What products won't you buy?

AngryCorvair said:

spitfirebill said:

A Chevy Vega ruined Chevys for me.  

To me, that's the same as "a chick dragged her teeth once so I'll never get another blerjerb from a chick."

Except it's not.  You have to pay good money for a car, and you have a right to expect it to be competent.  Presumably, you are not paying for the other thing, but if you were, you would have that same expectation.

1988RedT2 said:

AngryCorvair said:

spitfirebill said:

A Chevy Vega ruined Chevys for me.  

To me, that's the same as "a chick dragged her teeth once so I'll never get another blerjerb from a chick."

 

Except it's not.  You have to pay good money for a car, and you have a right to expect it to be competent.  Presumably, you are not paying for the other thing, but if you were, you would have that same expectation.

But comparing contemporary cars, the Vega was not much worse than many imported cars at the time, in the same price range.  The Vega's real big fault was that GM tried a rather daring cylinder coating treatment- so that the block could be aluminum.  What you are faulting them is that they TRIED something that Mercedes did, and it didn't work.  So the "ban" penalizes GM for trying something.

Other than that, what was wrong with the Vega?

AngryCorvair said:

spitfirebill said:

A Chevy Vega ruined Chevys for me.  

To me, that's the same as "a chick dragged her teeth once so I'll never get another blerjerb from a chick."

It wasn’t the POS car as much as it was the BS lying and runaround I got from the dealer and GM.  

And it it I had some good BJs before the teeth dragged, I would give it another shot.  If it was the first one,  probably not.  Or I would look for someone with no teeth.  

In reply to alfadriver :

For some reason American companies don't get the the same forgiveness of mistakes that imports do. My mother in law was a die hard VW fanatic.  She owned 5 in the first 15 years I knew her and each was an unreliable pile of crap frequently needing to make lengthy visits to the dealer for repairs that wouldn't be covered under warranty.  Bizarre electrical issues, leaks, on her Jetta a head gasket at 37,000 miles.  She was somehow able to convince herself that this was part of the experience when owning a finely crafted German automobile.  GM and Ford could never get away with producing the kind of crap that VW does and yet people are convinced that they ae somehow inferior cars. 

Getting back on topic modern VWs head the list of things I could not buy as I do not live within walking distance.

I refuse to give any of my money to Micro$oft.

Lol here's this "what do you refuse to buy" thread and right below it, "keurig coffee machines"... perfect. 

GM vehicles.  Worked for too many gm dealers.  Not faulting the dealers.

In reply to alfadriver :

I wouldn't fault them for trying something new.  I would fault them for letting their customers do the real-world testing to prove their defects.  If you're going to bring new tech to market, please respect your customers enough to make sure they're not spending their hard-earned money on a steaming pile of doo-doo.  And if the car still turns out to be a steaming pile, eat your mistake and do right by your customer. 

What was wrong with the Vega?  Short-lived engines and extremely vigorous rusting.  Isn't that enough? 

http://www.autonews.com/article/20111031/CHEVY100/310319922/the-vega%3A-an-unmitigated-disaster

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Again, in comparison to every other car of the era, the Vega didn't rust any worse than any other vehicle.  Import or domestic.  There were some terrible cars made back then WRT rust, so IMHO, it's impossible to really single out one car- other than perhaps Fiats, since they got really bad east European steel that already was rusting.

I agree on the engine durability, in theory.  It was a different era, though- both in dealer-OEM relationships and how durability testing was done....

Hondas- used to be the benchmark of reliability. My ex many moons ago used to have a honda civic. It was the most soulless appliance I've ever driven, and i drive a 23 year old corolla. Now they're over priced,  overblown, and tend to have trans problems. Pass. 

Apple- Nope. I understand the function. Ifyou just want E36 M3 to work, apple is the horse. But you'd better be ok with paying double the market rate for a comparable product, and have it only interface with other apple E36 M3, that also costs double. 

Olive garden- I'm not paying 15 bucks for a plate of pasta. I know better.

Ruth Chris steakhouse- the soup is a frozen bag. I know this, because at least here, I am their supplier. Same goes for places like fat ones, Bahama breeze, any domestic location of senior frogs, red lobster, and more I can hardly name. If you're charging me tourist prices, the food better not come out of my work freezer. 

Most macro beers. Coors, Budweiser, etc. Certain regionals (yuengling and grain belt in particular) get a pass. But between the absolute horrendous quality of product, and the fact that the goal is to crush the little guy- I can't do it. I tend to shy away from craft beer owned by them too,  so..say shock top and goose island. 

Flavored spirits. If you have to put a flavor in it, you make E36 M3ty booze. I'm looking at you,  fireball. 

One from back in the day- generic cigarettes. I had an ex that smoked pall mall. Seriously, if you're smoking garbage smokes because that's all you can afford, it's time to quit. 

Any menu item or product by guy fieri. Seriously, berkeley that guy and his stupid bullE36 M3. 

Anything from Chrylser, because of the E36 M3ty product that was that was provided to me.

Anything from Piaggio, because of the f--- you attitude taken by their customer service people on an otherwise great product.

Food from Swiss Chalet, blech.

Food from The Olive Garden. Salt.. In a salad.. berkeley you.

Interesting thing in this months Car and Driver magazine, Honda recalled 1.15 million cars this year due to a battery sensor that may short and cause a fire.  Had this been GM, the media would have been screaming from the hill tops...

