lasted until the car died two years ago, and unless you request OEM, they usually use the aftermarket and at that time, they used carquest. So almost 15 years and over 200k miles later. I've only had two dealerships that have earned my trust, and they are both little family owned ones, two towns over in Taneytown. Their labor is on par with regular shops, and they don't try to upsell you, and the service advisors have alway been upfront about stuff. Every other dealership I've ever been to, talk down to you, charge an arm and a leg, and frankly, half the time, their techs don't even fix the problem. They just load up the parts cannon and hope it works. Shit, the one (Dodge) the dang service tech couldn't even look up from his phone while I was trying to talk to him about a freaking police car of ours that was sitting on their lot for over a month, because the geniuses ripped the car apart to do a recall before the part was in stock. Then, they had the audacity to charge us $400 labor for a recall when the part finally came in. Then another dealer (BMW) I've been to told me I needed a whole new cam shaft and needed to rebuild the engine. We took the car to our regular mechanic who doesn't usually work on foreign cars. They plopped a new cam sensor in, and the car was back to normal. There's a reason why Dealerships have the reputations as they do. I've had far more bad experiences with them, then good.
I worked at a Caddy dealer in 1976 and we had a similar situation crop up. The dealer was great with their service department as well as management. They took a new car on the lot and took the needed part off their vehicle installed it on the customer car and sent him on his way. When the dealer got the part they put it on the donor car and put it back on the lot. SIMPLE
@@beepbop6697 depends on the part, and the new part has to indeed be new. in 1980 I bought a Monte Carlo. The windshield wipers died. I took it to a dealer to get it fixed. Since the design had changed from the prior year (now it had the delay system or intermittent wipers). They did not have the part in stock and it would be at least a month before they would be able to get one, so they pulled the assembly off a new one in the lot and told me they would replace it on the car before selling it as new. The part numbers would match, so no one would be the wiser.
My dad was trying to buy a Jaguar in the late 70's and went to our local small import car dealer and asked if he could test drive a car he was told that they didn't have any cars that were prepped yet on the lot and told him to come back in a few weeks. So he goes back in a few weeks and they give him the same no cars are prepped song and dance and say come back in a couple of weeks. Now my dad had always dreamed of owning Jaguar so he went back a few weeks later and they gave him the same excuse. So he said "I don't give a damn if they are prepped can I see the cars you have/" So they took him to the back lot and there were three cars, all of them in various states of being stripped for parts since they couldn't get parts from the factory.
@@beepbop6697 they did as it had a new bumper. No different than had the bumper been damaged in shipping and repaired after it was dropped off at the dealership
In a recent video about the Turbine Car, it was mentioned how the Japanese companies came in with the goal of selling the customer their next 5 cars rather than just the one they were currently shopping for. If this guy's business survives and he needs more vehicles in the future, I'm willing to bet he won't be getting them from GM.
Dude should have told his story to Jalopnik and one of the larger EV media outlets like Electrek. Cadillac making a customer wait 8 months for a replacement bumper is important news to any prospective Cadillac EV buyer. Such press will push GM to solve this man's problem more than just local news outlet.
This is why I laugh when people think less regulations will be better for us, because companies already refuse to do the right thing until the media picks the story up.
What he has is a valid claim against whoever caused the damage, not just for the vehicle but also lost revenue, time dealing with this matter, depreciation on the vehicle...
@@marcochavane3124regulations by themselves sure. The point is regulations and strict enforcement with strong penalties. If a company was fine tens of thousands of dollars per incident per month, you can bet they would not let the stuff go on like this. And the other complaint about regulation increasing costs to the consumer is irrelevant because the payment for enforcement logistics would come out of the fines.
My wife bought a new car in 2014. First year production of that new body style. 3 weeks later, a guy side-swiped it. We waited months for a new headliner. They said it would be another 6 months before black headliners would be back in production. They could get us a gray one off the production line. So, we did. I don't think anyone ever noticed the trim is black, but the headliner is gray. The insurance company did compensate us for loss of value, including the mismatched part.
I had a 1988 Ford Bronco. It was built during a 15-month "experiment" with some drivetrain changes. When I had one of the front locking hubs come apart, I could not get a matching one from wither Ford or other parts manufacturers. I ended up having to get one from a junkyard in Maine that happened to have a pickup with the same locking hubs (and the rear axle I had to replace that had eaten itself). - I also went through two gas tanks because of the design of the under-tank support that trapped water, dirt, and salt between the support and the tank, essentially creating a sanding and oxidizing enclosure. When I replaced the second tank, Ford had finally redesigned the under-tank shield to include drainage holes. What genius!
They make spray on fabric dye. I had a blue interior and changed it over to black. I just used the spray on dye and it worked perfectly. Nobody could tell, and it was a lot less money.
Insurance company for the other party is responsible for all of this. Usually, by the time they figure out that they're paying all the rental and loss of use they total the car. Guy needs a lawyer to sue the other driver
I was going to say the same thing. All of the warranty and lemon talk is irrelevant. Insurance company can't get parts to repair. It falls on them to make the customer whole. Including consequential damages of lost wages, etc. Just like any other automobile accident case. If the car can't be repaired, it gets totaled. And the man needs to be duly compensated for all damages.
Modern cars offer less value for more money, by design, and the negative tradeoff is comprehensive. If you have an old car that works, take great care of it.
It's becoming harder over time. They make fewer parts for older cars. Older cars cost more to register due to safety fees. They need to run perfect every year or they won't pass emissions.
People are resorting to picking out a year/make/model of vehicle known to be reliable, finding one in a barn, backyard or junkyard, and having it restored. (Not Concours d'Elegance, but functionally.) And you end up with a reliable vehicle with a much lower ownership cost per mile. A good mechanic who knows that vehicle knows which parts need to be replaced if they haven't already failed. Much cheaper to get it all done at once, and you prevent future on-road failures.
@RefreshingShamrock antique tags gets you around any inspection. Only 25yrs old, so 99s and 00s are good to go now. Get something that didnt change much over the years and parts are dirt cheap. I have been using disposable Grand Caravans/ Town & Countries as work trucks for the past 15yrs. Newest one was an 07, current, an 06 i got for $2k w/ 120k miles on it. Should blow past 200k easily.
The problem with the old car is the same as this. Lack of parts. I waited three weeks for what turned out to be a salvage mirror for my 2013. You are screwed either way.
Considering I'm no longer under NDA from GM or the contracted company I worked for... I can tell you I worked for PARTECH, the support division that the Dealership Service and Parts contacts for catalog and parts support. They CONSTANTLY change designs of bodyparts for various reasons... and I had one story that was both an example of engineering stupidity, and an enraged service manager who obviously had 'other' problems outside of work that affected his behavior at work. The issue was over a 2005 GMC Envoy. This incident came up in 2011. The vehicle was in the shop for rear bumper & fascia replacement after getting rear-ended. The dealership ordered a new bumper, thinking they could re-use the rubber bumper pad, as it was in serviceable condition. When they received the part, they noticed the pad would not fit the new fascia, and the service manager did not want to replace the pad. He was ADAMANT on getting the original design Fascia. However, the design change had happened over a year and a half prior, and the new part number was the only currently available part for this vehicle, and they would need the new pad to complete the repair. This led to him going off on me for a few moments, me staring into space using my military experience to just drown him out... and then he started insulting me, so I ended the call... and he called back, and got me AGAIN... out of the over 100 people in the call-center... not once... but twice... on the second time, I transferred him to the floor manager, who immediately chewed his ass out, told him to not call back as his dealership's contract is going to be suspended for the abuse he has doled out on not just me, but multiple other agents. They got a 2-week suspension, and I'm sure he got a slap on the wrist knowing that dealership. But aside from that, back to the design change... the reason for that design change was for the serviceability of the bumper pad. The original pad had issues being re-fit into replacement fascia, as it would be loose and had a risk of coming off while driving. Hence, the design change that not only changed the placement of the knubs that fit it to the fascia, but the way they latch as well, so they could be removed and replaced with reduced risk of damage. We also had the design change for the Vortec/LS 5.3 valvetrain in 2007.5. In the same year, I found an issue that I investigated for several days after a customer called in about it... that led to a rather large recall on repairs nationwide. The Service Manual for GM Techs pointed to using the incorrect part for either generation of the 5.3. For Pre 2007.5, they called for using the Post 2007.5 Valvetrain Parts... and vise-versa. The result was a loss of power and/or potential valvetrain damage. The swap is possible, but they were calling for the wrong lifter in both cases. After going into the blueprints for the parts, 3-D models, etc, I pulled measurements that showed at least a 2mm difference in height between the lifters. I went over this with my lead and my manager before submitting the findings, and ended up in a week-long argument with the engineer in charge... with them trying to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I just work in a call-center... not knowing I was a mechanic for the past 5 years prior, and had been learning about building/rebuilding engines since before I could drive. After a lengthy back-and-forth of our relative experiences, my manager stepped in and forwarded the issue up to his leadership, because we were all in agreement that I was in the right... and then they involved that engineer's leadership. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes, but that document got changed REAL quick... because they realized just how much that oopsie had already cost them in warranty repairs. We had it right before all the smart cars and the extreme amounts of emissions controls on modern vehicles... Engineers complicate everything when they are left to their devices. An engineer can complicate changing a light bulb... and they absolutely have.
I screwed up with my 1988 Bronco and had to have the front left fender replaced. Due to the age of the vehicle when that happened, I had to get the aftermarket fender. - About a month after the body shop was done, my headlight needed to be replaced, but I could not remove the bulb. The fender was made with the headlight access hole about an inch off where it was supposed to be. The body shop, for no charge, cut the hole wider, filed the edge, and touched up the cut with paint. That shop was fantastic. Great people.
Let me tell you something, there aren't that many engineers out there. Just because someone went to school to be an engineer doesn't mean they have what it takes to actually be one. It's like sending a 400 pound guy to take a cross country course then expecting him to win the olympics, it's not going to happen. You can either see solutiond in uour head or you can't, and most engineers just can't because they don't have it.
What is an interesting story. I have a 5th generation 2023 Subaru Forester and and found out the cabin air filter was redesigned Midway through the model year. So mine takes the same air filter as the previous model year Subaru Forester. No the Foresters have a plastic piece attached to the filter the newer ones did not.
I worked as a mechanic for a dealer back before the dinosaurs died. We often complained to the regional rep that we'd have far fewer problems if every engineer was required to work on something he designed for six months.
I know someone that bought a brand new car and drove it a ludicrous amount. After a few years, he was well past the mileage limits for the warranty. He was also past the mileage to change the spark plugs and was unable to get new plugs anywhere. He finally got new plugs after 2 years of looking, by contacting the OEM supplier in Japan. Crazy that spare parts can be that hard to get.
@@phishfood NGK and HKS should have suitable plugs for a BRZ. But will they work as well, I ran into that with a Toyota hybrid with engine-specific plugs, fitted matching NGKs, fuel use went up;,fitted the OEM Densos, fuel use went down
Steve... A bit of a story. After a long career as a Master tech, I became a service manager at a used car retailer. I also had to handle parts procurement. 1) Waited over a year for several Land Rover body parts. Remember, Jaguar/Land rover is transitioning to EV's. 2) No interior parts available for several GM "cars". GM canceling "cars", has burned bridges with suppliers, and many have gone out of business. 3) Chrysler is the absolute worst. No engine gasket sets available for many Hemi V8's. We have several trucks, and cars that we have had to buy back because of being unable to procure parts. Many other Chrysler suppliers have gone out of business too. Parts availability is going to total many cars and trucks.
I was at a JLR dealer so often more than half the staff thought I worked there, and the vehicle had it's own dedicated parking bay, right at the office, with row after row of Freelanders, all awaiting engines and transmissions to be replaced. Do not think a single Gen 1 Freelander ever made it past 50 000km and still have the original engine and transmission it came from the factory with, most by 50 000km were on either the third or fourth warranty replacement. Some did not even make it from the harbour 1km away to the dealership for PDI before something blew up in that area.
Not sure how Chrysler still exists I used to work in a Chrysler Engine Factory and saw their decline from within, we had to strip down and scrap hundreds of brand new engines that would never be placed into a vehicle due to making far too many of them
I've worked and used car before as well, and absolutely the same experience. Had to wait a month for a simple interior trim part on a newer Kia. I dealt with all of the European and Asian vehicles and would see many hang ups on parts.
Steve I hope you publicly covering this helps the man but if not hurts sales of those vehicles so much they get parts available by having to shut down the production lines. Used to be car companies were required to keep parts to repair cars. Guess it's not required any more and it's a business decision for them. When people understand they are not backing the customers at all it's hopefully will become widely known issue and affect sales. Ii switched to Honda because 1) Cars rarely break down over very long life. 2) When I have had an issue the parts are easy to acquire and they do a good job with service even if it's a bit expensive ( third party repairs are cheaper and parts are available)
I have a 2022 Bronco which was involved in an accident (I wasn't driving) in August of 2023. It sat at the body shop for three months waiting on a hood and a left-side headlight. Even after those parts arrived, we still had to wait another week before the local Ford dealer sent someone to *program* the damn headlight before it would work. Why a headlight even has a damn computer module in it is beyond me. Ridiculous. The insurance paid for only 30 days of car rental, so I was completely without a car for 2 months -- while still paying for it and the insurance on it, thank you very much! I can't imagine NINE months... At this point, I'd go to the dealer I bought the damn thing from, find a car that matches mine, with the correct color and options, and just remove the damn bumper and take it to the body shop myself. GM and the dealer can work that out. That's idiotic.
I have a bit of insight as to the Ford situation. I’m sure it’s the same story with all manufacturers. They all copy each other.. I was a Ford dealer tech from 1998-2018. When I started almost every part I ever needed was delivered to the dealer at 4 am the day after ordering. Almost all of the common parts were in stock at our dealership. “Backorder” was a rare thing and didn’t usually last more than a week or two. What changed? The whole world. Ford closed most of their HVC warehouses first. (high velocity centers). Which as you can guess were warehouses peppered around the country that stocked the high demand parts. They then cut down the sizes of the main warehouses. They decided that algorithms could manage inventory better and save the cost of warehousing low demand parts for years and then eventually auctioning many of them off. The result? They suck at it. A big reason I will never work at a dealer again is that everything is always back ordered. The factory waits until there are enough orders to justify a production run. Meantime your Bronco sits waiting for enough of them to get crashed to make the parts. I once waited four months for bolts to install a cylinder head on a V6 Mustang. I had all of the parts sitting there except the head bolts. We could have ordered after market bolts but Ford wont allow it. Big jobs like that that required a pile of parts would 99% have something on backorder that would stall the job. Crazy thing is that if doesn’t save Ford any money when they are paying for a guy to drive a rental Kia the whole time. Of course what was a pretty big deal in having your cylinder heads fail at 5,000 miles and would piss anyone off is now a huge deal to the customer. Just bought a brand new Mustang and he is driving around in a Forte instead. Guy probably never bought another Ford. Ironically that cyclone engine is one of the best engines ever made. We have bean counters running the world and all they can see is the beans in front of them at the moment.
