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Thread: General Motors - who is fooling who?

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    Bronze Member Sieg's Avatar
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    General Motors - who is fooling who?

    An open letter to

    1. The President and Managing Director of GMSA, Mr. Stevan Jeffrey Koch
    2. Mr Dion Coulentianos, chairman of the GMSA Dealer Council.

    Dear Sirs

    I refer to your large advertisement which appeared in the Mercury newspaper on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 (and which graces the home page of your website at http://www.gmtotalconfidence.co.za/usreinvention/ ) which I read with some wry amusement.

    To paraphrase that famous quotation by President Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool some of the General Motors vehicle owners some of the time but you can’t fool all of those owners all or some of the time.”

    I am the owner of an Opel Corsa LDV 1800 Sport 2004 model purchased at your local dealer, Key, here in Pinetown in September 2006. The purchase of this vehicle was a disaster from the start. Your dealer “forgot” to install items ordered (such as the security film and paint protection) and paid for. Your dealer misled me about the personalized number plate I had ordered and paid for and never delivered (they ultimately had to refund me some five months later, by cheque, which took two weeks to clear). There were numerous problems with the vehicle, from rusty brackets on the canopy, to marks on the exhaust pipe, rusty tow bar, bits falling off the bull bar, rattles and so on.

    The vehicle went back to the dealer some 11 (eleven!) times from date of delivery during the next four months thereafter. [And personal items were removed.] It apparently went to the dealer’s “panel shop” twice and came back looking like a sad second-hand bakkie instead of the “dream bakkie with all the extras” that I had paid for. I later found out that the “maintenance agreement” entered into and paid for was nothing of the sort. It was merely some clever form of insurance. I was also misled about the interest rate on the financing by the in-house person at your dealership. All of this was reported to GMSA and is very well documented. I recently discovered that I have even been misled about the supposed “run-flat” tyres that are not so: the sticker put on by your dealer stating “run-flat” is also a misrepresentation.

    Your statement in your advertisement that you will “continue to provide full sales and after sales backing . . including honouring all warranties” is taken with a heavy pinch of salt. You see, at 16,000 kilometres, the water pump on my vehicle packed up. Your company’s “excuse” for NOT honouring its warranty was that I had taken the vehicle to another to have serviced [I was certainly not taking the vehicle anywhere near to Key Pinetown as had been made clear to yourselves and this Key lot. You have no other dealer in the near Pinetown vicinity.] Your clever in-house advocate in his letter to me even makes a statement that “ . . GMSA never supplied [me] with a defective motor pump . .” Well, Sirs, how does your clever advocate and the rest of you even know that the water pump is not defective when you haven’t even inspected it? [That pump will be undergoing metallurgical failure testing by the CSIR and as soon as the report is received, your company will receive a summons with a claim based on the Actio Legis Aquilia. Your clever advocate chappie should be able to enlighten you on this legal action.]

    You also claim that you provide “world class level of service”. No, gentlemen, you do not. Just ask Mr. Jaco Van der Merwe. You know all about him because that was the case that you lost solidly hands-down in the Appeal Court (Delta Motor Corporation vs Jaco Van Der Merwe case number 0183/2003) [You will remember him: the Worst 4 X 4 by far? See http://www.my4x4.co.za/Eng/index.html] You also have the audacity to say that you “appreciate the loyalty of each and every one of our customers. We take our commitment to you very seriously . .” No, gentlemen, this is a misstatement. I have a number of GM customers who will willingly tell you that what you have said, is not so.

    In any event, it seems that, despite your protestations to the contrary, there will be dramatic changes at GMSA. Hummer is already gone, is it not? To China? [You did not mention that in your ad, naughty naughty, aren’t you?] Opel seems to be the next to go. Why, in the same newspaper’s Business Report section on the same day as your ad, there appeared an article about Magna, the Canadian parts maker, which is to take over Opel. The German government and the Russian GAZ are involved. Now, if GM is hiving off Opel, then surely that leaves GMSA without Opel? Or have you done a deal that you haven’t disclosed? Please give us the true facts, people.

    And I, for one, am not fooled into believing that there is anything like “total confidence” at GMSA. On the contrary, there must be a lot of worried people there. And I, for one, would not under any circumstances purchase any GM product at the moment. I am not crazy.

    Yours faithfully,
    Siegfried K Heiriss
    Pinetown, Kwazulu-Natal
    6th June 2009

  2. #2
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Take that General Motors SA!

    Feel any better Sieg?

    I wonder if the problem isn't that Key Pinetown dealership. I got warned off them by my electrical partner when we made the move from Nissan to Opel for our LDV/utility fleet. We've been dealing with Emond Auto instead without any problems.

    Well, not any problems - that water pump does seem to go from time to time and the other bug Opel could work out of the utility is the windscreen wiper motor issue. But Emond Auto has been attentive and fixed any issues without a murmur.

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