There's a local machine shop the berked me twice. I won't go back despite the glowing recommendations from other people.

Anything with an overhead cam. I spent  7 years in hell with rattly timing chains and cramped engine compartments. Sadly I'll someday have to do it again as pushrods are nearly gone.

Apple products. Props for creating the iPhone and literally creating the consumer smart phone market but 10 years in all their products have become lifestyle accessories. Also iTunes is a terrible piece of software.

Beats products before they folded into Apple.

Financial products offered by Capital One, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America.

People need to learn to let things go. Life is better when you don't hold onto grudges for years or decades after an experience.

I don't really have any anymore. I won't buy a Ford for my personal use but we leased a Lincoln for the wife and I like it for what it is. So I guess Ford for me.

In reply to STM317 :

Normally I agree but cars are a bit of a special case due to a few factors. They're really heavily integrated into our lives and compared to the median salary very expensive.

So a situation like owning a troubled Vega or simply owning a Le Baron will cause most people to attempt to minimize their exposure to future risk. So they don't even look at a particular marqee for decades.

STM317 said:

People need to learn to let things go. Life is better when you don't hold onto grudges for years or decades after an experience.

No E36 M3. I agree with the BJ analogy. It smacks of closed minded bullE36 M3. Because someone had a bad Vega, then modern Volts are bad cars? Get a frigging clue. My housemate has a '03 Nissan Sentra I found for him for $1300. Great little reliable commuter vehicle. But it and all of them must be bad because one moron had a problem with a Nissan decades ago. 12 years ago (and many, MANY revisions ago) iTunes reorganzed someone's library (sorry, not buying that it did it by itself. I spend to much time with computer users to know that it's usually user error). so modern iterations MUST be horrible. Yeah, right. I've had no problems with modern iTunes keeping my library organized, and playlists intact, and syncing them with my phones (either my previous Motorola, LG, or current iPhone) so I can play them in the car. It LOOKS different every few iterations, but it's been fine for YEARS, and that's on a PC.

Kind of like not buying Japanese cars or German cars because we were at war with them almost a hundred years ago. It's just bullE36 M3, pure and simple, to make people feel better about their own biases. In this modern era it seems a badge of honor to be a closed minded twit. They're just things, made by people, and they can be good or bad and then change as the years go on. I've had over 130 cars in my lifetime, some good, some bad, often by the same manufacturer. I'll never let individual examples make me not buy something if it otherwise meets my wants or needs. Yes, being a brand whore or badge snob is bad, but so is the opposite, which I see a lot of here.

In reply to spitfirebill :

My nephew was driving a semi truck and we were joking about lot lizards.  His comment was you watch the ladies with all their teeth - they’re cops.  The real lot lizards have no teeth (drugs and E36 M3).  

Wally said:

In reply to alfadriver :

For some reason American companies don't get the the same forgiveness of mistakes that imports do. My mother in law was a die hard VW fanatic.  She owned 5 in the first 15 years I knew her and each was an unreliable pile of crap frequently needing to make lengthy visits to the dealer for repairs that wouldn't be covered under warranty.  Bizarre electrical issues, leaks, on her Jetta a head gasket at 37,000 miles.  She was somehow able to convince herself that this was part of the experience when owning a finely crafted German automobile.  GM and Ford could never get away with producing the kind of crap that VW does and yet people are convinced that they ae somehow inferior cars. 

Getting back on topic modern VWs head the list of things I could not buy as I do not live within walking distance.

 

 

 

This is a serious statement as his wife drives a Fiat 500.

I get being upset in the moment. But letting negative feelings fester from an experience that occurred years before isn't healthy. You can learn from an experience to avoid repeating it, and still not let it bother you a decade later.

How many people that were involved in the design and production of a Chevy Vega still work at GM? The last one probably retired over 20 years ago. Not going into Arby's since the 80s?! The kid that spit in your sandwich back then might be a grandparent now.

Its fine to look at current options on the market and decide that one or more don't meet your needs. But completely discounting them based on a label is doing yourself a disservice, and letting that bad experience from long ago still impact your life. I think if you don't consider all options, then you're only continuing to hurt yourself.

I understand letting things go, but how many times must you be burned before you walk away from the dumpster fire and let it consume itself?

The locally owned LowesDepot alternative is technically superior by any metric you wanted to measure it but I refuse to go there because I find their advertising insulting and irritating. 

The solvents and propane place by my house is off the list because of a long winded racist rant the owner went on to me the first and only time I stopped in. I only wanted some propane, not to hear how you think all Hispanics steal and all blacks are violent.

And macrobrews.

Appleseed said:

I understand letting things go, but how many times must you be burned before you walk away from the dumpster fire and let it consume itself?

I'm not saying that you should allow yourself to be burned repeatedly. Walking away is the first and most important part of letting go. If you can look at it and see that it's a dumpster fire, then by all means stay away. But if you walk away from something, you need to leave it in the past, and not carry that negative emotion with you.

Emotions are powerful. We can't always control them, but if you're not able to harness the emotion and use it to better your life then it's just a waste, or worst case it can poison your outlook and turn you bitter. Unproductive feelings should be allowed to run their course and then you move forward.

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind.  

AngryCorvair said:

spitfirebill said:

A Chevy Vega ruined Chevys for me.  

To me, that's the same as "a chick dragged her teeth once so I'll never get another blerjerb from a chick."

Wait that’s a problem?  

You learn something erryday.