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About 2 weeks ago, a little light showed up on my dashboard. No big deal. It was just telling me I was low on coolant. You’re supposed to replace it after about 150,000 miles and I was at 140,000. No biggie. I got the coolant, replaced it, and went on my merry way.

About a week and a half later, that same light came on again. Uh oh! Could it be a sensor problem? Maybe a small leak in the radiator? Who knows? I took my 1999 Chevy Malibu to Firestone to have it checked out. 4 hours later, one of the mechanics looked at me and just shook his head. He said:

“Well, it’s not the worst thing it could be, but it’s pretty bad. And, it’s not your fault or the car’s fault. Whoever built this engine should be put in prison. The manufacturer built this wrong and it’s a defect. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it. Even though they should, GM won’t recall these vehicles. And unfortunately, you have to pay a lot of money for their mistake.”

Turns out, the manifold intake gasket has been blown and my coolant is mixing with my oil. Well, that “a lot” of money turned out to be $921 worth of “their mistake.” I did some searching online and found out there is a petition going around with signatures from 11,000 angry GM owners who are experiencing the same thing.

The whole issue has really got me thinking about ethics. GM made a major mistake. But instead of fixing that mistake, they chose to ignore it. Now, there are thousands of angry people who have been affected by this mistake. Do you think they will ever buy a GM car again?

It would be different if it was a random issue. But this isn’t random and has nothing to do with a warranty. GM made a legitimate mistake but has not been willing to admit it or make their wrongs right.

The mechanic also told me that several years ago, Toyota experienced a somewhat similar problem. However, Toyota went above and beyond expectations to fix the problem. Toyota started fixing problems on cars that weren’t even covered by the warranty. Even though they weren’t being required to fix the problems, they admitted they were wrong and wanted to do what was ethically right, even at their own expense. 

I would love to say this story has a happy ending. It would be great if I could tell you GM heard my cry and fixed everything for free, but that isn’t going to happen. It would also be great if I could tell you I traded my Malibu away and got a Prius that has air conditioning and a gas gauge that actually work (Yeah, another manufacturer’s problem!). Sadly, this is reality. $921 are gone…and for today…so is my car! 

But hey, at least I had a $10 coupon!

Tags: 1999 Malibu, Chevy, Ethics, Firestone, GM, Prius, Toyota