I don't understand the personal economics of California

[Andre1969]

I had an 85 Silverado as well. It was silver and blue, Cowboy's colors. Biggest POS ever produced by GM. Everything on that truck broke, I mean everything from the power windows to the torque converter, even the paint failed after a couple of years. Last GM I purchased....

Did yours have the 3-speed or 4-speed automatic? Mine never had a lick of transmission trouble, but it has the 3-speed, which is a fairly rugged, durable unit called the THM350, and dates back to 1969, I believe...an era when GM usually got things right from the get-go. I think the 4-speed unit was called the 700R4 and while it was supposedly based on the THM350, it wasn't just that former transmission with an overdrive gear added. Rather, GM found a way to go through it, redesign it, and "modernize (i.e., cheapen) it. And sadly, they never did seem to get it right. In later years, it was revised again and called the L4-60E or something like that. My uncle had a '97 Silverado that ate two of them. Even well into the 2000's, Edmunds.com did a test of a Silverado wit that transmission, and it failed during their testing.

That transmission was one of the things that swayed me from a Chevy/GMC to a Dodge when I bought a new truck in 2012. I just wanted a fairly cheap, basic truck, but if you got that at GM, you were still stuck with that same transmission. But, as Karma would have it, the transmission in my Ram has been a sore spot. It hasn't actually failed, but I don't like the way it shifts...sometimes it seems slow to react. It also stalled out on two separate occasions in the driveway. At first I didn't realize that was transmission-related, but then one time I started it, and it seemed really lethargic. It got me to work, but I noticed it wasn't shifting. Turns out it had gotten stuck in 4th gear somehow, and wouldn't upshift or downshift. I turned it off and on again, and that reset it. That was probably what made it stall the other two times. It pulled that 4th gear stunt one more time, but that was about two years ago, and the problem hasn't come back.

Paint was a funny thing back then, too. I'm guessing your blue/silver was metallic...and metallic just didn't hold up back then. It would get even worse in 1987, when they switched to more environmentally friendly paint. Mine is red/white, but non-metallic, and still fairly shiny, after 30 years. It's getting weak though. If I wash it, it'll turn the water red!

Also, I remember the driver's side power window motor being the first thing to fail on our '85 Silverado. But, that wasn't until it was about 6 years old.

 

[Walt34]

I had an 85 Silverado as well. It was silver and blue, Cowboy's colors. Biggest POS ever produced by GM. Everything on that truck broke, I mean everything from the power windows to the torque converter, even the paint failed after a couple of years. Last GM I purchased....

Mine did have the paint failure, but it wasn't something I was terribly concerned about at the time, it being more of an irritation. But the truck itself was very reliable and that was my main concern. I don't remember doing more than the scheduled maintenance on it. Oh yeah, it did need an A/C compressor once but that was it.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

I had an 85 Silverado as well. It was silver and blue, Cowboy's colors. Biggest POS ever produced by GM. Everything on that truck broke, I mean everything from the power windows to the torque converter, even the paint failed after a couple of years. Last GM I purchased....

One could change the brand to any brand and someone would still have the same results.

My Toyota 1995 SR5 V6 pickup? Gutless wonder and a sinkhole of money. Will never buy another Toyota....


I own a Chevy pickup now...happy as can be!

 

[travelover]

One could change the brand to any brand and someone would still have the same results............

When I worked for Megamotors, I got a new lease car every year. My then wife drove said lease car, but was embarrassed to have a new one yearly, so we ordered the same model and color every year. It was amazing how trouble free some cars were and what a POS others were even with virtually no changes in design between model years. It is almost as if problems are statistically driven.

 

[Andre1969]

When I worked for Megamotors, I got a new lease car every year. My then wife drove said lease car, but was embarrassed to have a new one yearly, so we ordered the same model and color every year. It was amazing how trouble free some cars were and what a POS others were even with virtually no changes in design between model years. It is almost as if problems are statistically driven.

What's really sad is that you'd actually have some cars that would end up being a POS after just one year! But, those were the days...

And I guess even today, you can still get stuck with a lemon. The last real turd I can remember anyone buying was my co-worker, who bought a 2000 Lincoln LS V-6, which was the first year they came out, and a joint venture between Ford and Jaguar. He had coolant problems, transmission problems, and something else I forget, all within a year. It was so bad that he got the dealer to take it back and give him a very good deal on a 2001 LS with the V-8. That one was troublefree, but he was spooked enough that he traded it before it hit 50,000 miles, and started leasing Acura TLs. He drives about 80 miles a day, so I'm sure the monthly payment is killing him, especially with that kind of mileage rack-up. Before that 2000 LS, he wasn't afraid of keeping a car to high mileage. He had two Mark VIIs before that, an '87 and a '92. Both bought two years old, and both run up to around 175-180,000 miles or so.

Oh, and back in the 1990's, I had a friend whose mother bought a new Plymouth Acclaim, and the engine went out on it before a year was even up. I don't remember the details, whether it got lemon-lawed or anything like that, but she ended up replacing it with a Geo Prizm I think.

 

[Drake3287]

You think San Diego is bad, try visiting here in the Bay Area! It certainly has to do with salaries, I just retired from a California city and you wouldn't believe how much they paid me, including my now retirement. It's almost sickening when people ask me about it.

The average private vehicle where I worked was anything from a $40,000 pickup truck to a $50,000 BMW, the general public was even driving nicer vehicles. Whole different world out here.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Yes, I think people coming from Wealthy cities like San Diego and San Francisco are just going to have more wealth than the average folks from Rural Indiana or Kansas are going to have. There is a lot more opportunity for higher wages and for Small business owners to tap into the wealth of the area. Wealth begets wealth and small town poverty begets poverty.

I don't care how hard working or innovative you are, if you are located in Rural Mississippi or Alabama you are just not going to have the opportunities that people in Cities in California have. LBYM just isn't going to cut it! There are always exceptions, but if you are just looking out over the entire area, you are going to see this.