@@AlphanumericCharacters Yep. The whole "just in time manufacturing" concept has totally screwed us. It only works well when they can actually make ONE part as soon as it's needed, not wait on jobs for 50 or 100 or more... And even then, it's still slower than having the thing in stock in a warehouse somewhere. And tying every electronic part to the damn VIN is something else that really needs to stop. There is literally ZERO reason to require a computer module in a headlight. None. Other than forcing you to pay a dealer for something that absolutely should not require a dealer. I could've bought a used headlight from a wrecked Bronco, but you can only program these things once, so used headlights are utterly worthless... Stupid, stupid, stupid.
@ can’t, in my state, unless you cancel the registration as well. They’ll suspend your driver’s license if you do. And not inform you. So next time you get pulled over you get arrested for driving on a suspended license. (Ask me how I know.)
The reason the headlight has to be reprogrammed is so that the vehicle owner or any independent shop cannot replace the headlight. It requires you to go to the stealer who has access to the proprietary copyrighted programming software.
As someone who worked in dealership parts for 20 years, there's a lot of cases where over-worked and under-paid parts employee never ordered it under the correct priority. Or it failed to get ordered at all. Or it went backorder and they failed to upgrade the order priority. 2-3 months alone could be burned just by the dealer not staying on top of it.
In the old days you could source a bumper from the scrap yard. But bumpers these days are fitted with numerous electronic parts that need to be programmed into the vehicle’s computer system. If someone did attempt to do the work themselves they may render the vehicle inoperable. And of course GM would void the warranty if anything malfunctioned with the car after the unauthorized repairs. One of the reasons why I choose to drive older cars.
I can still source a bumper from the scrap yard. And install it. I'm sure there are cars as you describe but this is seriously not usually an issue. To be honest, I suppose more likely on these electric cars -- I'm rather surprised at how many car companies, the gas and hybrid models are COMPLETELY conventional, while the electric model (sometimes of the very same vehicle), ALL the electronics (including the dashboard) are COMPLETELY different. You'd think you could get a gas vehicle with a high tech dashboard (if you wanted it) or a vehicle that seems conventional but has an electric drivetrain. As far as I can tell Kia does this to some extent, but I imagine the Lyriq probably is loaded with fancy GM-electric-vehicle-specific parts (which since these are quite early in production for now probably mean parts specific to the one model year of Lyriq.) That said, even if a part is available at the junkyard and could be installed: A) A dealer is not going to buy a junkyard part. B) That does depend on having the part in question at a junkyard either. In the case of my 2000 Buick Regal some years back (where I didn't crash it, but scooped so much weight of snow and ice driving it through deep snow that the weight broke the brackets on the bumper). I could not get a junkyard bumper at all -- those 3800s were so reliable, essentially the only ones in the junkyard were due to crashes and there were no front bumpers available (I had to suck it up and buy a new part.)
I worked at a GM dealership back around 2000. We had a bunch of Astro vans in for warranty work on their ABS systems....but could not get replacement modules as they were backordered and no timeframe for delivery. The owners were told they had to buy a new van because we couldn't fix their current one. Wait...it gets better. Next years Astro had a different ABS system...and they too were having massive problems so we had TWO different sets of Astro's on the lot still in warranty that we couldn't get parts to repair them. They switched the next year to yet ANOTHER ABS system....so we had 3 years worth of vans on the lot...still in warranty but we couldn't fix them because GM wouldn't send us the parts. This showed me clearly where GM's opinion of current owners was....they didn't care about them. No GM for me.
I waited 7 months last year to replace the ABS computer module in my 2012 GMC Terrain. Had 3 GM cars in a row. Never again will I buy an American car. I bought a Toyota this year.
That was the culture at GM, the customer was the test mule for their innovative technology. Started with the Vega and didn't improve until they went bankrupt. Now they are falling back into old habits. I have only owned one GM product, a 2004 Duramax setting out in the barn it only has about 58,000 miles on it and the high quality material they built the truck out of is slowly rusting away. Brake Lines, Fuel Lines instrument cluster won't wake-up for about a 1/4 mile after driving.. I can't afford to replace it and only use it to tow the utility trailer every couple of years. Would i ever buy another GM vehicle, NO.
Glad they don't limit age around here. We mostly run 90's rear drive Fleetwoods, 2011 and older Town Cars, etc. None of the new ones have the same level of space and luxury except Escalades.
When I worked in GM dealerships, as tech or management, there were a couple of times I escalated the repair through the ranks. Takes time. Sometimes weeks. But a couple instances, parts were pulled from the assembly plant to repair the vehicle. But this was 20 years ago, and usually a module or something important. And you did not let a vehicle sit for 9 months because of a single part. Back when customer assistance assisted the customer. And gave a rental if the customer needed it. All I remember were bad parts, not accident vehicles.
Friend worked for Liberty Mutual this was a long time ago and we talked about this subject. The Insurance co ultimate solution is they stop insuring cars from that manufacturer. no insurance, no car loans. This is why orphan cars quickly become worthless. GM'S plastic bodied vans were an example certain body panels weren't available in that case since that would effectively total the car insurance for those models became prohibitively expensive and the resale values went right into the Kohler disposal device.
A buddy of mine took his Chevy into a dealership for service due to a recall. The very next day he gets a call from the dealer saying that they’ve lost his car but out of the goodness of their heart are willing to pay him slightly below trade in value 😂
Somebody at the dealership wanted it, or they sold it to a "friend". Or they accidentally destroyed it. I'd tell them to find it, wait until the next day, then report it stolen. I'll bet they'd "magically" find it on a back corner of the lot when the police showed up asking questions.
This is one of the reason why there need to be nationwide right to repair laws with large penalties for car manufacturer's that play "we cannot get parts" or they're "backordered" for cars that are still in production. Penalties that cannot be offloaded through filing bankruptcy.
I remember a starter repair guy saying he got some kind of back door deal on starters that were unavailable elsewhere because the cars were too new. The guy opened his business just after WW2 and had parts everywhere. Wish he was still alive, interesting guy.
A friend of my wife's drove this ancient Volvo. One part on it was bad, and she couldn't find a replacement anywhere. A friend of her father was on a business trip to Sweden, and he couldn't track the part down there. One day the friend and her BF stopped for gas at this tiny little garage in the Adirondacks. The guy who owned the garage noticed the car wasn't running right, and the friend told him the problem. He said "Just a minute." According to the friend, he had that exact part on the shelf. He would only take a few bucks for the part and like $5 for labor.
@MarkStockman-b4j A woman in my USN unit had a car she bought in Germany & shipped to the USA. Some years later found out that the USA model used a different engine & had a hard time getting it repaired.
Our family had a1980 ish Hondamatic. After some 18 years, it broke down due to a failed transmission link cable. Our local Honda dealer in Australia said this part was no longer available, try getting from a wreckers. No good there. Went back to the dealer to say the car was needed by our daughter at university. He checked if the part was available in Japan. It was not. But he left Honda with the request. A few weeks later, he phoned to say he had one. He was as stunned as we were. He said the cable was not an old part, that it was newly made.
My son bought a brand new Jeep Renegade a few yrs back. Had not had it long when a rock hit and broke his windshield. It was nearly 2 yrs b4 Jeep had replacement windows in. He was among many that were waiting. His car was driveable, but I am sure many were not. It would suck paying insurance and auto payments for a vehicle you couldn't drive. Seems auto manufacturers should be required to have a percentage of parts on hand.
They are required by federal law to manufacture replacement parts for ten years after the end of production of any year's model. It boggles the mind that a bumper cannot be found and is a violation of federal law.
As steve said, it actually is illegal, hence why you can sue them for it. It’s just not enforced, and generally the worst thing that happens is they end up having to buy the car back after the customer lawyered up.
We've had problems with recalls. My son bought a 2007 Ford Ranger. The passenger side air bag was from Takata. Ford sent a letter to us informing us of the recall program and that our local dealer will notify us when the part came in to replace it. No notice from the dealer ever . A year later the truck was sold. We now have a 2018 Honda CRV. We received a letter issuing a recall for replacement of a defective fuel pump and again was told the local dealer will contact us when the part came in. It has been a year and so far nothing.
I work in the collision repair industry, and as far as I understand auto manufacturers are required to be able to supply parts for vehicles they have manufactured for a minimum of 10 years. when they are not the liability falls on the manufacturer to compensate the vehicle owner. I've waited months for parts for newer vehicles and more often than not I've had customers get their vehicle payments covered by the manufacturer while unavailable parts are on order.
Not just US manufacturers. Had a friend get into a minor accident a year ago with a 2 weeek old Ioniq 5. Took 6 months before they got the car back because of various parts backorders (and once they finally arrived the dealer took weeks to figure out how to get the ECU to "accept" the new sensors).
There are a bunch of TH-cam channels where mechanic/techs fix cars that the dealer and other mechanics can't fix. And sometimes it is as stupid as something not being plugged in.
The problem there is, ESPECIALLY with new Kias, Kia doesn't release their OEM tool software updates until almost 8mos after the change happens. I saw this firsthand early last year when 2024s couldn't even be scanned by the dealers because....Kia HQ hadn't pushed the updated software. I watched a 2024 Kia Carnival sit at a repair shop, finished minus the requisite ADAS calibrations, for three months until Kia released the software updates. Oh, and Kias and Hyundais use the same software, in case you were wondering.
@@MarkStockman-b4j Or for crazy CANBUS failures on KIAs where a scanner cannot even communicate with the car... unplug the rearview camera...and the CANBUS works again!
I had a deer run out in front of my Ioniq 5 a month after I bought it almost a year ago. No metal damage, just all the plastic bits in the bumper and the passenger side headlight were broken. Took almost 30 days and $12000 insurance claim to get it all fixed. About $1000 of that was reprogramming all the sensors buried inside the bumper, but at least they knew how to do it so it only took a day for that part.
Ran into this exact issue with a chevy bolt recently. Damaged front bumper, and the bolt front bumper or the needed piece of it were and probably still are on indefinite backorder. The resolution ended up being to just buy an entire bolt from insurance auction for it's front bumper. Nobody was happy after it was all said and done, but it's done. Well, the lawyers involved were happy, they got paid.
A friend ran into the battery issue with the Bolt. He managed to get the dealership to buy it back after no resolution, then got a Kia EV. The battery on that car died within a few months with no end in sight for when they'd get a replacement in. Again, he ended up trading the car back in for yet another car. Luckily I've never had any major issues with parts for my 2013 Tesla though a number of times the replacement parts were a newer generation than what my car originally had.
I knew a bloke (passed on now) that used to drive for a company that was bit like a 'limousine service'. The big difference was no new cars! As it is English company cars like an early 60's Austin Princess, late 50's Bentley, late 40's Rolls Royce. Other makes like Alvis and Wolseley.. They could do near all the work themselves, real proper cars. The only thing they don't do is the bodywork. Cheaper to run and lower overheads than a company with brand new Merc's
Very few people want those apart from novelty value. I know a guy who did the same thing with older Jags. Most people want a decked out limousine not a nice looking old banger. I would have thought parts for those were hard to come by as well.
A few years ago my daughter wanted a Rolls for her wedding car. The hirecar dealer had overbooked them and they weren't available. The Bentley? No. Jags? No. She eventually settled on the Austin Princess as a last resort. She was a bit disappointed until the driver showed her a number of pictures of some previous customers who used the car. Turns out, the previous customers were the Beatles, who used the car exclusively during their Melbourne Australia tour in 1964. Needless to say, that cheered her up no end and made some wonderful memories for her.
His strongest argument is if he can demonstrate that he was relying on promises that the car would be repaired, or the part provided, within a certain timeframe, and therefore did not pursue other possible resolutions available to him (for example to have a part custom-manufactured, or the damaged part repaired). It's not really clear if that is the case, but it might be.
This was also my thought. The argument is not lemon law or warranty issue but a contract law even if it is verbal. I.E. "I will have the part for you next week" Had he know it would take a year or longer, he may have turned it into insurance as a total loss and bought a new car to continue running his business.
@ Well he couldn't really force the insurance company to total the vehicle without a court order, and whether or not they would be amenable to that would depend on the difference between the repair cost and the total value. When my mew model Civic was totaled due to non-availability of parts, the replacement cost was only a couple of thousand more than the repairs, so it was worthwhile for them to total it. If it had been $10,000 more, I doubt it would have gone that way.
Exactly. No one in their right mind would buy a new car for anything but cash. Likewise for making more than one single phone call to the dealership to have it repaired. Under no circumstances would you call anyone to warranty anything beyond one call. They don't immediately fulfill the warranty? Right back to the dealer it goes for a cash refund in full. NO law requires the dealership or manufacturer to make a single replacement part for any part of the vehicle they just sold you. NONE. So the the car breaks, you fix it yourself. Easy. Bumpers can be manufactured in any machine shop and any other replacement parts can be obtained from any savage of cars unrepairable.
Years ago I had a Cadillac where the fuel injector controller was poorly designed and didn't last long. A new one was over $1K and after waiting a couple months for the dealership to get one in to repair my car I gave up and got one from a junkyard. Still almost $1K as they knew what they were worth. And that controller lasted about 4 months and then I was back to having a dead car. I ended up scrapping a 5 year old car because I just couldn't keep it running. Last GM product I'll ever buy I promise.
Why didn't you just yank the fuel injection crap and put in a carburetor? $500-600, done, for an Eidelbrock. Engine blocks haven't changed in fifty, sixty years.
My dad had a new CTS. It was basically junk before the warranty ran up, traded it in for a Genesis that he still has to this day that has been problem free.
@@davidgoodnow269 I thought of it. But the transmission was also giving trouble and I was so sick of looking at that POS I just wanted it gone. Gave it to a community college auto shop teacher, he wanted the engine and was going to do just that.
This is the same reason I try to stick to business laptops (primarily Thinkpads, although I've had good luck with Dell's business line too). If you buy a non-business laptop and need warranty service, sometimes it will take weeks or months before they fix your laptop and get it back to you. Most business laptops include 24 hour or overnight repair service. When you set up the RMA, they'll check to see if they have the parts you need. If they don't, they'll tell you and list your options (including continuing to use the laptop until they get the part and call you). Most recently I had a a defective keyboard. They didn't have a US keyboard available, so they installed a Euro keyboard with a similar layout to get me up and running again. Then a month later when the US keyboard was available, they called me back to schedule a time to swap it in. Total cumulative downtime for me was only a few hours.
