Well rather than broadly throwing all GM cars into the pot, which would surely disrupt my argument unfairly, why don't we focus on the Camaro as an individual case? Lets look at it from the perspective of, what else has GM done that's similar to the Camaro that works? Is not the G8 on the same platform (correct me if I'm wrong)? Is that not a good car? What about the GTO? No one ever seems to cite that as crap. There's two near me, both owners seem quite pleased with them considering how many GTO-sized burnout patches litter the streets. That's two cars in the bucket with this platform that are good, so surely the Camaro must be given a reasonable chance.
The fact that there were already cars on this platform that *don't* have these problems tells me that GM screwed this one up.
Given all the development time and the fact that the G8 GXP rides on the same platform and has Brembo brakes, how the HELL do you screw up the engineering so that its platformmate needs wheel weights stuck to it? Given all the miles we've seen Camaro mules accumulating, how did they miss the wiring harness issue?
Nothing is perfect. Even the best cars in the world have niggly little faults, not unlike the Camaro has been having. If you've fallen prey to the hype machine, then I understand, but that's probably the worst place to come from when attacking a new product.
What, four years of hype plus $30 billion of my fucking tax dollars to come up with something that shows clear signs of completely avoidable engineering screwups should be excused?
The last time GM did this sort of thing, we got the Saturn SC1. Yeah, not great.
You're supposed to underpromise and overdeliver, not the other way around. If I tried running my business the way GM handled the Camaro, I'd be bankrupt... oh, wait.... GM is about to be bankrupt, never mind.
Edit: Perhaps I'm a little more incensed by this than others, because I'm familiar with a similar disaster that happened to my favorite marque, Jaguar. The XJ40 (88-94 XJ) was in development for at least
fourteen years and it turned out to be an utter disaster of a car. Jaguar seriously hyped the car, said that development got all the bugs out, and that it would be the best Jaguar ever. The first signs that something was wrong were minor - some exterior parts cracked, the brakes had issues (hmmm) and the much vaunted rear suspension had some "minor problems". Eventually the trickle of problems because an avalanche; the resulting sales drop caused Jaguar to sell itself out to Ford.
Let's see... extended development time, massive hype, lots of promises, "minor" problems on a car that was billed as perfect.... anyone seeing a pattern here?