GM musings

Okay, seriously, I will go into the tissue culture room when I'm done with this post and get some work done. I am just not feeling very motivated this morning.

I grew up as a peripheral part of the General Motors family. My mom's sister worked for United Auto Workers (UAW), and then re-married someone that worked for GM. So my mom was able to participate in the employee discount program. Through her, I bought my first car, a Pontiac Sunfire.

It was a great little car where I didn't have any problems with it. I had it for about a year before I got into an accident where it was written off. I had heard about the problems with GM cars in the long term, but I didn't think that would have been a problem with the Sunfire.

That was over three years ago. My mom again, enrolled in the employee pricing program to help me get the Pontiac Vibe. I really wanted another Sunfire, but was told that the Sunfires were being discountinued. The Vibe was a new model, and I was hesitant to get a new model, but went with it.

The reason I went with it was because of the fact that the Vibe was more like the Toyota Matrix. I figured that it being more Toyota than Pontiac, it would not give me trouble in the long term. The first six months I owned it, I had to take it back to the service station for various little things that drove me nuts. Some of them they wouldn't even fix.

I read today that GM has been able to improve the long term durability of their cars, but they still retain the image of flimsy cars. I'd like to believe it, but since my car is more like Toyata than Pontiac, I can't say for sure. I just find it funny that the Sunfire was phased out, even though it seemed to be a more durable car.