The insurance company should have written the vehicle off after 3 months being unable to repair it and paid the guy out. Sounds like a lawsuit against the insurance company.
Forums on Facebook and Reddit demonstrate inability to get parts for the Lyriq is not an isolated situation. The plastic ~$1500 grill is easily damaged because there is no “bumper” and GM takes months to ship a replacement. If I were him i would be on the phone searching junkyards for a replacement part from a car that was totaled in a rear end collision. There are yards that specialize in Cadillac parts. When his new part eventually arrives, sell it. There certainly is a market for it.
Surely if you're making 10,000 cars you make 11,000 sets of parts (or more) and warehouse the extra for crash repairs, mechanical repairs, in case you find a high % defects etc.
Disposable economy, brought to you by Gillette. You aren't supposed to fix the thing, you are expected to replace it (it being the entire car -- total it out over a bumper).
I worked at a checy dealer a few years ago. A guuy had a brand new pickup that mice chewed up the wiring harness to thetransfer case. Somehow it ended up at his insurance and they were going to pay for a completely new wiring harness which was the main body harness running from the fuel tank and rear bumper area under the cab and around the engine compartment. The harness couldn't come from the manufacturing line. The order went to some company that makes custom harnesses andit took nearly a year. When it arrived, it was identical to the factory harness but he sure waited a long time for it.
Your episode reminded me of when during Covid, I needed to replace my van. All the dealerships were selling out as soon as they got stock in, but a local Chrysler dealership had a van. When I asked them about the van, they said, you can look at it, you can't test drive it and you can put money down on it, it's available. "Why can't I test drive it?" "Oh, because it doesn't have an engine, we needed the engine to repair a customers' vehicle and we'll put an engine in and sell it as soon as we can." I asked, so then the "new" vehicle is used or being sold at a reduced price. "oh, no it hasn't been off the lot, it'll be sold like any other vehicle when we repair it after using it for parts." umm, that may be practice but I hope not and I didn't want that vehicle after hearing that. I called around and travelled out of state to get my van.
In 1998 I ordered a new 1999 Dodge/Cummins Ram. I received one of the first of that year with a bad steering gear. Within a week it was in the shop and then I started getting the run around. Three weeks later it was still in the shop. Finally the shop manager told me he’d take a part off another new truck. I got it back that day.
Insurance companies in my state will scavenge from wrecking yards before going new. Then there's Carwizard's video about getting Hellcat head gaskets. It feels like car companies don't want people getting fixes for their overpriced product and replace it instead.
Some years ago my sister had a ford compac and it had multiple problems with no or slow resolutions. A good friend of hers was in the legislature and involved with the Ohio lemon law. He contacted Ford and a few days later my sister who at the time was in Alabama was told to go to local ford dealer, she did so and they said pick out any car and she did she drove off in a new Ford Thunderbird. Of course she was very happy. A new car at zero dollars and they bought back the compac.
My brother bought a Ford about 30 years ago that was a total POS. He ended up suing under CA lemon law. After an ugly start, Ford ended up buying his car back for its purchase price, paid his legal fees and a chunk of change on top of that. He ended up with enough to buy another vehicle free and clear.
if parts are not availble the insurance company should just total it out. i see cars all the time barely damaged at Copart becasue of stuff like this. even saw a newer Maserati at a local body shop they couldnt get parts for , so it ended up at Copart too
Fhis os what they used to do with tesla, a lot pf people flrget that flr the fkrst 3 years trsla was out, a broken door handle would total the entire car out
Is it worth buying cars at Copart? One replaced my favourite junkyard of 25 years around here... I'm still bitter but hell, if I can get slightly damaged cars for cheaper...
I bought some brand new factory GMC rims off Craigslist from a guy whose family owns a GM dealership. They got some cars that came from the factory with the wrong optioned rims and he was selling them because the dealership couldn't sell 'used' parts. He said that he had insurance companies contacting him from across the country for the rims. But they couldn't purchase them without a dealership receipt; which they wouldn't get on used parts.
All too common. Have an Edge ST with HD tow package. Took Ford almost 4 months to send the right parts. Despite anything the body shop, myself, or the insurance company sent them, they continued to send the incorrect grill/fan assembly. Crazy!
Something similar happened at my brother's dealership they had a car for 6 months it needed a bumper and a hood. They ended up buying the car from them and selling them a new one at what they owed on it. It took another year til the parts came in.
who cares about warranty, lemon law, etc.? This is an issue of a car maker refusing to sell Necessary parts to affect repairs, that the consumer is WILLING to pay for and they are refusing to sell it to him, holding him hostage!
Years ago, when I worked in an insurance claims office we had an insured Delorean driver waiting, and waiting and waiting....for parts that never came. Was it totaled? I quit before finding out. Buying the latest and greatest is fraught with peril, as anyone growing up in Motown knows.
@@highpath4776 Funny thing is, this was in Pittsburgh PA, back when steel was dying. I don't think fabricators could do it economically back then, circa '81, or they had to use OEM parts for some reason, I can't remember. I just know that the insurance claim was open forever and the vehicle owner was SOL, like usual.
“Just a ticket number” story if I’ve ever heard it. Sad, I don’t think I would ever buy North American because of the way these companies are now. Had a Honda for a decade and it’s never failed me unless I failed it.
I had a top-of-the-line, 2019 Chevrolet Suburban a few years ago. I waited over six months for parts covered by warranty but finally sold it since I lost trust in GM to be able to handle warranty repairs.
"Just In Time" manufacturing. This saves warehousing costs, but this is the result- I've never owned a GM car and after hearing something like this, I doubt I ever will.
JIT never worked. Even in Japan it is a long discredited approach. Most companies in Japan have abandoned it decades ago. The U.S. still insists that it works despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
@@richardbeckenbaugh1805when I first learned about JIT manufacturing in high school , I thought it was a rather foolish idea. Recent events have reinforced the notion
I stopped buying GM cars nearly 2 decades ago due to multiple and repeated failures happening immediately after the car was out of warranty. I'm in my 6th decade of life and can remember in my early years buying a GM product and it living for over 300,000 miles. That isn't the GM of today. Today General Motors only creates disposable automobiles! So I stopped buying GM cars!
Not just GM. I needed a hood for 2022 RAM 3500. It took 11 months for Stellantis to ship it. They also issued a recall for a fire hazard for the Cummins 6.7 diesel where they had no fix until a couple months ago. The notice said not to park it in a garage or near the house. This was almost a year until a fix came out.
I got rear ended in my ute and they chose to replace the tailgate with a minor dent in it rather than fix it. None in the country (Australia) so I had to wait for it. Fortunately the vehicle was driveable. I was happy to take a near new one off one of the many tubs that sit around numerous places when they have been removed from new vehicles for trays to be fitted. Insurance wouldn't allow it because it wasn't new although it would probably be newer than the damaged one. They eventually got the new tailgate which had to be painted, installed, spray coated and the Isuzu decal applied. It doesn't make any sense.
This is a manufacturing problem caused by the CEO's of the companies. They are required by law to support the vehicle for not less than 5 years, am I correct? Well then supporting the vehicle means have a supply of parts that can be swapped if warranty work AND since all of us and them know that some people cannot drive then the parts to fix accidents that yes the owner or offending vehicles insurance is responsible to buy for the repair. Bumper facias included. To me by not having the full support of helping the client (Car purchaser) then they are not complying with the law of supporting the vehicle.
I have a similar story with my 2024 Lyriq. Waiting for collision parts for over 5 months - needed rear bumper and hatch plus a bunch of other trim parts. It is really frustrating.
It's the solution to many of US's corporations issues, sadly most of us refuse to see how we, the buyers, can change things if we actually worked together to boycott companies.
Insane, 9 months & they can't supply a common part pretty sure that breaks consumer laws. Meanwhile he's been paying $1,100 a month for insurance & $1,437 a month on the vehicle loan for a car he does not have. As it's for a limo service the business loss he's suffered is around 10k per month. GM did send a check for $3,593.47 after 6 months as a good will gesture after they told him they finally had the part only to then turn around & tell him they did't & instead they said they would buy back the car & then after 9 months they inexplicably rescinded that offer.
Me again, worked in auto assembly. What I understood was that Service Parts (replacement parts) are required. I was on the last year of a platform and every so often we'd pull parts off the line in underbody for Service Parts stock. I also worked at another company that made crash bumpers, we'd do short run production of service parts for older models.
We’ve had a car in the back of our body shop… Brand new Buick. Poor lady was hit back in June. Gm still can’t find a door. Back ordered till march… if she’s lucky. Horrible that they can sell cars with unavailable parts😂
I had a 20 ram 2500 that was brand new with 12k miles on it that both wheel bearings went out. Dealer couldn’t fix it saying that new parts were going for production. Talked to a lawyer and said it would cost around 10k for lemon law not to mention depreciation from driving the truck. Was much cheaper and way faster to trade it for another one. Shame how it worked out
I needed a new door lock mechanism for a late model F-150 because it was designed bad and cracked a couple times in first 4 years. It was nearly impossible to get replaced under warranty, and impossible to get replaced out of warranty as the plastic bit with wire was on "forever backorder". I found a used one at Copart and replaced it myself. The big problem was when broken, the lock would unlock, but randomly not lock. It would jiggle the lock but the cracked plastic wouldn't have enough force to actually finish locking the door. This very over engineered solution would be easy to fix if it was a solenoid that needed replaced, but that worked fine, it was the wire pathing through the plastic that cracked and gave it too much slack when locking.
A little over 30 years ago I helped a kid locate a rear U-joint for his Buick pickup (early 50s, I think) and he'd searched every salvage yard in three states with no luck. I took him to a machine shop run by an old guy who'd escaped from the USSR shortly after the war. The guy glanced at the destroyed U-joint and said "Buick. Car or truck?" He had 6 of them in a shoe box, told the kid to pick out the best one and charged him $5.
My Mother purchased a brand new car back in 2003, new generation/bodystyle that year and they'd only been on lots a few months. It was 2 weeks old, and she got rear-ended, did pretty significant damage. So it goes back to the dealership it came from for repairs, and everything seemed to be going normally, right up until a couple days before it was due to be completed when the bodyshop calls and says they've got the 1 and only spare left side quarter panel in North America for the new bodystyle, and its damaged from shipping and unusable. It was another month before they got the car completed, supposedly had a quarter shipped from the assembly plant where the cars are built. In the mean time, they put her in what was effectively the "fully loaded" version of her own car as a dealership loaner, she was almost sad to get her "base model" back.
My parents purchased a Pontiac in 1976 from the Dealership but the Gas Gage didn't work. They took a Gas Gage from another car off the lot to Repair theirs.
There is a major audio manufacturer that I've had issues with in a similar manner. We had an audio stage box, this is the device that connects all of the mics, instruments, etc to the physical audio mixer, that had a power supply die. this unit is 6,000.00 new. We initiated a warranty claim on it and sent it to the designated repair center. It sat for 24 months and they finally sent us a new one, after we threatened to sue them. They were continuing to build new ones of these and had over 40 of them sitting in a warehouse they eventually put on sale to the dealers because they couldn't move them. It was utter nonsense. In that 24 months we had replaced it with a new one to avoid having to keep renting one.
I once looked at a Cadillac XLR that was just 4 years old, had modules in the trunk that filled with water and fried them. I was the one repairing the leak, but I had noticed the vehicle sitting on the dealer lot for almost a year. Reason was, the vendor that made the modules went out of business, and GM was having to take the plans for them and find another vendor to manufacture them again. Was a nice car, just sitting for over a year before it was finally ready.
The xlr doesnt even seem like a real vehicle, its like a concept car that they somehow put into production. I have no idea why gm even made ot to begin with, it must have lost so much money. I remeber the day they launched, since then ive seen ONE my entire life.
Is there a point where the complete inability to get a car repaired early in it's life becomes a defect a d lack of fitness for purpose thus opening claims upthat way?
I had nearly this exact same experience with a paid-for car that I was using to supplement my income with various delivery services, except it was Ford and a TCM. Kept the car from October til July. When I finally got it back I had paid 1800 for a strut repair and got back a still non-working vehicle. I sold it for cash.
The Lyric is a strange duck for GM. I have a relative that works at a GM dealership. He told me there 1 Lyric in their rental fleet but it's not available to rent. They also have a Lyric in the showroom but no one can sit in it or test drive it. Strange?
Bad life cycle management - inconceivable that they're not planning for 1st year attrition due to failures, accidents, etc. They should have fantastic statistics to inform them on what should be stocked spare.
Bodyshop owner here-this is not unheard of. During and after the pandemic we ran into issues like this even on brand new cars. I theorized there was barely enough people working to make these parts and any parts that were available were going to the assembly line. This one being new makes it highly unlikely there are any parts available in the recycling yards yet either. Theres almost nothing you can do in a case like that-hope and pray the supplier starts making the parts to ship out!!
It’s mostly because they work with on demand supply. Only enough parts being produced to supply the manufacturing process. No surplus parts being made.
I did a search. There are some Lyriqs available in salvage. With perfectly, almost brand new bumper covers. They could be refinished and they would look just as good as a new part.
Has he gone to his local news investigator with his story, he should, nothing like the local dealer getting embarrassed on the news to light a fire at GM to get a part to appear. GM has zero intention of ever selling him the part. I wonder if such part came up missing at that Cadillac dealership off a new duplicate vehicle, would GM give the dealership the run around.
I wish I could say that this was only a Cadillac or GM thing, but all auto manufacturers play these type of games with you. They treat you like family until they get your signature on the sales documents. Then if God forbid you have a serious problem with the vehicle, they will ghost you in a heartbeat….
shame this has been a problem for years. on all US made new models. if you wrek a new car, and its a new model, back up and hit that pole again and total it.
I had a case similar to this, but not quite this bad. I bought a new Cadillac XT4 from Al Serra Cadillac in Grand Blanc, MI. With only 400 miles on it a couple months later, my wife was involved in a minor fender bender in Kroger's parking lot. A hit and run. As the driver of the older car that hit her drove away without leaving information. As there was front wheel damage I had the car taken to Al Serra's body shop for repairs. I waited four months for a part for the front bumper. After my rental car insurance ran out GM did agree to fund my rental car costs. I did all the usual correspondence with GM trying to get resolution. As a GM retiree, I know that was a "mouse on a treadmill" activity. Finally in frustration I called the local news TV station and asked them if they would like to run a human interest story about my predicament. They were interested; and apparently called the dealership to confirm my facts. The next day I got a call from the dealership that they had my part and my car would be fixed in two days. ...Coincidence? I think not!!!! I will always wonder where that part came from.
