Abraham Lincoln was famed for his honesty and integrity, so much so that he was known as “Honest Abe.” If America’s 16th president were alive today and opted to pursue a career as a car salesman, he’d feel right at home working at Burlington Chevrolet, located in southern New Jersey just outside of Philadelphia.
Here’s why:
GM’s Chevy Colorado, a mid-sized pickup truck, is among the problem-plagued vehicles sold under the leadership of CEO Mary Barra within a year of her assuming command. Trade press articles and online forums are chock full of horrifying allegations about the vehicle. Consumer Reports ranks the Chevy Colorado among the least reliable of any vehicle.
The Colorado is included in the half dozen or so nameplates cited in damning lawsuits snaking their way through the courts that allege GM knowing sold vehicles with faulty transmissions that can cause vehicles to “slip, buck, kick, jerk, and harshly engage,” leading to unpredictable and erratic vehicle performance.
Drivers have described the gear shifts as so violent that it feels as if they were hit by another vehicle. The massive litigation involves roughly 800,000 vehicles. In addition to the Colorado, other GM models outfitted with allegedly defective transmissions include the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Silverado, Corvette and Camaro, and the GMC Sierra, Yukon, and Canyon manufactured between 2015 and 2019.
Barra assumed command in 2014, and a year later GM agreed to a deferred DOJ agreement that allowed it to escape criminal prosecution for concealing a potentially deadly safety defect from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) that resulted in the deaths of 124 persons and 275 injuries. The agreement imposed on GM an independent monitor “to review and assess policies, practices, and procedures relating to GM’s safety-related public statements, sharing of engineering data, and recall processes.”
The transmission lawsuits allege that GM advised its dealers to tell customers that harsh transmission shifts were normal. The folks at Burlington Chevrolet aren’t on board with that deception. The dealership features on its website this blog post by automotive consultant Adam Gillrie that includes some remarkable candor one doesn’t typically associate with car dealerships.
Ready?
The Colorado has seen a fair share of issues of the years, and these issues are with the Power Steering, Transmission, Engine, Drivetrain, and AC problems. While these problems are known, drivers still consider the Colorado a reliable vehicle, giving it a 4.0 out of 5 in terms of reliability.
Taking a closer look at the issues will reveal their severity. Starting with the power steering, if this problem happens to you, you’ll notice that your power steering will fail. This will make it harder to control your vehicle, and if you’re traveling at higher speeds, it can be problematic.
The transmission has some problems, and while it’s not as bad as an outright failure, this will cause your vehicle to shake. This problem can be annoying, but it’s better off to try and have it taken care of as soon as possible.
The engine has a few problems, ranging from leaking oil, to complete failures. The oil has two problematic areas, one being the engine itself, and the others are in the lines. The engine had reported to have problems starting or dying by itself.
The drivetrain shares the same issues as the transmission, but that’s as it’s tied to the transmission. Some other issues that have occurred for the Colorado’s drivetrain are chattering, as well as thumps as the truck starts up.
The AC also sees some problems. While not as dangerous as some of the other problems, this one could make it unbearable to be in your truck. This problem causes either your AC to blow either only hot, or only cold air. While here in New Jersey, blowing only hot air in the winter doesn’t sound too bad, when those temperatures start to rise, that becomes a problem.
It’s unfortunate that Burlington Chevrolet isn’t a Lincoln dealership because the latter brand was named after the American president and could rightfully rebrand itself as “Honest Abe Lincoln.”
GM under Barra has notched yet another damning lawsuit, the latest involving its failed driverless taxi subsidiary, Cruise, which Barra repeatedly said would generate $50 billion in annual revenues by 2030. Barra, who chaired Cruise’s board, closed the business late last year in the wake of one of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco striking and then dragging a pedestrian over 20 feet, severely injuring her.
The Biden Justice Department last November allowed GM to escape criminal prosecution for “providing a false record to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation” of the pedestrian incident, for which Cruise reportedly agreed to pay the victim more than $8 million.
A Michigan District judge has allowed portions of a class action lawsuit to proceed alleging that Cruise and GM made many material misrepresentations about the subsidiary’s autonomous vehicle safety and the robotaxis’ readiness for public, paid use. It quotes Cruise co-founder and former CEO Kyle Vogt – who publicly dismissed GM as “a bunch of dummies” – as stating in March 2022 that “from a technical standpoint, there’s basically zero incremental work to get to revenue.”
