I appreciate your perspective, and it's disheartening to hear that various brands are experiencing similar issues. It seems like the challenges in the automotive industry, exacerbated by the vehicle shortage and the impact of the pandemic, have taken a toll on overall quality and reliability.If your thought is GM is the only one with quality issues on some of their builds, you will be in for a rude awakening. Owning a business, we have a mix and match fleet, we used to be all GM until the vehicle shortage hit, then it was buy what we could find. The overall majority have minor, or no issues at all, but there are a few from Ford, Lincoln, Ram, Dodge, Toyota, and Nissan that are the same, in the shop more than they are on the road.
The parts, engineering, and QC just isn't what it was pre-Covid. When I look at the Monthly Fleet Repair cost per mile, which lists all of the vehicles currently inservice, my blood almost boils. Repair failures are up, as well as the cost to repair. The days of the cigarette lighter doesn't work, I replaced the fuse, has morphed into the cigarette lighter didn't work, which also disabled the defroster, heater, A\C, put the engine into limp mode, and the dash lit up like the Grisswalds house at Christmas, and the midbody electrical panel was replaced to fix it.
It's unfortunate that the days of simple fixes have evolved into more complex and expensive repairs, as illustrated by your example. The shift in the repair landscape is indeed frustrating for consumers and businesses alike.
thank you for sharing your insights.