Some warehouse or another dealer. Or off the lot. It was there, they just had no incentive to help you. Until it might cost them money. That's why I think picketing the place with a big sign will get results.
I worked at one of the test facilities, before they fired 1000 of us before thanksgiving. We blew a motor many years ago in a truck. After 6 months of them trying to find a new motor they sent us a new truck to restart testing.
There was a Buick Envista sitting at one of the shops I used to service. Was hit in May, couldn't get a new rear bumper for almost 4 months, then a bumper harness for another 2 months. The fact that GM doesn't keep a stockpile of parts right off the bat for new model year vehicles is atrocious.
We have 2 vehicles. Both had an electronic problem. One we took to a garage (We were away from home) one we took to dealer (In town we live in). Both told us parts were not available from the manufacture (Back ordered) Both places found remanufactured parts. One took 5 weeks to fix one took 3 weeks to fix.
It's nothing to do with that and everything to do with them trying to pass the risk onto suppliers rather then themselves by not keeping enough product on hand. If they buy 10,000 bumpers and sales fall off a cliff, they need to slow production and sit on those bumpers. If they buy 500 at a time, it's on the supplier when the sales dry up and they're stuck with however many bumpers they THOUGHT the car manufacturer was going to buy. During COVID, the manufacturers got burned cuz they assumed demand would dry up and cancelled all their orders, only for the suppliers to sell that capacity to other customers. So when the automakers said 'WAIT WAIT WAIT WE ACTUALLY WANT THEM NOW!', the suppliers said 'Sorry, chief. I already sold that manufacturing capacity to someone else. You're at the back of the line now.' The US manufacturers took the Toyota 'just in time' system where in parts arrive just as they're needed in order to avoid storing things and make it more efficient to mean 'Brow beat suppliers into holding the bag when we change our mind.' only to get burned and then blame everyone but themselves for it.
In the mid 1990's I had a dodge Dakota that was only 2 or 3 years old. The gears in the rear end failed. I had purchased it used with no warranty. The part was unavailable. Chrysler had not made that spare part yet. I had to take it to a machine shop and have the parts made (VERY expensive). They did a great job but I sold the truck soon after. The idea there may be no replacement parts for a 2 to 3 year old truck forced me to reconsider and purchase another brand. It was close to 10 years before I bought another Chrysler product because of that.
There's two problems with that. First, I bought a 1994 Dodge Dakota that was totaled in an accident. The owner couldn't get parts, so he took it to a transmission shop and had the differential replaced with something common -- seriously over-built for the chassis, but worked great. The other thing is that Federal law mandates stocking replacement parts for seven years from date of sale. Most States have their own laws, as well, regarding specifics of parts availability and service terms. Between those two, it should have been easy to find a prosecutor willing to become popular, since State and local prosecutors are elected!
I run into this issue with hvac equipment. Hard to get replacement coils, yet they are building over a thousand a day. They allot 1% of parts for repairs. That's it.
I’m a dealership technician. This happens A LOT, and I’ll never understand, since they produce millions of complete vehicles. The parts exist somewhere, that is a cold hard fact. They are just incapable of transporting the parts to the shop for install, for whatever mystical reason. Not okay.
So, Cadillac were acting like douche bags. You got a number of people conveying inaccurate messages with inaccurate times. C'est la vie. The guy is looking to the wrong place to restore his losses. Until the car is repaired and the body shop knows the cost, the insurance claim on that vehicle can't be closed. Since the claim is still open against the liable party (if his claim that the accident was not his fault is truthful), then he can claim those monetary losses on the vehicle damage claim. The insurance company might fight him, but they at least can be sued and there is no question of a warranty that may or may not apply.
This is apocryphal FUDI. I had my 2020 Model 3 repaired at the Dallas Repair Center. Took 45 days for insurance company to gaslight me. Attorney got settled in 2 days. 6 days later I had a perfectly repaired car. Parts took 24 hours to receive.
Many years ago I worked at a body shop. We had one of the first Mercedes SL come in. There was a wiring harness going over the left front wheel that was smashed. The dealer couldn't get the harness. I decided to try calling dealers in Germany to see if they could get the harness. They couldn't. I asked them to see if they could figure out why not or or any estimate of how long it would take to arrive. I got a call back that the issue was that the output from the factory that made the harness was the limiting factor on how many of these cars could be made. Eventually the insurance company decided to pay for about two weeks of my labor to fix the harness. I made two soldered and shrink tubed connections for each wire in a bundle about 5" in diameter.
Yeah, I feel like they could absolutely fix a bumper if they wanted to, it's just that it costs a LOT more than just replacing it. You can find videos of people on TH-cam all over the world fixing REALLY messed up auto bodies to near flawless. It just takes 30 hours of labor before painting instead of just opening a box and painting.
@@stargazer7644 You absolutely can with hot staples and flexible filler. There's videos all over youtube of people doing it. Like I said, it's just time consuming and insurance doesn't want to pay for that when you have to paint no matter what, so a cheap replacement bumper costs less. Search for 'plastic bumper repair'.
Car companies should act like they want to sell you your next car. Our car is coming up on 15 yrs old. It looks as good as the day we bought it and has been well maintained. The dealer keeps bugging me about getting a new car, but I remember how painful it was when I bought this car.
A bit of inside baseball here, I retired from the (formerly Saturn) Spring Hill plant, and we made our own fascias (bumper covers) in Polymers. Line, or "Direct" material and spare parts were kept separate, and in general the Direct Material parts were made in sequence with "The Schedule" (which set out specs for a red one, a blue one, a green one, two door, four door, etc. You get the idea). The fascia would be made and then would be be sent to Paint Fascia where it would get painted and then sent back to Polymers for assembly. The assembly included the bumper frame, the padding, any lighting and sensors in the bumper as well. Fun fact, at one point the assembly in Polymers was done in sets of five in reverse order and loaded up on a trolley to be towed to General Assembly (aka "GA"). This was just one method GM used over the years to build and deliver parts to GA for assembly. This changed based on models and if the part was being made on site (not these days), or supplied by a vendor. So, given that the parts are built in order, a bad part delivered to the line would require that the line be stopped, to wait on a new part. Or the job (car or truck) could be "Set out" until the new part show up. Alternatively the job could be run down the line and ignored where it would be towed to Final Repair to be (eventually) finished. All of these options are a disaster for plant throughput. Back in the Saturn days we valued our downtime at $5,000 a minute. It shouldn't take much imagination to see that one does not simply pull spare parts from the feed to GA. Ever. Well, maybe once. Right before GM kicks your butt right out the door. So what about spare parts? Back in the day, Saturn, er, GM had extra injection molding machines and it was a simple matter for GM to pay a crew to make spare fascias for storage in SSPO (Saturn Spare Parts Org IIRC). Boy, did we ever have extra machines. But that's another story. Given that these days GM is out of the injection molding business, I would track down where they are now made, and get the name of that company. What you are likely to find is that they are being made by a company that operates on a shoestring and can barely fulfill their commitment for supplying Direct Material, let alone spares. Not being a lawyer, my approach would be to check to see if the suppliers were holding up their end of the bargain. And more importantly, if GM was holding their feet to the fire to complete the terms of the contract. Or..., if they even included requiring spare parts to be built as part of the contract to the supplier in the first place. Since it is not outside of the realm of possibility that GM accidentally omitted this requirement since its addition into the contract with the supplier would likely cost GM more money for something not inherently value-added to the corporation. So, depending on what you find, the argument could be made that GM is selling defective products if they can't be repaired (for at least ten years or whatever the requirement is), because of either omitting the inclusion of spare parts into the system for cost reduction purposes, or ignoring the lack of them being delivered to prop up an under-performing supplier. Good hunting!
GM must be trying to lose customers and go out of business. Might be expecting another government bailout if things get bad, so why do their jobs properly.
Parts availability issues are why I'm not considering GM vehicles for future purchases. Among other issues, I need to replace the dashboard pad on my Sierra, but they're not available new anywhere, and the only option left is to pull one from a junker at a salvage yard. It's ridiculous that I can source new parts much more easily for a 1975 GMC pickup than I can for a 2002, plus the older ones are FAR easier and FAR less expensive to work on. I can't imagine the situation will be getting any better as time goes on.
No, the only parts support requirement is around emissions system components, manufacturers can stop everything else anytime they want. Stellantis does so 5 minutes after the last example leaves the assembly line
It happens, I bought a 2021 Denali during Covid. A deer ran out and I hit it. Cause the seatbelts to lock up, broke the right headlight, bent fender and bumper. It took 3 months to get parts. The insurance company literally a fire and started contacting parts houses nationwide because they were about to have to total the truck because they couldn’t get parts and were tired of paying by rental for 3 months. So I lost three moths of warranty while it sat at the dealer waiting for parts to repair it and not drivable.
I should call BS because GM and all car companies are required to house spare parts for ten years. This story doesn't make sense, but I'm sure it doesn't to the owner, too.
That is just crazy. A friend bought a totally new Buick many years ago and was in a wreck a couple of months later. Insurance insisted on repairing it. They took over 4 months due to parts not being available. Luckily the dealer let her borrow a car. They ended up taking parts off another car in inventory to fix hers. It ended up costing more to repair than the car cost new!
My dad bought a Tahoe that didn’t have its wireless phone charger because of parts shortages. Was told it would be addressed when the parts were available. 2 years later, none of that part is available but they can replace the entire center console for a couple thousand bucks. They wouldn’t cover it under warranty because he exceeded 36,000 miles and the extended warranty didn’t specifically cover “missing from the factory”. Needless to say, it’ll be his last GM vehicle.
Funny/sad that Ayn Rand straight up called all of this happening back in the mid-50s.
Should take GM to small claims court. GM will probably not show and he will get a sentence in his favor
I would have been at that dealership every month for this. Your dad did not follow through and force the issue. squeaky wheel and grease.
Should never buy the GM in the first place never mind putting up with that s***
Because of the war in Ukraine and the chip shortage, certain options aren't available for new cars and they aren't discounted either. They want full price with less options. Any dealership who promises to install these options after purchase are liars. I know first hand that the contract didn't contain that promise and the vehicle was sold as is.
My recommendation is to shop around for the vehicle with all the options you need and not for a specific brand or model you wanted. Trust me, you will be reminded constantly how deficient your new car is.
Suddenly that guy driving a car through the dealership wall makes a lot more sense.
My friend's dad did that with a Chrysler in the 80s- right through the glass and jumped out with a golf club.
They took the car back and we learned as children to never use courts because it costs too much and takes too long.
My friend's dad could have easily have been cast in The Sporanos and we always joked later in life about a couple of the episodes being about him.
People were actually tough in the late 70s, Americans had a pair back then...
I once worked in a factory that made diesel engines. We had a manifold casting setting for over a year for a river tug on the Ohio river. It needed finish machined. I asked the foreman about it and he said we need to focus on getting new product out the door. Not long after the business turned down and the foreman came up to me very concerned that we needed to focus on customer service and we needed to get it finished and out the door. Of course his priorities were determined by senior management.
Any company that concentrates on service, succeeds.
Learnt that a long time ago.
@@Alle8ia When they can always count on a bailout when they fail, they no longer seem to care about the long term, quality, performance, or anything else. It's the new model of Chroney Capitalism. Privatize profits, dump the consequences of failure on the taxpayers. It is slowly killing our economy. 😫😵💫☠️
Either horrible upper management or just mad managemer.
If you're prices are set for a crew/shift of 10 guys but you know you can do it with 6 id make sure you have 7-8
Back in 2000-2001 when my family bought our first Aztek, its AC compressor went up. No harm, no foul, the car was under warranty. The dealership somehow couldn't get the part. Meanwhile they had a bunch of Azteks, Rendezvous, Grand Ams, and Montanas on the lot, that all used the same compressor. After fighting with them, a different dealership told her they were able to source the part. So she went over to the dealership the car was at and demanded it back. They acted all surprised someone would demand their broken car back, until she told them the other dealership was going to fix it. By that afternoon the original dealership somehow got a compressor and replaced it. We never went back to that dealership.
My first thought was the second dealer was going to install an aftermarket or remanufacturered part to get it working again, while the original dealer was going to sit on their hands and wait for a full priced, brand new one from the original manufacturer. When you threatened to take your business elsewhere, they did whatever they had to in order to get a replacement. And you still took it elsewhere. I hope whatever compressor they gave you continued to work as long as your parents had the car.
@annana6098 First of all, that car had been sitting there for weeks. Second this was a warranty job. Dealerships have to follow strict rules set by GM if they want to get paid at the end of it and have to document it. Finally, their OEM part failed two years later. That second time, we took it to our regular mechanic since it was out of warranty by that point. He did the job, and their part lasted until the car died two years ago, and unless you request OEM, they usually use the aftermarket and at that time, they used carquest. So almost 15 years and over 200k miles later. I've only had two dealerships that have earned my trust, and they are both little family owned ones, two towns over in Taneytown. Their labor is on par with regular shops, and they don't try to upsell you, and the service advisors have alway been upfront about stuff. Every other dealership I've ever been to, talk down to you, charge an arm and a leg, and frankly, half the time, their techs don't even fix the problem. They just load up the parts cannon and hope it works. Shit, the one (Dodge) the dang service tech couldn't even look up from his phone while I was trying to talk to him about a freaking police car of ours that was sitting on their lot for over a month, because the geniuses ripped the car apart to do a recall before the part was in stock. Then, they had the audacity to charge us $400 labor for a recall when the part finally came in. Then another dealer (BMW) I've been to told me I needed a whole new cam shaft and needed to rebuild the engine. We took the car to our regular mechanic who doesn't usually work on foreign cars. They plopped a new cam sensor in, and the car was back to normal. There's a reason why Dealerships have the reputations as they do. I've had far more bad experiences with them, then good.
I worked at a Caddy dealer in 1976 and we had a similar situation crop up. The dealer was great with their service department as well as management. They took a new car on the lot and took the needed part off their vehicle installed it on the customer car and sent him on his way. When the dealer got the part they put it on the donor car and put it back on the lot. SIMPLE
Can they still sell the new car as "new" after that swap?
@@beepbop6697 depends on the part, and the new part has to indeed be new. in 1980 I bought a Monte Carlo. The windshield wipers died. I took it to a dealer to get it fixed. Since the design had changed from the prior year (now it had the delay system or intermittent wipers). They did not have the part in stock and it would be at least a month before they would be able to get one, so they pulled the assembly off a new one in the lot and told me they would replace it on the car before selling it as new. The part numbers would match, so no one would be the wiser.