The lawsuit argues that GM’s claims about its robotaxis being fully autonomous were false, citing the pedestrian accident and other instances that required human intervention.
The New York Times reported that Cruise vehicles required human intervention sometimes as often as every two-and-half miles. The Intercept reported that Cruise vehicles struggled to detect large holes in the road where work by humans was being performed and had so much trouble recognizing children in certain situations that there was a reasonable statistical probability they could hit them.
The California Public Utilities Commission said it had received an anonymous letter from a person who said he had been working at the self-driving car company for a number of years. The letter warned that Cruise’s vehicles were regularly stalling at intersections and blocking lanes of traffic, and that employees had concerns internally about the readiness of the self-driving car company’s technology for commercial deployment.
Nevertheless, the CPUC voted to allow Cruise to expand its operations. Surprise, surprise: one of the five CPUC commissioners appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom was John Reynolds, Cruise’s former managing counsel.
Except for the Teamsters, I seem to have been alone in my concerns about Reynolds’ apparent conflict of interest.
In yet another display of the automaker’s systemic dishonesty, Ford has launched a campaign feigning American patriotism to clear the surplus of vehicles piling up on its dealers’ lots.
“For 121 years, we’ve put our money where our mouth is, assembling vehicles that Americans rely on and supporting American jobs,” Ford said in a statement. “Today, we’re proud to announce a new U.S. initiative that’s more than just a promotion. It’s a handshake deal with every American.”
Be forewarned: Anyone who accepts Ford’s “handshake deal” would be wise to count their fingers afterward.
Ford’s patriotic claim is despicable and dishonest. While it’s true that Ford has more automotive plants in the U.S. and employs more UAW workers, when the engineering and parts of these vehicles are taken into consideration Ford arguably is nearly as anti-MAGA as GM — Mexico’s biggest vehicle manufacturer — if not more so.
Cars.com every year publishes its rankings of the most American-made vehicles. The rankings aren’t based solely on where a vehicle is manufactured, but incorporate other critical considerations such as parts content, engine and transmission origin, and U.S. manufacturing workforce. In its 2024 rankings, Honda and its luxury Acura brand captured nine of the top 20 spots, Toyota and its luxury Lexus division captured four. GM and Ford weren’t represented in the top 20 spots.
Moreover, at least one of the vehicles Toyota builds in Mexico for U.S. consumers, the Toyota Tacoma, is designed and engineered in Michigan.
The most American-made Ford vehicle was the Lincoln Corsair, which ranked No. 29. By contrast, GM’s most American-made vehicle was its problem-plagued Chevy Colorado, which ranked No. 23. (Pretty sad that GM’s most American-made vehicle ranks as the shoddiest.)
Ford also has offshored higher-paying engineering jobs to Mexico, where it has the largest automotive engineering team in Latin America and proudly builds its electric Mustang, along with its red-hot Maverick pickup and Bronco Sport SUV. The company also employs more than 12,000 salaried employees in India, and last September announced plans to resume manufacturing operations in the country for export purposes.
Given Trump’s tariffs, there’s speculation that Ford won’t follow through on its plans, much like it reneged on its EV promises to Canada, and scaled back its promised job commitments for an electric vehicle plant in rural Marshall, MI, that local residents didn’t want in the first place.
Ford says it is offering all Americans the same favorable deals it gives to its employees and their families, but that might not be as sweet a deal as it sounds. I’ve seen online postings where people claim to have gotten better deals playing dealers against each other than the Ford employee rate. As well, dealers make more money on financing their vehicles, where they can screw consumers every which way to Sunday.
Buyers of Ford vehicles should expect their dealers will quickly seem like family and possibly will be visiting them with more frequency than most of their relatives. Ford leads the industry for safety recalls, increasingly involving repairs done on previous recalls.
Ford in 2022 agreed to a $19.2 million multistate settlement for exaggerating in its advertising the real-world economy of its hybrids and the payload capacity of its Super Duty trucks. The settlement clearly wasn’t much of a deterrent.