Bad news for new Camaro owners

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by NAIDANAC A

The best part of all this, is that YOU NOR I NOR THE POSTER knows whether it was "super early" means "pre" or "fully production". I just made scenarios which could've happened.

Yeah, but knowing GM, that's unlikely.

GM has a history of letting "early purchasers" be beta testers. Going off their past behavior and not having any reason to think the author is lying, I suspect that what he repeated is exactly what they said - an early production part, intended to go on a customer car.

It should never have gotten past pre-production checks.

[MadCat360]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

Not just everywhere, inside the brake caliper itself... which will probably get a layer on the disc, too. And that's really not the worst problem with that.

The problem is when it cools again.

Well, the brake disk is spinning quite fast, I doubt it'd stay on, if it didn't just fall off the back of the caliper harmlessly...

If you don't like the weights so much, why not just take a screwdriver and pop them off?

Honestly, one frayed wire (probably a freak accident), a cracked nose on a pre-production model and some stray wheel weights are hardly legitimate reasons to bash GM.

My Honda's starter motor exploded at 15k miles, I didn't chew out Honda did I? Everyone expects things to be perfect these days.

[TomCat]

But ultimately GM knows about the problem and it's been fixed. Whether or not they should have delayed these media test cars with the old front valances, is a matter of opinion. So long as the problem is fixed before the customer cars are delivered is the most important thing. The biggest problem with the front valances cracking is simply the perception of negative build quality, rather then the reality of the situation being that most Camaro's won't be seeing 155 MPH anytime soon, which would really make it a non issue. If anything GM could have simply lowered the rev limiter to 130 or 140 MPH, rather then reinforcing and improving the valances.

As for the location of the battery cables fraying and shorting, I'm surprised that problem wasn't found out sooner. Say what you will about the amount of time GM has spent developing the car, but we've been seeing camo car/spy pics of Camaros on the streets for years. For the battery cable never being a problem seems odd. But everybody knows there are teething problems with first generation first year models.

[Dogbert]

Originally Posted by MadCat360

Honestly, one frayed wire (probably a freak accident), a cracked nose on a pre-production model and some stray wheel weights are hardly legitimate reasons to bash GM.

While true, it's hard to stop the Internet Hate Machine.

[MattD1zzl3]

Originally Posted by Spectre

You know, the guy who bought your XJ12 showed up on the Jag forums (I think). He had the fuel pumps and other problems fixed in about two hours.

See, he bought something called "a factory manual" which included "wiring diagrams." This aided him in resolving problems.

It ran and drove when i sold it, didnt mean it was fixed. That car is pure trickery, it gets fixed long enough to break something else.

Link please i'd like to see what the cars up to, is it the one with ruined paint?

I needed an excuse to get rid of it, i have too many cars

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by MattD1zzl3

It ran and drove when i sold it, didnt mean it was fixed. That car is pure trickery, it gets fixed long enough to break something else.

Link please i'd like to see what the cars up to, is it the one with ruined paint?

He didn't post pics, and all he said was that he'd bought an XJ12L "in rough cosmetic shape" from some guy in FL who also had a beat up 4th Gen Camaro late last year. I subscribe to the forum via email (don't ask, the people running this particular forum are really screwed up and hate modernizing), so I don't have a link, sorry.

FYI, they *all* have ruined paint at that age unless they got a respray. All the late 70s and early 80s Jags used this miserable thermoplastic (yes, thermoplastic) paint that cracks, chips, and falls off. So "the one with the ruined paint" doesn't mean anything.

[MattD1zzl3]

Hmm, i know that's an amazing coincidence but mine was with me until a month ago.

-_- Camaros are very popular in Florida, sadly. And cheap jags are everywhere because of all the dead and rotting old people that leave them behind! Car ran fine sometimes but had electrical faults and i could not get it to cool for the life of me.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by MattD1zzl3

Hmm, i know that's an amazing coincidence but mine was with me until a month ago.

-_- Camaros are very popular in Florida, sadly. And cheap jags are everywhere because of all the dead and rotting old people that leave them behind! Car ran fine sometimes but had electrical faults and i could not get it to cool for the life of me.

I could be off on the date. To be honest, I don't pay much attention to the noobs' first posts which usually run along the lines of "hi, I have x, I'm going to do y to it" because quite often that's the first and last post they ever make; after a while, all such posts run together. See that one weird Jaguar post down in the Q&A section - for some reason the Jaguar culture has a lot of that sort of strangeness (person asks question, then never comes back for the answer).


Overheating issues or air conditioning?

[MattD1zzl3]

Overheating sir. Bad bad overheating.

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRacer

Tell you what, you build a car from scratch, mass produce it, then tell me how it goes.

I'm not defending GM or saying it's a good car. But, as a general rule, you never buy the first year on any new model because of the very reasons you see here. No amount of development is going to stop weird shit from happening when you mass produce a complex machine such as a car.