My dad was trying to buy a Jaguar in the late 70's and went to our local small import car dealer and asked if he could test drive a car he was told that they didn't have any cars that were prepped yet on the lot and told him to come back in a few weeks. So he goes back in a few weeks and they give him the same no cars are prepped song and dance and say come back in a couple of weeks. Now my dad had always dreamed of owning Jaguar so he went back a few weeks later and they gave him the same excuse. So he said "I don't give a damn if they are prepped can I see the cars you have/" So they took him to the back lot and there were three cars, all of them in various states of being stripped for parts since they couldn't get parts from the factory.
@@beepbop6697 they did as it had a new bumper. No different than had the bumper been damaged in shipping and repaired after it was dropped off at the dealership
Now there is part traceability.
In a recent video about the Turbine Car, it was mentioned how the Japanese companies came in with the goal of selling the customer their next 5 cars rather than just the one they were currently shopping for. If this guy's business survives and he needs more vehicles in the future, I'm willing to bet he won't be getting them from GM.
Nor will a lot of others.
thats def. toyota's moto.. they want to sell you every car you ever buy.
GM might have Boeing-itis.
@@Light256 Treat a Toyota's maintenance schedule as gospel, and it will serve you forever.
And I guarantee GM doesn't care. All that matters is maximizing shareholder value next quarter. Long term thinking is extinct in big corporations.
Dude should have told his story to Jalopnik and one of the larger EV media outlets like Electrek. Cadillac making a customer wait 8 months for a replacement bumper is important news to any prospective Cadillac EV buyer. Such press will push GM to solve this man's problem more than just local news outlet.
Nobody reads Jalopnik
This is why I laugh when people think less regulations will be better for us, because companies already refuse to do the right thing until the media picks the story up.
What he has is a valid claim against whoever caused the damage, not just for the vehicle but also lost revenue, time dealing with this matter, depreciation on the vehicle...
@@marcochavane3124regulations by themselves sure. The point is regulations and strict enforcement with strong penalties. If a company was fine tens of thousands of dollars per incident per month, you can bet they would not let the stuff go on like this. And the other complaint about regulation increasing costs to the consumer is irrelevant because the payment for enforcement logistics would come out of the fines.
Jalopnik still exists? 🤔🤣
My wife bought a new car in 2014. First year production of that new body style. 3 weeks later, a guy side-swiped it. We waited months for a new headliner. They said it would be another 6 months before black headliners would be back in production. They could get us a gray one off the production line. So, we did.
I don't think anyone ever noticed the trim is black, but the headliner is gray. The insurance company did compensate us for loss of value, including the mismatched part.
I had a 1988 Ford Bronco. It was built during a 15-month "experiment" with some drivetrain changes.
When I had one of the front locking hubs come apart, I could not get a matching one from wither Ford or other parts manufacturers.
I ended up having to get one from a junkyard in Maine that happened to have a pickup with the same locking hubs (and the rear axle I had to replace that had eaten itself).
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I also went through two gas tanks because of the design of the under-tank support that trapped water, dirt, and salt between the support and the tank, essentially creating a sanding and oxidizing enclosure.
When I replaced the second tank, Ford had finally redesigned the under-tank shield to include drainage holes. What genius!
They make spray on fabric dye. I had a blue interior and changed it over to black. I just used the spray on dye and it worked perfectly. Nobody could tell, and it was a lot less money.
Insurance company for the other party is responsible for all of this. Usually, by the time they figure out that they're paying all the rental and loss of use they total the car. Guy needs a lawyer to sue the other driver
Which could be himself!
No fault insurance is still a thing.
I was going to say the same thing. All of the warranty and lemon talk is irrelevant. Insurance company can't get parts to repair. It falls on them to make the customer whole. Including consequential damages of lost wages, etc. Just like any other automobile accident case. If the car can't be repaired, it gets totaled. And the man needs to be duly compensated for all damages.
@@Trains-With-Shane This 100%. I get them not getting the part, but this ultimately falls to the at fault party.
@@BillDike Makes sense. I wonder why he didn't mention this path.
Modern cars offer less value for more money, by design, and the negative tradeoff is comprehensive. If you have an old car that works, take great care of it.
It's becoming harder over time. They make fewer parts for older cars. Older cars cost more to register due to safety fees. They need to run perfect every year or they won't pass emissions.
People are resorting to picking out a year/make/model of vehicle known to be reliable, finding one in a barn, backyard or junkyard, and having it restored. (Not Concours d'Elegance, but functionally.) And you end up with a reliable vehicle with a much lower ownership cost per mile. A good mechanic who knows that vehicle knows which parts need to be replaced if they haven't already failed. Much cheaper to get it all done at once, and you prevent future on-road failures.
@RefreshingShamrock antique tags gets you around any inspection. Only 25yrs old, so 99s and 00s are good to go now.
Get something that didnt change much over the years and parts are dirt cheap. I have been using disposable Grand Caravans/ Town & Countries as work trucks for the past 15yrs. Newest one was an 07, current, an 06 i got for $2k w/ 120k miles on it. Should blow past 200k easily.
@@dominic08690antique tags are very limited in most places, here you can't drive it outside of a few months in the summer
The problem with the old car is the same as this. Lack of parts. I waited three weeks for what turned out to be a salvage mirror for my 2013. You are screwed either way.
Considering I'm no longer under NDA from GM or the contracted company I worked for... I can tell you I worked for PARTECH, the support division that the Dealership Service and Parts contacts for catalog and parts support.
They CONSTANTLY change designs of bodyparts for various reasons... and I had one story that was both an example of engineering stupidity, and an enraged service manager who obviously had 'other' problems outside of work that affected his behavior at work.
The issue was over a 2005 GMC Envoy. This incident came up in 2011.
The vehicle was in the shop for rear bumper & fascia replacement after getting rear-ended.
The dealership ordered a new bumper, thinking they could re-use the rubber bumper pad, as it was in serviceable condition.
When they received the part, they noticed the pad would not fit the new fascia, and the service manager did not want to replace the pad. He was ADAMANT on getting the original design Fascia.
However, the design change had happened over a year and a half prior, and the new part number was the only currently available part for this vehicle, and they would need the new pad to complete the repair.
This led to him going off on me for a few moments, me staring into space using my military experience to just drown him out... and then he started insulting me, so I ended the call... and he called back, and got me AGAIN... out of the over 100 people in the call-center... not once... but twice... on the second time, I transferred him to the floor manager, who immediately chewed his ass out, told him to not call back as his dealership's contract is going to be suspended for the abuse he has doled out on not just me, but multiple other agents.
They got a 2-week suspension, and I'm sure he got a slap on the wrist knowing that dealership.
But aside from that, back to the design change... the reason for that design change was for the serviceability of the bumper pad. The original pad had issues being re-fit into replacement fascia, as it would be loose and had a risk of coming off while driving. Hence, the design change that not only changed the placement of the knubs that fit it to the fascia, but the way they latch as well, so they could be removed and replaced with reduced risk of damage.
We also had the design change for the Vortec/LS 5.3 valvetrain in 2007.5.
In the same year, I found an issue that I investigated for several days after a customer called in about it... that led to a rather large recall on repairs nationwide.
The Service Manual for GM Techs pointed to using the incorrect part for either generation of the 5.3.
For Pre 2007.5, they called for using the Post 2007.5 Valvetrain Parts... and vise-versa.
The result was a loss of power and/or potential valvetrain damage.
The swap is possible, but they were calling for the wrong lifter in both cases. After going into the blueprints for the parts, 3-D models, etc, I pulled measurements that showed at least a 2mm difference in height between the lifters.
I went over this with my lead and my manager before submitting the findings, and ended up in a week-long argument with the engineer in charge... with them trying to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about because I just work in a call-center... not knowing I was a mechanic for the past 5 years prior, and had been learning about building/rebuilding engines since before I could drive. After a lengthy back-and-forth of our relative experiences, my manager stepped in and forwarded the issue up to his leadership, because we were all in agreement that I was in the right... and then they involved that engineer's leadership. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes, but that document got changed REAL quick... because they realized just how much that oopsie had already cost them in warranty repairs.
We had it right before all the smart cars and the extreme amounts of emissions controls on modern vehicles... Engineers complicate everything when they are left to their devices.
An engineer can complicate changing a light bulb... and they absolutely have.
I screwed up with my 1988 Bronco and had to have the front left fender replaced.
Due to the age of the vehicle when that happened, I had to get the aftermarket fender.
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About a month after the body shop was done, my headlight needed to be replaced, but I could not remove the bulb.
The fender was made with the headlight access hole about an inch off where it was supposed to be.
The body shop, for no charge, cut the hole wider, filed the edge, and touched up the cut with paint.
That shop was fantastic. Great people.
Let me tell you something, there aren't that many engineers out there.
Just because someone went to school to be an engineer doesn't mean they have what it takes to actually be one.
It's like sending a 400 pound guy to take a cross country course then expecting him to win the olympics, it's not going to happen.
You can either see solutiond in uour head or you can't, and most engineers just can't because they don't have it.
What is an interesting story. I have a 5th generation 2023 Subaru Forester and and found out the cabin air filter was redesigned Midway through the model year. So mine takes the same air filter as the previous model year Subaru Forester. No the Foresters have a plastic piece attached to the filter the newer ones did not.
@@jasonbourne1596 Almost every engineer I've met, and I've dealt with hundreds, has an absolute lack of common sense.
I worked as a mechanic for a dealer back before the dinosaurs died. We often complained to the regional rep that we'd have far fewer problems if every engineer was required to work on something he designed for six months.
I know someone that bought a brand new car and drove it a ludicrous amount. After a few years, he was well past the mileage limits for the warranty. He was also past the mileage to change the spark plugs and was unable to get new plugs anywhere. He finally got new plugs after 2 years of looking, by contacting the OEM supplier in Japan. Crazy that spare parts can be that hard to get.
The hell type of spark plugs did he need?
Sounds like NGK?
@sirsweet3022 they are for a Subaru BRZ.
Denso in that case then
@@phishfood NGK and HKS should have suitable plugs for a BRZ. But will they work as well, I ran into that with a Toyota hybrid with engine-specific plugs, fitted matching NGKs, fuel use went up;,fitted the OEM Densos, fuel use went down
Steve... A bit of a story. After a long career as a Master tech, I became a service manager at a used car retailer. I also had to handle parts procurement.
1) Waited over a year for several Land Rover body parts. Remember, Jaguar/Land rover is transitioning to EV's.
2) No interior parts available for several GM "cars". GM canceling "cars", has burned bridges with suppliers, and many have gone out of business.
3) Chrysler is the absolute worst. No engine gasket sets available for many Hemi V8's. We have several trucks, and cars that we have had to buy back because of being unable to procure parts. Many other Chrysler suppliers have gone out of business too.
Parts availability is going to total many cars and trucks.
I was at a JLR dealer so often more than half the staff thought I worked there, and the vehicle had it's own dedicated parking bay, right at the office, with row after row of Freelanders, all awaiting engines and transmissions to be replaced. Do not think a single Gen 1 Freelander ever made it past 50 000km and still have the original engine and transmission it came from the factory with, most by 50 000km were on either the third or fourth warranty replacement. Some did not even make it from the harbour 1km away to the dealership for PDI before something blew up in that area.
@Se😮anBZA
Not sure how Chrysler still exists I used to work in a Chrysler Engine Factory and saw their decline from within, we had to strip down and scrap hundreds of brand new engines that would never be placed into a vehicle due to making far too many of them
I've worked and used car before as well, and absolutely the same experience.
Had to wait a month for a simple interior trim part on a newer Kia.
I dealt with all of the European and Asian vehicles and would see many hang ups on parts.
Steve I hope you publicly covering this helps the man but if not hurts sales of those vehicles so much they get parts available by having to shut down the production lines. Used to be car companies were required to keep parts to repair cars. Guess it's not required any more and it's a business decision for them. When people understand they are not backing the customers at all it's hopefully will become widely known issue and affect sales. Ii switched to Honda because 1) Cars rarely break down over very long life. 2) When I have had an issue the parts are easy to acquire and they do a good job with service even if it's a bit expensive ( third party repairs are cheaper and parts are available)
I have a 2022 Bronco which was involved in an accident (I wasn't driving) in August of 2023. It sat at the body shop for three months waiting on a hood and a left-side headlight. Even after those parts arrived, we still had to wait another week before the local Ford dealer sent someone to *program* the damn headlight before it would work. Why a headlight even has a damn computer module in it is beyond me. Ridiculous. The insurance paid for only 30 days of car rental, so I was completely without a car for 2 months -- while still paying for it and the insurance on it, thank you very much!
I can't imagine NINE months... At this point, I'd go to the dealer I bought the damn thing from, find a car that matches mine, with the correct color and options, and just remove the damn bumper and take it to the body shop myself. GM and the dealer can work that out. That's idiotic.
I have a bit of insight as to the Ford situation. I’m sure it’s the same story with all manufacturers. They all copy each other..
I was a Ford dealer tech from 1998-2018. When I started almost every part I ever needed was delivered to the dealer at 4 am the day after ordering. Almost all of the common parts were in stock at our dealership. “Backorder” was a rare thing and didn’t usually last more than a week or two.
What changed?
The whole world.
Ford closed most of their HVC warehouses first. (high velocity centers). Which as you can guess were warehouses peppered around the country that stocked the high demand parts. They then cut down the sizes of the main warehouses. They decided that algorithms could manage inventory better and save the cost of warehousing low demand parts for years and then eventually auctioning many of them off. The result? They suck at it. A big reason I will never work at a dealer again is that everything is always back ordered. The factory waits until there are enough orders to justify a production run. Meantime your Bronco sits waiting for enough of them to get crashed to make the parts.
I once waited four months for bolts to install a cylinder head on a V6 Mustang. I had all of the parts sitting there except the head bolts. We could have ordered after market bolts but Ford wont allow it. Big jobs like that that required a pile of parts would 99% have something on backorder that would stall the job.
Crazy thing is that if doesn’t save Ford any money when they are paying for a guy to drive a rental Kia the whole time. Of course what was a pretty big deal in having your cylinder heads fail at 5,000 miles and would piss anyone off is now a huge deal to the customer. Just bought a brand new Mustang and he is driving around in a Forte instead. Guy probably never bought another Ford. Ironically that cyclone engine is one of the best engines ever made.
We have bean counters running the world and all they can see is the beans in front of them at the moment.
@@AlphanumericCharacters Yep. The whole "just in time manufacturing" concept has totally screwed us. It only works well when they can actually make ONE part as soon as it's needed, not wait on jobs for 50 or 100 or more... And even then, it's still slower than having the thing in stock in a warehouse somewhere.
