How the crap does general motors stay in business?
Good freaking crap. Their trucks have had me at my wits end today. Take the next left on. The first one was going back to that 2019 Silverado that had the completely busted oil cooler hose.
Based on the information that I got from general motors, the oil goes from the oil pump through the cooler lines first before it goes back into the engine, which means that if the oil cooler line breaks, then no oil goes through the engine at all.
Gosh, wouldn’t it make more sense to put that in reverse? So that if the cooler line breaks, you can at least keep going by keeping the engine full of oil?
Apparently, as it is, the young lady ended up driving it for six or seven minutes thinking that it was still getting oil because she’d put more oil in it, but apparently it wasn’t getting any oil at all.
😬
They had just barely gotten the truck back from having the transmission rebuilt. I think they have only 100,000 mi on the truck. And now the hose breaks and potentially grenades the entire engine.
And then you’ve got me out there working on it today trying to take everything apart, and it was an absolute nightmare. It took me two and a half hours just to get the cooler hoses off because of how they design the darn thing. It probably took me 45 minutes just to get the electrical connector off of the oil pressure switch that’s threaded into the cooler line housing. The switch is up where you can’t see behind it, and of course the connector clip that holds the switch connector to the switch itself is turned around backwards so you can’t see what kind of clip it is, so you have no idea how to take it apart, so I fought with it and fought with it unable to get it to come apart for like 45 minutes. I don’t know how long, actually, but it was a long freaking time, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 45 minutes.
I was at my absolute wits end.
I have got to stop working on on cars. My mental health just can’t handle it anymore.
Almost done. Almost.
I ended up cutting the hose and pieces in order to get it out, and realizing how absolutely massive of the nightmare was going to be to put the new one in, without disassembling the front end of the vehicle, and doing all that without having the luxury of having it up on a lift, I just threw in the white flag. After spending 3 hours working on that truck, I just wasn’t going to fight with it for another three or four hours trying to get the new line in.
So I gave up, didn’t charge him a penny, explained everything to him, left him a sample of his old oil, so we could have it tested if he wanted, packed everything up, lost a crap ton of money on that job, but at least I’m free of it.
Whoever works on a next will have the luxury if not having to remove the piece of crap part from the truck, and they’ll just put the new one in. Save them at least half the headache.
Yes granddad, I remember, “general motors junk!”
Car number two was a Lincoln Town car that wouldn’t start come and they just put a battery in it, so they figured it was the alternator, but it turned out to be a parasitic draw. And a really annoying parasitic draw to find. Kept changing over and over again. I would test, in a certain fuse would reduce the draw, but then the next time, it wouldn’t. I was able to get one of them to consistently drop the draw every single time, and that was the LCM. The LCM and those vehicles is known to be bad sometimes and cause a draw, so that makes the most sense. Unfortunately, the part is like $400, but my parts supplier can’t even get it. Vendor out of stock.
I spent almost 2 hours there, but I only build her for the service call, so after working for like 5 or 6 hours today, I’ve been paid for one. 🙃
My next job was a 2018 Chevrolet Silverado that wouldn’t start. I grabbed a couple of batteries because it was way out in the middle of the boondocks, I wasn’t sure which of the two sizes their truck was using. I thought about buying a starter, but I figured that it was a 2018, so odds of it needing a starter were supposedly minuscule.
Well, it’s general motors junk. I drove all the way out into the middle of nowhere, diagnosed it as a potential bad starter, then had the Dickens of a time getting the starter out, once again because the stupid connector was facing the wrong way, and it was a different kind of connector, and the plastic broke trying to get the connector off, which is what I spent so much time trying to avoid on the first Silverado of the day, and I spent a good little while trying to avoid that on this one as well, and finally it just broke anyway.
General motors freaking junk.
It’s so sad that American cars have such crappy quality. I don’t think I would touch anything general motors makes or anything Chrysler makes. I might be willing to buy a Ford, but I don’t know.
Electric cars can’t come soon enough, in my opinion. They are going to be so much better in pretty much every single way.
My only real concern was electric cars, is not being able to fix them myself easily.
Anyway, I just picked up the starter to put in this stupid Silverado.
Sorry for the complaining.
…
Finally got the starter put in. The connector for the ignition wire plastic broke off, so I had to rig the connector on, as I couldn’t go out and get a replacement connector. Should be on pretty darn solidly, though.
Oh my oh my, I am burned out.
It’s 7:21 p.m., and I’m not even going to get to the last job today. It’s been bumped to Friday, and that was easy to do because he was supposed to have scheduled last night, but he didn’t fill out the form until like 1:30 today, so makes it easier to bump him.
Oh man.
On the bright side, I found something great for my hill family for Christmas. 🥳
And I’m grateful to my hill brother Jim for going out and looking at it and taking care of payment for me. I very well might have missed out on it had he not been able to go out there and inspect it and then pay for it for me. I’m going to go pick it up probably Friday ish.
Oh! Another bright side, I did get to bed relatively on time last night, though I was a bit late because I was super excited about my friend having such a good day, so I didn’t get to bed exactly at my self-prescribed bedtime, but I got to bed relatively on time, and I even woke up earlier than my alarm for my morning routine. 🥳
I was very distracted during my morning routine, so I didn’t get much done, but at least I’m back on the routine. That’s a big win.
…
Well… There was a Facebook ad on Marketplace for something free that would have been great for Christmas on the hill here, and it was one of those ads where they promise you that they’re going to take the ad down as soon as what they’re giving away is gone, and they won’t answer any questions at all, so you just have to risk going over there and hope that someone else doesn’t get there first.
Well, They didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. After the last job, I drove all the way over to the house where the stuff was supposed to be, and it was gone. I wonder how many people have wasted their time like I did driving to the house because the people didn’t take down the ad.
Gotta be considerate. If you’re really not going to answer any questions, then you’ve got to stay 100% on top of the stuff you’re giving away. You could potentially be wasting hundreds, even thousands of people’s time.
Anyway…
Sorry, been a rough day. Not in the best of moods right now. It’ll be a win if I get to bed without doing something stupid.
G’night.
~ stephen
Lift the World 