How many problems did the Veyron have? This thing was in development almost as long really...

So, basically, GM is just slapping on substandard parts to get product out the door, and they'll fix it later??? Way to let your customers be unpaid beta testers without informing them.

So they are using the Microsoft approach

[Labcoatguy]

Originally Posted by prizrak

How many problems did the Veyron have? This thing was in development almost as long really...

The Veyron had problems because it was groundbreaking for a road car. This thing doesn't have anywhere near that excuse. It's a parts-bin special using completely established technology that has absolutely no excuse for falling apart.

[MadCat360]

Originally Posted by Labcoatguy

This thing doesn't have anywhere near that excuse. It's a parts-bin special using completely established technology that has absolutely no excuse for falling apart.

Yeah, and it's not. One frayed wire. One. On one car. Out of thousands.

It's disintegrating.

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by Labcoatguy

The Veyron had problems because it was groundbreaking for a road car. This thing doesn't have anywhere near that excuse. It's a parts-bin special using completely established technology that has absolutely no excuse for falling apart.

That was my point, Veyron, to my knowledge, had very few issues and it is basically a one off. The Camaro has been in development for like 5 years and its having issues.

Yeah, and it's not. One frayed wire. One. On one car. Out of thousands.

It's disintegrating.

I'm part of a local auto club. Most guys are drifters so they run 240sx's. One has an LS2 in it, no problems at all. One dude in his garage, used motor, took him a year to get the car in perfect running condition.

Another guy with an RB25DET, not sure how long it took him but to date he only had one problem, blown turbo, due to the way he drives it.........

These are people working in their spare time

[Ramseus]

I blame the lack of aerodynamics on the nose cracking. A brick with bricks bricked onto it.

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by Ramseus

I blame the lack of aerodynamics on the nose cracking. A brick with bricks bricked onto it.

Didn't seem to be any problem for any of the old school muscle cars....

[MattD1zzl3]

Because those were made of metal, not lightweight material.

Face it guys its a freak occurance teething issue on a brand new sports car, its not the end of the world or even uncommon or unexpected.

[Wizegui]

Originally Posted by Labcoatguy

The Veyron had problems because it was groundbreaking for a road car. This thing doesn't have anywhere near that excuse. It's a parts-bin special using completely established technology that has absolutely no excuse for falling apart.

It's not like the Veyron had two Volkswagen W8 engines, a Volkswagen key fob, or an AWD system that's found on various VAG products. I'm not saying the Camaro should have these problems, but it's not like its the end of the world (obviously until bigger problems arises).

[MattD1zzl3]

Yea when wheels start falling off or engines start failing regularly you can make a thread, but an electrical problem and a molding fault on super-super-early versions of a brand new car are not a tragedy.

[MacGuffin]

Next thing I expect to hear here is, that it is normal when cars won't start in cold, wet weather

The whole thing reminds me of the 1950's or 1960's, when car making still was a bit of trial and error. But we're in the 21st century now and faults like those described above (and especially GM's solution for solving them!) simply don't happen anymore in modern parts of the automobile world.

Looks to me like GM is still doing trial and error when launching new cars, letting their products ripen after they go on sale - the banana principle so to speak. But I guess when you are a big enough fan of something, no flaw or defect can spoil your perfect world of bliss and harmomy

But you know, there are reasons why GM has been bankrupt for some time now and other car makers aren't...

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by MattD1zzl3

Because those were made of metal, not lightweight material.

Face it guys its a freak occurance teething issue on a brand new sports car, its not the end of the world or even uncommon or unexpected.

But here is what I'm wondering about. GM has a wind tunnel, or at least an access to one right? Presumably the car went through wind tunnel testing and the problem should have been caught, surely they can model wind resistance at 155 in there.

As others have said it's only a big deal because of how long the car was in development and all the promises that GM made on it. If it were introduced like any other car no one would really care that much.

On the flip side the ZR-1 didn't seem to have any of those problems and it spent much less time in development.

Next thing I expect to hear here is, that it is normal when cars won't start in cold, wet weather

The whole thing reminds me of the 1950's or 1960's, when car making still was a bit of trial and error. But we're in the 21st century now and faults like those described above (and especially GM's solution for solving them!) simply don't happen anymore in modern parts of the automobile world.

Looks to me like GM is still doing trial and error when launching new cars, letting their products ripen after they go on sale - the banana principle so to speak. But I guess when you are a big enough fan of something, no flaw or defect can spoil your perfect world of bliss and harmomy

But you know, there are reasons why GM has been bankrupt for some time now and other car makers aren't...

BMW's 335i had problems when they first came out. A friend of mine had the dealer take the car back under lemon law because it kept breaking. Again issues are not uncommon at launch for ANY car, problem here is the hype that GM created over the Camaro.