And tying every electronic part to the damn VIN is something else that really needs to stop. There is literally ZERO reason to require a computer module in a headlight. None. Other than forcing you to pay a dealer for something that absolutely should not require a dealer. I could've bought a used headlight from a wrecked Bronco, but you can only program these things once, so used headlights are utterly worthless...
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You should have stopped insurance on it.
@ can’t, in my state, unless you cancel the registration as well. They’ll suspend your driver’s license if you do. And not inform you. So next time you get pulled over you get arrested for driving on a suspended license. (Ask me how I know.)
The reason the headlight has to be reprogrammed is so that the vehicle owner or any independent shop cannot replace the headlight. It requires you to go to the stealer who has access to the proprietary copyrighted programming software.
As someone who worked in dealership parts for 20 years, there's a lot of cases where over-worked and under-paid parts employee never ordered it under the correct priority. Or it failed to get ordered at all. Or it went backorder and they failed to upgrade the order priority. 2-3 months alone could be burned just by the dealer not staying on top of it.
My brother worked for Ford and told me about flagging a parts order with "vehicle off road" when my car was at the dealer waiting for parts.
In the old days you could source a bumper from the scrap yard. But bumpers these days are fitted with numerous electronic parts that need to be programmed into the vehicle’s computer system. If someone did attempt to do the work themselves they may render the vehicle inoperable. And of course GM would void the warranty if anything malfunctioned with the car after the unauthorized repairs. One of the reasons why I choose to drive older cars.
I can still source a bumper from the scrap yard. And install it. I'm sure there are cars as you describe but this is seriously not usually an issue. To be honest, I suppose more likely on these electric cars -- I'm rather surprised at how many car companies, the gas and hybrid models are COMPLETELY conventional, while the electric model (sometimes of the very same vehicle), ALL the electronics (including the dashboard) are COMPLETELY different. You'd think you could get a gas vehicle with a high tech dashboard (if you wanted it) or a vehicle that seems conventional but has an electric drivetrain. As far as I can tell Kia does this to some extent, but I imagine the Lyriq probably is loaded with fancy GM-electric-vehicle-specific parts (which since these are quite early in production for now probably mean parts specific to the one model year of Lyriq.)
That said, even if a part is available at the junkyard and could be installed:
A) A dealer is not going to buy a junkyard part.
B) That does depend on having the part in question at a junkyard either.
In the case of my 2000 Buick Regal some years back (where I didn't crash it, but scooped so much weight of snow and ice driving it through deep snow that the weight broke the brackets on the bumper). I could not get a junkyard bumper at all -- those 3800s were so reliable, essentially the only ones in the junkyard were due to crashes and there were no front bumpers available (I had to suck it up and buy a new part.)
I worked at a GM dealership back around 2000. We had a bunch of Astro vans in for warranty work on their ABS systems....but could not get replacement modules as they were backordered and no timeframe for delivery. The owners were told they had to buy a new van because we couldn't fix their current one.
Wait...it gets better. Next years Astro had a different ABS system...and they too were having massive problems so we had TWO different sets of Astro's on the lot still in warranty that we couldn't get parts to repair them. They switched the next year to yet ANOTHER ABS system....so we had 3 years worth of vans on the lot...still in warranty but we couldn't fix them because GM wouldn't send us the parts. This showed me clearly where GM's opinion of current owners was....they didn't care about them. No GM for me.
and toyota had the new prius sitting for 6mo with no time frame for rear door latch replacement, now 100000 tundras waiting for a engine.
Don't call 'em Garbage Motors for nothing.
I waited 7 months last year to replace the ABS computer module in my 2012 GMC Terrain. Had 3 GM cars in a row. Never again will I buy an American car. I bought a Toyota this year.
That was the culture at GM, the customer was the test mule for their innovative technology. Started with the Vega and didn't improve until they went bankrupt. Now they are falling back into old habits. I have only owned one GM product, a 2004 Duramax setting out in the barn it only has about 58,000 miles on it and the high quality material they built the truck out of is slowly rusting away. Brake Lines, Fuel Lines instrument cluster won't wake-up for about a 1/4 mile after driving.. I can't afford to replace it and only use it to tow the utility trailer every couple of years. Would i ever buy another GM vehicle, NO.
@@sandy1653 Hey, the top guys are happy & rich!
I worked for GMHE and served on numerous tiger teams addressing critical issues..... Yes, nothing has changed.
Glad they don't limit age around here. We mostly run 90's rear drive Fleetwoods, 2011 and older Town Cars, etc. None of the new ones have the same level of space and luxury except Escalades.
When I worked in GM dealerships, as tech or management, there were a couple of times I escalated the repair through the ranks. Takes time. Sometimes weeks. But a couple instances, parts were pulled from the assembly plant to repair the vehicle. But this was 20 years ago, and usually a module or something important. And you did not let a vehicle sit for 9 months because of a single part. Back when customer assistance assisted the customer. And gave a rental if the customer needed it. All I remember were bad parts, not accident vehicles.
Friend worked for Liberty Mutual this was a long time ago and we talked about this subject. The Insurance co ultimate solution is they stop insuring cars from that manufacturer. no insurance, no car loans. This is why orphan cars quickly become worthless. GM'S plastic bodied vans were an example certain body panels weren't available in that case since that would effectively total the car insurance for those models became prohibitively expensive and the resale values went right into the Kohler disposal device.
A buddy of mine took his Chevy into a dealership for service due to a recall. The very next day he gets a call from the dealer saying that they’ve lost his car but out of the goodness of their heart are willing to pay him slightly below trade in value 😂
Somebody at the dealership wanted it, or they sold it to a "friend". Or they accidentally destroyed it.
I'd tell them to find it, wait until the next day, then report it stolen. I'll bet they'd "magically" find it on a back corner of the lot when the police showed up asking questions.
This is one of the reason why there need to be nationwide right to repair laws with large penalties for car manufacturer's that play "we cannot get parts" or they're "backordered" for cars that are still in production. Penalties that cannot be offloaded through filing bankruptcy.
I remember a starter repair guy saying he got some kind of back door deal on starters that were unavailable elsewhere because the cars were too new. The guy opened his business just after WW2 and had parts everywhere. Wish he was still alive, interesting guy.
A friend of my wife's drove this ancient Volvo. One part on it was bad, and she couldn't find a replacement anywhere. A friend of her father was on a business trip to Sweden, and he couldn't track the part down there. One day the friend and her BF stopped for gas at this tiny little garage in the Adirondacks. The guy who owned the garage noticed the car wasn't running right, and the friend told him the problem. He said "Just a minute." According to the friend, he had that exact part on the shelf. He would only take a few bucks for the part and like $5 for labor.
@MarkStockman-b4j A woman in my USN unit had a car she bought in Germany & shipped to the USA. Some years later found out that the USA model used a different engine & had a hard time getting it repaired.
Our family had a1980 ish Hondamatic. After some 18 years, it broke down due to a failed transmission link cable. Our local Honda dealer in Australia said this part was no longer available, try getting from a wreckers. No good there. Went back to the dealer to say the car was needed by our daughter at university. He checked if the part was available in Japan. It was not. But he left Honda with the request. A few weeks later, he phoned to say he had one. He was as stunned as we were. He said the cable was not an old part, that it was newly made.
My son bought a brand new Jeep Renegade a few yrs back. Had not had it long when a rock hit and broke his windshield. It was nearly 2 yrs b4 Jeep had replacement windows in. He was among many that were waiting. His car was driveable, but I am sure many were not. It would suck paying insurance and auto payments for a vehicle you couldn't drive. Seems auto manufacturers should be required to have a percentage of parts on hand.
I'm surprised you weren't ticketed for having a cracked windshield. Cops love to use that one.
they used to be required
They are required by federal law to manufacture replacement parts for ten years after the end of production of any year's model.
It boggles the mind that a bumper cannot be found and is a violation of federal law.
@@marksmith8928 But this car is still in production, so that law would not cover it yet as you stated that law covers parts AFTER production ends.
As steve said, it actually is illegal, hence why you can sue them for it. It’s just not enforced, and generally the worst thing that happens is they end up having to buy the car back after the customer lawyered up.
We've had problems with recalls. My son bought a 2007 Ford Ranger. The passenger side air bag was from Takata. Ford sent a letter to us informing us of the recall program and that our local dealer will notify us when the part came in to replace it. No notice from the dealer ever . A year later the truck was sold.
We now have a 2018 Honda CRV. We received a letter issuing a recall for replacement of a defective fuel pump and again was told the local dealer will contact us when the part came in. It has been a year and so far nothing.
The fuel pumps are coming in now. You should call your local dealership and see if you can get one installed.
I work in the collision repair industry, and as far as I understand auto manufacturers are required to be able to supply parts for vehicles they have manufactured for a minimum of 10 years. when they are not the liability falls on the manufacturer to compensate the vehicle owner. I've waited months for parts for newer vehicles and more often than not I've had customers get their vehicle payments covered by the manufacturer while unavailable parts are on order.
Not just US manufacturers. Had a friend get into a minor accident a year ago with a 2 weeek old Ioniq 5. Took 6 months before they got the car back because of various parts backorders (and once they finally arrived the dealer took weeks to figure out how to get the ECU to "accept" the new sensors).
Ah, don't you love serialization of every little part and subassembly?
Apple's anti-consumer business model is invading everywhere.
There are a bunch of TH-cam channels where mechanic/techs fix cars that the dealer and other mechanics can't fix. And sometimes it is as stupid as something not being plugged in.
The problem there is, ESPECIALLY with new Kias, Kia doesn't release their OEM tool software updates until almost 8mos after the change happens. I saw this firsthand early last year when 2024s couldn't even be scanned by the dealers because....Kia HQ hadn't pushed the updated software. I watched a 2024 Kia Carnival sit at a repair shop, finished minus the requisite ADAS calibrations, for three months until Kia released the software updates.
Oh, and Kias and Hyundais use the same software, in case you were wondering.
@@MarkStockman-b4j
Or for crazy CANBUS failures on KIAs where a scanner cannot even communicate with the car...
unplug the rearview camera...and the CANBUS works again!
I had a deer run out in front of my Ioniq 5 a month after I bought it almost a year ago. No metal damage, just all the plastic bits in the bumper and the passenger side headlight were broken. Took almost 30 days and $12000 insurance claim to get it all fixed. About $1000 of that was reprogramming all the sensors buried inside the bumper, but at least they knew how to do it so it only took a day for that part.
Ran into this exact issue with a chevy bolt recently. Damaged front bumper, and the bolt front bumper or the needed piece of it were and probably still are on indefinite backorder. The resolution ended up being to just buy an entire bolt from insurance auction for it's front bumper. Nobody was happy after it was all said and done, but it's done. Well, the lawyers involved were happy, they got paid.
A friend ran into the battery issue with the Bolt. He managed to get the dealership to buy it back after no resolution, then got a Kia EV. The battery on that car died within a few months with no end in sight for when they'd get a replacement in. Again, he ended up trading the car back in for yet another car. Luckily I've never had any major issues with parts for my 2013 Tesla though a number of times the replacement parts were a newer generation than what my car originally had.
I knew a bloke (passed on now) that used to drive for a company that was bit like a 'limousine service'. The big difference was no new cars! As it is English company cars like an early 60's Austin Princess, late 50's Bentley, late 40's Rolls Royce. Other makes like Alvis and Wolseley.. They could do near all the work themselves, real proper cars. The only thing they don't do is the bodywork. Cheaper to run and lower overheads than a company with brand new Merc's
Very few people want those apart from novelty value.
I know a guy who did the same thing with older Jags.
Most people want a decked out limousine not a nice looking old banger.
I would have thought parts for those were hard to come by as well.
@@Cheepchipsable Yes parts are hard to come by, not so much Austin, yet the cars only do a couple of 1000 a year, if that
@@Cheepchipsable oh, I still see a few, a Rolls for a wedding or the like...
A few years ago my daughter wanted a Rolls for her wedding car. The hirecar dealer had overbooked them and they weren't available. The Bentley? No. Jags? No. She eventually settled on the Austin Princess as a last resort. She was a bit disappointed until the driver showed her a number of pictures of some previous customers who used the car. Turns out, the previous customers were the Beatles, who used the car exclusively during their Melbourne Australia tour in 1964. Needless to say, that cheered her up no end and made some wonderful memories for her.
His strongest argument is if he can demonstrate that he was relying on promises that the car would be repaired, or the part provided, within a certain timeframe, and therefore did not pursue other possible resolutions available to him (for example to have a part custom-manufactured, or the damaged part repaired). It's not really clear if that is the case, but it might be.
That came to my mind. E.g., would a machine shop be able to replicate the part, even for, say, $5000? Would have been worth it to him.
This was also my thought. The argument is not lemon law or warranty issue but a contract law even if it is verbal. I.E. "I will have the part for you next week" Had he know it would take a year or longer, he may have turned it into insurance as a total loss and bought a new car to continue running his business.
@ Well he couldn't really force the insurance company to total the vehicle without a court order, and whether or not they would be amenable to that would depend on the difference between the repair cost and the total value. When my mew model Civic was totaled due to non-availability of parts, the replacement cost was only a couple of thousand more than the repairs, so it was worthwhile for them to total it. If it had been $10,000 more, I doubt it would have gone that way.
Exactly. No one in their right mind would buy a new car for anything but cash. Likewise for making more than one single phone call to the dealership to have it repaired. Under no circumstances would you call anyone to warranty anything beyond one call. They don't immediately fulfill the warranty? Right back to the dealer it goes for a cash refund in full. NO law requires the dealership or manufacturer to make a single replacement part for any part of the vehicle they just sold you. NONE. So the the car breaks, you fix it yourself. Easy. Bumpers can be manufactured in any machine shop and any other replacement parts can be obtained from any savage of cars unrepairable.
Years ago I had a Cadillac where the fuel injector controller was poorly designed and didn't last long. A new one was over $1K and after waiting a couple months for the dealership to get one in to repair my car I gave up and got one from a junkyard. Still almost $1K as they knew what they were worth. And that controller lasted about 4 months and then I was back to having a dead car. I ended up scrapping a 5 year old car because I just couldn't keep it running. Last GM product I'll ever buy I promise.
and toyota had the new prius sitting for 6mo with no time frame for rear door latch replacement, now 100000 tundras waiting for a engine.
Why didn't you just yank the fuel injection crap and put in a carburetor? $500-600, done, for an Eidelbrock. Engine blocks haven't changed in fifty, sixty years.
