The trucks prove that GM can build a good vehicle. But it also highlights the questiong "Why don't they?"
The only GM car I've had was a 1996 Saturn. It was a decent car, but just not quite as good as the other cars I've owned. After I had it for five years I'd have to drop it off the the mechanic every few months to pay him a few hundred dollars. Nothing major, but I just got tired of things like a bad brakes, blocked sunroof drain, bad brakes, a leaking radiator, bad brakes, bad alternator, did I mention the brakes?, burning oil, failed clutch master cylinder, bad ignition switch. My previous Mazda needed a thermostat replaced, a snapped exhaust bolt, and had a twitchy radio that was too expensive to replace, but other than that it was just regular maintenance.
I had a Mazda that didn’t even have a thermostat and we drove from Sarasota Florida to North Georgia without it. We just had to run the heat on high the whole way, but we weren’t walking.
I haven’t been able to abuse other cars like I did that poor Mazda.
Once I get a car I like and it is realtively trouble free, I heep it until it dies or I get tired of it. I kept my 1966 LTD until it had 200K miles (the C6 tansmission was bullet proof). My ‘77 Cougar had 175K, the 97 Skylark had 150K when the timing chain broke causing a piston to break a valve. Now that I have a few years ownership with my ‘04 Taurus, I expect to keep it for about eight or ten more years.
I just wish Dodge had passed on the idea to put a Mitsubishi engine and tranny in the ‘89 Caravan. Yeah, let’s talk about Japanese engines in Caravans and Voyagers.
The worst car I have encountered was the 1986 Pontiac 6000 I bought for the daughter. That was a POS, not piece but pile. It was bought used with 45k miles, it began falling apart after 60k mies.
I submit that “dealer maintenance” is part of the problem. If the brakes keep going bad, try non-dealer parts.