My first new vehicle was a 1993 Chevrolet K2500 Suburban. What a piece of sh!@#t. On our first trip with it, BOTH sid view mirrors fell off. The A/C would take almost an hour to cool the cab on a hot day and it had the rear AC option. I ordered it with the heavy duty 4L80 trans. & 4.10 gears for towing. The salesman said 10,000 lbs. was no problem........EVERY time I towed with it the trans. over heated & puked oil and I did not tow in OD. At 14,000 miles, the engine spun some rod bearings and was trashed. The dealer refused to replace the engine with a new crate engine and installed a short block. Did a crappy job. Power windows went out twice. The best mileage it EVER got was on a long trip and that was a whopping 16mpg. It was garage kept and spared nothings to be pampered. It continued to have many other problems. I tried to go through BBB to make GM buy that piece of crap back. GM refused and BBB stabs the customer in the back. I traded it in on my Dodge Ram with 48K miles on it. I was lucky to get $8500 for the trade in.

GM owes me $5000 plus 7 years interest on the $5000.

The Dodge Ram has been a damn good truck for an AmeriKan vehicle. I had the sterring box replaced at about 5000 miles under warranty. From there it was pretty much maintenance free. On the last month of the warranty the engine developed an occasional miss. Diesels DON'T miss. The injector pump was replaced under warranty. This is usually a $2500 to $3000 job. Then I come to find out this is well known problem because the fuel transfer lift pumps are junk and fail regularly and kill the injector pump. Fist I spring for the cost of a big line kit/lift pump relocation kit for about $200. Plus I buy a new lift Cummins pump which is a "campaign recall pump" to address the bad lift pump problem. Those pumps are just as bad. Next I spend $500 for an Air Dog 150 to fix the lift pump problem once and for all. Then I notice the steering started to get sloppy again. Come to find out ALL the Dodge Rams do this because of a poor design. Fork out $140 for a DSS steering stabilizer. Now it steers like a champ. In cold weather the engine will not maintain temp. Fork out another $37 for grill cold front louvers. ALl the dodge trucks have the crank case vent puke bottle on the front of the engine that pukes oil and crap all into the radiator and entire engine compartment not to mention under side of the truck.......it keeps the rust down. It only cost about $400 to get a kit installed to fix that or you can do like I did and eliminate the puke bottle and reroute the hose closer to the ground.

My friend had a 99 Dodge Ram with the Cummins. He notice that he started loosing coolant but nothing showed up in the oil or exhaust. Soon after he found the leak.....the engine block cracked. A well known defect known as the 53 series block. The deal say "sucks to be you". Cummins told him "we will be glad to sell you a new engine for $12,000 or we will cover $5000 of the cost for a new short block IF WE install it". A new short block was $9000 plus $80 an hour shop labor. My friend bought a new Cummins 5.9 block off of eBay for $1500 and rebuilt the engine using the old one HIMSELF. Before that he learned that 94 thru 2000 Dodge Rams with the 5 speed manual trans were crapping out because the 5th gear nut come loose! About $3000 later he installed his own NV5600, new flywheel and Southbend Clutch. Its a great truck now. Folks with 12 valve Dodge Ram cummins trucks have to pay to fix the "killer dowel pin" which is the front engine timing cover alignment pin that comes loose falling into the timing gears snapping off the cam gear and destroying the entire engine!

Fast forward to last week. My wife calls me to tell me here Ford Tarrrassss will not shift out of 1st gear. I am waiting for a OBD I code reader to check for any codes I may be able to fix but if the trans is bad.......spend $2000 or more on a car that is not worth $500. We had the ENTIRE transaxle & transmission replaced at about 28000 miles. It craps out at 167000 miles! I am told we were REAL lucky......most of these transmissions don't make it to 90,000 miles! We got almost 139000 miles out of ours......I guess we should feel proud?????

Bottom line..........AmeriKan cars SUCK! The quality and workmanship SUCK! I am real happy with my Dodge Ram BUT I has to spend thousands to get it to what I want it to be.

Some much for the "Big 3". When they build me a truck or car I can drive 200000 miles that is built good enough to stand up to a FULL COVERAGE EVERYTHING covered warranty (I'll take care of the gas, oil, tires, and brakes) MAYBE I will buy one AFTER I negotiate my best deal AND the dealer repays me my costs of previous crap vehicles they sold me!

The car manufacturers can go straight to HELL! Good riddance! They ALL need to go bankrupt so they can reorganize and make themselves competitive. No more $75 per hour jobs to install stereo knobs. NO JOB BANK! NO multimillion dollar CEO pay packages. 12 year 200,000 FULL bumper to bumper warranty which includes AUTOMATIC buy back at FULL purchase price OR new vehicle replacement for ANY vehicle with a warranty history of more than 3 problems.

I'm fed up and tired of getting screwed by the automakers. I bought the wife a 2001 Dodge Ram Cummins 4 x 4 to replace the Ford Tarrrassss. After I fix the problems I learned on my truck, we will have 2 great vehicles. I WILL NOT pay 50K for a pickup truck!

Since Big Brother is gonna bail them out......I think it only right that the CEO's be paid and hourly wage just like the line workers. NO OUTSOURCEING of ANY kind. NO IMPORTED parts of ANY KIND. Retirement pay should be in line with military retirement standards.

Its nice to dream. Don't hold your breath waiting for ANY of this to happen. NOTHING will change. The big 3 will get their money and the same old sh!@#t will continue.......at least until the house of cards collapses...........then you better pray the gun and ammo makers build better guns than the car makers build cars....

Rant over......I'm done........let the mud pies fly now! I sure feel better now. !

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