My dad had a new CTS. It was basically junk before the warranty ran up, traded it in for a Genesis that he still has to this day that has been problem free.
@@davidgoodnow269 I thought of it. But the transmission was also giving trouble and I was so sick of looking at that POS I just wanted it gone. Gave it to a community college auto shop teacher, he wanted the engine and was going to do just that.
This is the same reason I try to stick to business laptops (primarily Thinkpads, although I've had good luck with Dell's business line too). If you buy a non-business laptop and need warranty service, sometimes it will take weeks or months before they fix your laptop and get it back to you.
Most business laptops include 24 hour or overnight repair service. When you set up the RMA, they'll check to see if they have the parts you need. If they don't, they'll tell you and list your options (including continuing to use the laptop until they get the part and call you). Most recently I had a a defective keyboard. They didn't have a US keyboard available, so they installed a Euro keyboard with a similar layout to get me up and running again. Then a month later when the US keyboard was available, they called me back to schedule a time to swap it in. Total cumulative downtime for me was only a few hours.
The insurance company should have written the vehicle off after 3 months being unable to repair it and paid the guy out. Sounds like a lawsuit against the insurance company.
Forums on Facebook and Reddit demonstrate inability to get parts for the Lyriq is not an isolated situation. The plastic ~$1500 grill is easily damaged because there is no “bumper” and GM takes months to ship a replacement.
If I were him i would be on the phone searching junkyards for a replacement part from a car that was totaled in a rear end collision. There are yards that specialize in Cadillac parts.
When his new part eventually arrives, sell it. There certainly is a market for it.
The Car Wizard has so many videos that go over stuff like this.
@@GrumpyIan Most of the repair videos do too.
A lot of parts are on "infinite back order"
😡Making a new car that you don’t make replacement parts for, doesn’t make any sense!!!! Take the buy back money & run away!
Surely if you're making 10,000 cars you make 11,000 sets of parts (or more) and warehouse the extra for crash repairs, mechanical repairs, in case you find a high % defects etc.
But, according to the story, the buy-back offer was given secretly and then rescinded.
Disposable economy, brought to you by Gillette. You aren't supposed to fix the thing, you are expected to replace it (it being the entire car -- total it out over a bumper).
I worked at a checy dealer a few years ago. A guuy had a brand new pickup that mice chewed up the wiring harness to thetransfer case. Somehow it ended up at his insurance and they were going to pay for a completely new wiring harness which was the main body harness running from the fuel tank and rear bumper area under the cab and around the engine compartment. The harness couldn't come from the manufacturing line. The order went to some company that makes custom harnesses andit took nearly a year. When it arrived, it was identical to the factory harness but he sure waited a long time for it.
Your episode reminded me of when during Covid, I needed to replace my van. All the dealerships were selling out as soon as they got stock in, but a local Chrysler dealership had a van. When I asked them about the van, they said, you can look at it, you can't test drive it and you can put money down on it, it's available. "Why can't I test drive it?" "Oh, because it doesn't have an engine, we needed the engine to repair a customers' vehicle and we'll put an engine in and sell it as soon as we can." I asked, so then the "new" vehicle is used or being sold at a reduced price. "oh, no it hasn't been off the lot, it'll be sold like any other vehicle when we repair it after using it for parts." umm, that may be practice but I hope not and I didn't want that vehicle after hearing that.
I called around and travelled out of state to get my van.
In 1998 I ordered a new 1999 Dodge/Cummins Ram. I received one of the first of that year with a bad steering gear. Within a week it was in the shop and then I started getting the run around. Three weeks later it was still in the shop. Finally the shop manager told me he’d take a part off another new truck. I got it back that day.
Insurance companies in my state will scavenge from wrecking yards before going new. Then there's Carwizard's video about getting Hellcat head gaskets. It feels like car companies don't want people getting fixes for their overpriced product and replace it instead.
Some years ago my sister had a ford compac and it had multiple problems with no or slow resolutions. A good friend of hers was in the legislature and involved with the Ohio lemon law. He contacted Ford and a few days later my sister who at the time was in Alabama was told to go to local ford dealer, she did so and they said pick out any car and she did she drove off in a new Ford Thunderbird. Of course she was very happy. A new car at zero dollars and they bought back the compac.
That's odd bcos I've done over 4000 lemon law cases, and never heard anything remotely similar
Yeah, I’ll take “Things that never happened” for $600 Alex.
Lmfao. Yeah that NEVER happened.
My brother bought a Ford about 30 years ago that was a total POS. He ended up suing under CA lemon law. After an ugly start, Ford ended up buying his car back for its purchase price, paid his legal fees and a chunk of change on top of that. He ended up with enough to buy another vehicle free and clear.
@@Ryarios they even refund the sales tax
if parts are not availble the insurance company should just total it out. i see cars all the time barely damaged at Copart becasue of stuff like this. even saw a newer Maserati at a local body shop they couldnt get parts for , so it ended up at Copart too
Bingo!!!
Fhis os what they used to do with tesla, a lot pf people flrget that flr the fkrst 3 years trsla was out, a broken door handle would total the entire car out
This happens all the time with exotics, it's easier to total than wait for a 12 month SOP backorder. I'm shocked this adjuster did this.
Is it worth buying cars at Copart? One replaced my favourite junkyard of 25 years around here... I'm still bitter but hell, if I can get slightly damaged cars for cheaper...
I bought some brand new factory GMC rims off Craigslist from a guy whose family owns a GM dealership. They got some cars that came from the factory with the wrong optioned rims and he was selling them because the dealership couldn't sell 'used' parts. He said that he had insurance companies contacting him from across the country for the rims. But they couldn't purchase them without a dealership receipt; which they wouldn't get on used parts.
All too common. Have an Edge ST with HD tow package. Took Ford almost 4 months to send the right parts. Despite anything the body shop, myself, or the insurance company sent them, they continued to send the incorrect grill/fan assembly. Crazy!
Something similar happened at my brother's dealership they had a car for 6 months it needed a bumper and a hood. They ended up buying the car from them and selling them a new one at what they owed on it. It took another year til the parts came in.
In Germany there is a law for that. The manufacturer has to provide spare parts for their product for 10 years minimum.
We have the same law, whqt we don't have is a decent edumacation system in the US.
who cares about warranty, lemon law, etc.?
This is an issue of a car maker refusing to sell Necessary parts to affect repairs, that the consumer is WILLING to pay for and they are refusing to sell it to him, holding him hostage!
Gee, thanks for explaining that. It wasn't obvious.
Years ago, when I worked in an insurance claims office we had an insured Delorean driver waiting, and waiting and waiting....for parts that never came. Was it totaled? I quit before finding out. Buying the latest and greatest is fraught with peril, as anyone growing up in Motown knows.
acompetant bodyshop can fabricate any pressed or welded part.
Why didn't you just take the DeLorean to the future to get the parts and then come back?
@@WhiteG60 Micheal J Fox didn't show up.
@@highpath4776 Funny thing is, this was in Pittsburgh PA, back when steel was dying. I don't think fabricators could do it economically back then, circa '81, or they had to use OEM parts for some reason, I can't remember. I just know that the insurance claim was open forever and the vehicle owner was SOL, like usual.
Did it need a flux capacitor?
“Just a ticket number” story if I’ve ever heard it. Sad, I don’t think I would ever buy North American because of the way these companies are now. Had a Honda for a decade and it’s never failed me unless I failed it.
I had a top-of-the-line, 2019 Chevrolet Suburban a few years ago. I waited over six months for parts covered by warranty but finally sold it since I lost trust in GM to be able to handle warranty repairs.
Hello from across the pond. Thank you for sharing, this is the sad reality of the automotive world.
"Just In Time" manufacturing. This saves warehousing costs, but this is the result-
I've never owned a GM car and after hearing something like this, I doubt I ever will.
Honda did this in post war Japan because of necessity. Americans should have back ups of back ups.
JIT never worked. Even in Japan it is a long discredited approach. Most companies in Japan have abandoned it decades ago. The U.S. still insists that it works despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
@@richardbeckenbaugh1805when I first learned about JIT manufacturing in high school , I thought it was a rather foolish idea. Recent events have reinforced the notion
I stopped buying GM cars nearly 2 decades ago due to multiple and repeated failures happening immediately after the car was out of warranty. I'm in my 6th decade of life and can remember in my early years buying a GM product and it living for over 300,000 miles. That isn't the GM of today. Today General Motors only creates disposable automobiles! So I stopped buying GM cars!
Me Too!
My Dad was a Chevy guy. Which is exactly why I don't own any. He had nothing but problems with them his entire life.
Now tell the women that buy 80% of all new cars that they can't get their way, I'll be watching with popcorn.
@@actually5004 Why would I tell anybody that? If people want to buy a car from a crap company... it's their choice!
Old Buick is Best Buick.
Long live the 3800!
Not just GM. I needed a hood for 2022 RAM 3500. It took 11 months for Stellantis to ship it. They also issued a recall for a fire hazard for the Cummins 6.7 diesel where they had no fix until a couple months ago. The notice said not to park it in a garage or near the house. This was almost a year until a fix came out.
I got rear ended in my ute and they chose to replace the tailgate with a minor dent in it rather than fix it. None in the country (Australia) so I had to wait for it. Fortunately the vehicle was driveable. I was happy to take a near new one off one of the many tubs that sit around numerous places when they have been removed from new vehicles for trays to be fitted. Insurance wouldn't allow it because it wasn't new although it would probably be newer than the damaged one. They eventually got the new tailgate which had to be painted, installed, spray coated and the Isuzu decal applied. It doesn't make any sense.
This is a manufacturing problem caused by the CEO's of the companies. They are required by law to support the vehicle for not less than 5 years, am I correct? Well then supporting the vehicle means have a supply of parts that can be swapped if warranty work AND since all of us and them know that some people cannot drive then the parts to fix accidents that yes the owner or offending vehicles insurance is responsible to buy for the repair. Bumper facias included. To me by not having the full support of helping the client (Car purchaser) then they are not complying with the law of supporting the vehicle.
" GM Can’t Find a Bumper to Fix a Man’s $86K Car "......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...couldn't stop laughing at this.
I have a similar story with my 2024 Lyriq. Waiting for collision parts for over 5 months - needed rear bumper and hatch plus a bunch of other trim parts. It is really frustrating.
The solution is for people to stop buying this car because if they’re in an accident, they cannot fix them.
*BINGO!*
It's the solution to many of US's corporations issues, sadly most of us refuse to see how we, the buyers, can change things if we actually worked together to boycott companies.
Insane, 9 months & they can't supply a common part pretty sure that breaks consumer laws. Meanwhile he's been paying $1,100 a month for insurance & $1,437 a month on the vehicle loan for a car he does not have. As it's for a limo service the business loss he's suffered is around 10k per month. GM did send a check for $3,593.47 after 6 months as a good will gesture after they told him they finally had the part only to then turn around & tell him they did't & instead they said they would buy back the car & then after 9 months they inexplicably rescinded that offer.
Me again, worked in auto assembly. What I understood was that Service Parts (replacement parts) are required. I was on the last year of a platform and every so often we'd pull parts off the line in underbody for Service Parts stock. I also worked at another company that made crash bumpers, we'd do short run production of service parts for older models.
We’ve had a car in the back of our body shop… Brand new Buick. Poor lady was hit back in June. Gm still can’t find a door. Back ordered till march… if she’s lucky. Horrible that they can sell cars with unavailable parts😂
I had a 20 ram 2500 that was brand new with 12k miles on it that both wheel bearings went out. Dealer couldn’t fix it saying that new parts were going for production. Talked to a lawyer and said it would cost around 10k for lemon law not to mention depreciation from driving the truck. Was much cheaper and way faster to trade it for another one. Shame how it worked out
A few months ago I needed a new internal door latch mechanism for a 54 Nash. I located one in less than an hour. Brand new in the box. 😂
I needed a new door lock mechanism for a late model F-150 because it was designed bad and cracked a couple times in first 4 years. It was nearly impossible to get replaced under warranty, and impossible to get replaced out of warranty as the plastic bit with wire was on "forever backorder". I found a used one at Copart and replaced it myself.
The big problem was when broken, the lock would unlock, but randomly not lock. It would jiggle the lock but the cracked plastic wouldn't have enough force to actually finish locking the door.
This very over engineered solution would be easy to fix if it was a solenoid that needed replaced, but that worked fine, it was the wire pathing through the plastic that cracked and gave it too much slack when locking.
That’s terrible about your ‘54 Nash! Tell you what,I feel so bad I am willing to buy it back for its original price.
Nash Rambler FTW
@@joesprague1464 Hey there Bud back off, I got here before you 🤣😎
A little over 30 years ago I helped a kid locate a rear U-joint for his Buick pickup (early 50s, I think) and he'd searched every salvage yard in three states with no luck. I took him to a machine shop run by an old guy who'd escaped from the USSR shortly after the war. The guy glanced at the destroyed U-joint and said "Buick. Car or truck?" He had 6 of them in a shoe box, told the kid to pick out the best one and charged him $5.
My Mother purchased a brand new car back in 2003, new generation/bodystyle that year and they'd only been on lots a few months. It was 2 weeks old, and she got rear-ended, did pretty significant damage. So it goes back to the dealership it came from for repairs, and everything seemed to be going normally, right up until a couple days before it was due to be completed when the bodyshop calls and says they've got the 1 and only spare left side quarter panel in North America for the new bodystyle, and its damaged from shipping and unusable. It was another month before they got the car completed, supposedly had a quarter shipped from the assembly plant where the cars are built. In the mean time, they put her in what was effectively the "fully loaded" version of her own car as a dealership loaner, she was almost sad to get her "base model" back.
My parents purchased a Pontiac in 1976 from the Dealership but the Gas Gage didn't work. They took a Gas Gage from another car off the lot to Repair theirs.
There is a major audio manufacturer that I've had issues with in a similar manner. We had an audio stage box, this is the device that connects all of the mics, instruments, etc to the physical audio mixer, that had a power supply die. this unit is 6,000.00 new. We initiated a warranty claim on it and sent it to the designated repair center. It sat for 24 months and they finally sent us a new one, after we threatened to sue them. They were continuing to build new ones of these and had over 40 of them sitting in a warehouse they eventually put on sale to the dealers because they couldn't move them. It was utter nonsense. In that 24 months we had replaced it with a new one to avoid having to keep renting one.
Sounds like UliCo.
I once looked at a Cadillac XLR that was just 4 years old, had modules in the trunk that filled with water and fried them. I was the one repairing the leak, but I had noticed the vehicle sitting on the dealer lot for almost a year. Reason was, the vendor that made the modules went out of business, and GM was having to take the plans for them and find another vendor to manufacture them again. Was a nice car, just sitting for over a year before it was finally ready.
The xlr doesnt even seem like a real vehicle, its like a concept car that they somehow put into production. I have no idea why gm even made ot to begin with, it must have lost so much money. I remeber the day they launched, since then ive seen ONE my entire life.
@@unlisted9494To me it just looks like a mustang/Cadillac splice!
I’ve sold a single headlight for $3500 on those things 😊
@@unlisted9494mechanicaIs were the same as a Chevy Volt.
They are apparently awful to work on.
Is there a point where the complete inability to get a car repaired early in it's life becomes a defect a d lack of fitness for purpose thus opening claims upthat way?
I had nearly this exact same experience with a paid-for car that I was using to supplement my income with various delivery services, except it was Ford and a TCM. Kept the car from October til July. When I finally got it back I had paid 1800 for a strut repair and got back a still non-working vehicle. I sold it for cash.
The Lyric is a strange duck for GM. I have a relative that works at a GM dealership. He told me there 1 Lyric in their rental fleet but it's not available to rent. They also have a Lyric in the showroom but no one can sit in it or test drive it. Strange?
GM and Hertz needs to merge for the enhanced customer experience..... Nevermind
GM owned Hertz from 1926 to 1953.
Generally Hertz.
It's all about mind over matter.
They don't mind & you don't matter.
Whoa! For a second there, I thought you were serious!! You got me.
Bad life cycle management - inconceivable that they're not planning for 1st year attrition due to failures, accidents, etc. They should have fantastic statistics to inform them on what should be stocked spare.
Bodyshop owner here-this is not unheard of. During and after the pandemic we ran into issues like this even on brand new cars. I theorized there was barely enough people working to make these parts and any parts that were available were going to the assembly line. This one being new makes it highly unlikely there are any parts available in the recycling yards yet either. Theres almost nothing you can do in a case like that-hope and pray the supplier starts making the parts to ship out!!
It’s mostly because they work with on demand supply. Only enough parts being produced to supply the manufacturing process. No surplus parts being made.
There are two things you can do, and that is spread the word and never buy from this auto maker again.
I did a search. There are some Lyriqs available in salvage. With perfectly, almost brand new bumper covers. They could be refinished and they would look just as good as a new part.
Has he gone to his local news investigator with his story, he should, nothing like the local dealer getting embarrassed on the news to light a fire at GM to get a part to appear. GM has zero intention of ever selling him the part. I wonder if such part came up missing at that Cadillac dealership off a new duplicate vehicle, would GM give the dealership the run around.
I wish I could say that this was only a Cadillac or GM thing, but all auto manufacturers play these type of games with you. They treat you like family until they get your signature on the sales documents. Then if God forbid you have a serious problem with the vehicle, they will ghost you in a heartbeat….
He should publicize this widely so that others will reconsider this brand for the limo needs. Perhaps then the part would appear quicker.
shame this has been a problem for years. on all US made new models. if you wrek a new car, and its a new model, back up and hit that pole again and total it.
most limo co aren't buying these and like they said get a better driver
I had a case similar to this, but not quite this bad. I bought a new Cadillac XT4 from Al Serra Cadillac in Grand Blanc, MI. With only 400 miles on it a couple months later, my wife was involved in a minor fender bender in Kroger's parking lot. A hit and run. As the driver of the older car that hit her drove away without leaving information. As there was front wheel damage I had the car taken to Al Serra's body shop for repairs. I waited four months for a part for the front bumper. After my rental car insurance ran out GM did agree to fund my rental car costs. I did all the usual correspondence with GM trying to get resolution. As a GM retiree, I know that was a "mouse on a treadmill" activity. Finally in frustration I called the local news TV station and asked them if they would like to run a human interest story about my predicament. They were interested; and apparently called the dealership to confirm my facts. The next day I got a call from the dealership that they had my part and my car would be fixed in two days. ...Coincidence? I think not!!!! I will always wonder where that part came from.
Some warehouse or another dealer. Or off the lot. It was there, they just had no incentive to help you. Until it might cost them money. That's why I think picketing the place with a big sign will get results.
I worked at one of the test facilities, before they fired 1000 of us before thanksgiving. We blew a motor many years ago in a truck. After 6 months of them trying to find a new motor they sent us a new truck to restart testing.
There was a Buick Envista sitting at one of the shops I used to service.
Was hit in May, couldn't get a new rear bumper for almost 4 months, then a bumper harness for another 2 months.
The fact that GM doesn't keep a stockpile of parts right off the bat for new model year vehicles is atrocious.
We have 2 vehicles. Both had an electronic problem. One we took to a garage (We were away from home) one we took to dealer (In town we live in). Both told us parts were not available from the manufacture (Back ordered) Both places found remanufactured parts. One took 5 weeks to fix one took 3 weeks to fix.
What an absolute disgrace.......the over-the-top techno crap that's being churned out by automakers these days is disgusting.
It's nothing to do with that and everything to do with them trying to pass the risk onto suppliers rather then themselves by not keeping enough product on hand. If they buy 10,000 bumpers and sales fall off a cliff, they need to slow production and sit on those bumpers. If they buy 500 at a time, it's on the supplier when the sales dry up and they're stuck with however many bumpers they THOUGHT the car manufacturer was going to buy. During COVID, the manufacturers got burned cuz they assumed demand would dry up and cancelled all their orders, only for the suppliers to sell that capacity to other customers. So when the automakers said 'WAIT WAIT WAIT WE ACTUALLY WANT THEM NOW!', the suppliers said 'Sorry, chief. I already sold that manufacturing capacity to someone else. You're at the back of the line now.'
The US manufacturers took the Toyota 'just in time' system where in parts arrive just as they're needed in order to avoid storing things and make it more efficient to mean 'Brow beat suppliers into holding the bag when we change our mind.' only to get burned and then blame everyone but themselves for it.
In the mid 1990's I had a dodge Dakota that was only 2 or 3 years old. The gears in the rear end failed. I had purchased it used with no warranty. The part was unavailable. Chrysler had not made that spare part yet. I had to take it to a machine shop and have the parts made (VERY expensive). They did a great job but I sold the truck soon after. The idea there may be no replacement parts for a 2 to 3 year old truck forced me to reconsider and purchase another brand. It was close to 10 years before I bought another Chrysler product because of that.
Those Dakotas suck anyways
There's two problems with that. First, I bought a 1994 Dodge Dakota that was totaled in an accident. The owner couldn't get parts, so he took it to a transmission shop and had the differential replaced with something common -- seriously over-built for the chassis, but worked great. The other thing is that Federal law mandates stocking replacement parts for seven years from date of sale. Most States have their own laws, as well, regarding specifics of parts availability and service terms. Between those two, it should have been easy to find a prosecutor willing to become popular, since State and local prosecutors are elected!
Spider gears and pins in those would break sitting in the driveway getting a wash
You bought another Chrysler 10 years later? That is funny and sad.
I run into this issue with hvac equipment. Hard to get replacement coils, yet they are building over a thousand a day. They allot 1% of parts for repairs. That's it.
I’m a dealership technician. This happens A LOT, and I’ll never understand, since they produce millions of complete vehicles. The parts exist somewhere, that is a cold hard fact. They are just incapable of transporting the parts to the shop for install, for whatever mystical reason. Not okay.
So, Cadillac were acting like douche bags. You got a number of people conveying inaccurate messages with inaccurate times. C'est la vie.
The guy is looking to the wrong place to restore his losses. Until the car is repaired and the body shop knows the cost, the insurance claim on that vehicle can't be closed. Since the claim is still open against the liable party (if his claim that the accident was not his fault is truthful), then he can claim those monetary losses on the vehicle damage claim. The insurance company might fight him, but they at least can be sued and there is no question of a warranty that may or may not apply.
Waiting for Tesla body repair parts is just as bad. The local Tesla body repair facility has cars sitting for months with body damage awaiting parts.
Tesla is famous for it. I guess because people are still buying Teslas GM figured they could do it, too.
This is apocryphal FUDI. I had my 2020 Model 3 repaired at the Dallas Repair Center. Took 45 days for insurance company to gaslight me. Attorney got settled in 2 days. 6 days later I had a perfectly repaired car. Parts took 24 hours to receive.
Many years ago I worked at a body shop. We had one of the first Mercedes SL come in. There was a wiring harness going over the left front wheel that was smashed. The dealer couldn't get the harness. I decided to try calling dealers in Germany to see if they could get the harness. They couldn't. I asked them to see if they could figure out why not or or any estimate of how long it would take to arrive. I got a call back that the issue was that the output from the factory that made the harness was the limiting factor on how many of these cars could be made. Eventually the insurance company decided to pay for about two weeks of my labor to fix the harness. I made two soldered and shrink tubed connections for each wire in a bundle about 5" in diameter.
and it took you 80 hrs?
Yeah, I feel like they could absolutely fix a bumper if they wanted to, it's just that it costs a LOT more than just replacing it. You can find videos of people on TH-cam all over the world fixing REALLY messed up auto bodies to near flawless. It just takes 30 hours of labor before painting instead of just opening a box and painting.
@@WhiteG60 You can't do body work on a plastic bumper.
@@stargazer7644 You absolutely can with hot staples and flexible filler. There's videos all over youtube of people doing it. Like I said, it's just time consuming and insurance doesn't want to pay for that when you have to paint no matter what, so a cheap replacement bumper costs less. Search for 'plastic bumper repair'.
@stargazer7644 depends on what the damage is. I've had plastic bumpers repaired using plastic welding.
So much for encouraging people to “Buy American”.
ck toyota
Car companies should act like they want to sell you your next car. Our car is coming up on 15 yrs old. It looks as good as the day we bought it and has been well maintained. The dealer keeps bugging me about getting a new car, but I remember how painful it was when I bought this car.
I know the feeling. They don't even make the parts for my 90' Dodge Dakota LE have to even get custom v belts made.
Steve, can't he pursue a claim against his insurance company to total the car due to it can't be repaired ?
no
A bit of inside baseball here, I retired from the (formerly Saturn) Spring Hill plant, and we made our own fascias (bumper covers) in Polymers.
Line, or "Direct" material and spare parts were kept separate, and in general the Direct Material parts were made in sequence with "The Schedule" (which set out specs for a red one, a blue one, a green one, two door, four door, etc. You get the idea). The fascia would be made and then would be be sent to Paint Fascia where it would get painted and then sent back to Polymers for assembly.
The assembly included the bumper frame, the padding, any lighting and sensors in the bumper as well. Fun fact, at one point the assembly in Polymers was done in sets of five in reverse order and loaded up on a trolley to be towed to General Assembly (aka "GA"). This was just one method GM used over the years to build and deliver parts to GA for assembly. This changed based on models and if the part was being made on site (not these days), or supplied by a vendor.
So, given that the parts are built in order, a bad part delivered to the line would require that the line be stopped, to wait on a new part. Or the job (car or truck) could be "Set out" until the new part show up. Alternatively the job could be run down the line and ignored where it would be towed to Final Repair to be (eventually) finished. All of these options are a disaster for plant throughput. Back in the Saturn days we valued our downtime at $5,000 a minute.
It shouldn't take much imagination to see that one does not simply pull spare parts from the feed to GA. Ever. Well, maybe once. Right before GM kicks your butt right out the door.
So what about spare parts?
Back in the day, Saturn, er, GM had extra injection molding machines and it was a simple matter for GM to pay a crew to make spare fascias for storage in SSPO (Saturn Spare Parts Org IIRC). Boy, did we ever have extra machines. But that's another story.
Given that these days GM is out of the injection molding business, I would track down where they are now made, and get the name of that company. What you are likely to find is that they are being made by a company that operates on a shoestring and can barely fulfill their commitment for supplying Direct Material, let alone spares.
Not being a lawyer, my approach would be to check to see if the suppliers were holding up their end of the bargain. And more importantly, if GM was holding their feet to the fire to complete the terms of the contract.
Or..., if they even included requiring spare parts to be built as part of the contract to the supplier in the first place. Since it is not outside of the realm of possibility that GM accidentally omitted this requirement since its addition into the contract with the supplier would likely cost GM more money for something not inherently value-added to the corporation.
So, depending on what you find, the argument could be made that GM is selling defective products if they can't be repaired (for at least ten years or whatever the requirement is), because of either omitting the inclusion of spare parts into the system for cost reduction purposes, or ignoring the lack of them being delivered to prop up an under-performing supplier.
Good hunting!
refreshing that it is not another HERTZ horror story,, GM went to hell after Mr. Goodwrench retired....!
great source for hard to find "parts" are recyclers......
lol,,,,,,,,,,,,
Mister good wrenchs replacement*** misr china Pliers. So soly😢
GM must be trying to lose customers and go out of business. Might be expecting another government bailout if things get bad, so why do their jobs properly.
Parts availability issues are why I'm not considering GM vehicles for future purchases. Among other issues, I need to replace the dashboard pad on my Sierra, but they're not available new anywhere, and the only option left is to pull one from a junker at a salvage yard. It's ridiculous that I can source new parts much more easily for a 1975 GMC pickup than I can for a 2002, plus the older ones are FAR easier and FAR less expensive to work on. I can't imagine the situation will be getting any better as time goes on.
I was under the impression that the manufacturer was required by law to make parts available for 7 years.
Is that the case?
They are making the parts. They just aren't selling them.
no, old tale. they don't have to make any parts available.
Parts are available, they're probably making all of them they can today, but they choose to send them to the factory vs repair shops.
They're not discontinued parts, they're back ordered. Different situation.
No, the only parts support requirement is around emissions system components, manufacturers can stop everything else anytime they want. Stellantis does so 5 minutes after the last example leaves the assembly line
It happens, I bought a 2021 Denali during Covid. A deer ran out and I hit it. Cause the seatbelts to lock up, broke the right headlight, bent fender and bumper. It took 3 months to get parts. The insurance company literally a fire and started contacting parts houses nationwide because they were about to have to total the truck because they couldn’t get parts and were tired of paying by rental for 3 months. So I lost three moths of warranty while it sat at the dealer waiting for parts to repair it and not drivable.
Call Jay Leno and he will have one custom made within a few days.
There's a couple on ebay available right now.... for like 2k
😆
I should call BS because GM and all car companies are required to house spare parts for ten years. This story doesn't make sense, but I'm sure it doesn't to the owner, too.
That is just crazy. A friend bought a totally new Buick many years ago and was in a wreck a couple of months later. Insurance insisted on repairing it. They took over 4 months due to parts not being available. Luckily the dealer let her borrow a car. They ended up taking parts off another car in inventory to fix hers. It ended up costing more to repair than the car cost new!