Emergency Brake Ripoff - key warning

[sad-lumina-owner]

The emergency brake cables were replaced on my /94 lumina only 4 years ago. In fact, the cables themselves are in great shape. ( I was charged $100 plus labour for two rear cables at that time)

There's only one snag. the single adjustment nut, located about halfway up on the drivers side has a long threaded shaft and nut, but the threaded shaft is rusted out completely and the nut is hardly recognizable. Even if it could be turned, it would just crumble the threaded shaft.

Had this one small part of the e.brake cables been greased, it would be like new, and still adjustable. Go to your cars, and grease that thing, because otherwise you will be forced to buy a whole new cable.

My emergency brake is non-functional and can't be tightened, because of this designed-in Achilles' Heel (and the designers were heels too).

There is no other place where some slack could be safely removed the required amount to make them work.

I may try to add another bracket and take my chances, because its a scarey thought that if the hydraulics failed I'd have no brakes at all, other than slamming it into PARK and losing a transmission.

Inspect your emergency brake lines, they're right under the driver's door. If that bolt/nut is dry and rusting, take some quick preventative action now (cover them with grease), and test your Emergency Brakes.

I hope you avoid my dilemma.

[jeffcoslacker]

There is a turnbuckle e-brake adjuster under every car ever built...when are you gonna stop ripping on the Lumina?

If you don't like it, sell the damn thing and buy a Honda. Since you live up north, it will be a rusty hunk of crap one day too.

We don't have problems that bad down here. Drive in a lotta salt slush, and get a lotta undercarriage rust? Who would a thought it? Someone didn't keep it clean...that's not gM's fault.

Here's a tip, check the subframe cradle to body mounts...they're probably ready to drop the cradle out on the road. Happens a lot on northern-driven Luminas that didn't see enough washes in the winter...

[jeffcoslacker]

PS putting an auto in park while moving does nothing to slow the car, it does strip the park pawl real quick though.

If you put a propane torch to that bolt and heat it until it glows yellow, that nut will move, and the bolt won't break..done it thousands of times in the shop. It must be glowing hot though...dink around while you grab the wrench and let it cool down to red, it'll snap off...

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by jeffcoslacker

There is a turnbuckle e-brake adjuster under every car ever built...when are you gonna stop ripping on the Lumina?

If you don't like it, sell the damn thing and buy a Honda. Since you live up north, it will be a rusty hunk of crap one day too.

Who's picking on the Lumina? or even GM?

A bad design is a bad design.

A bad design on purpose is a criminal act.

You misunderstand. I own a GM because I'm in North America, and it used to be a good car manufacturer. I own a Lumina by sheer accident. I don't doubt that if I owned any other GM, or any other car, I'd have a similar list of problems.

If every civil engineer built bridges that fell down all the time, killing people, they'd all be incompetant and criminal both.

Just because I happen to sue the one who kills my family near my house doesn't mean I don't want to see them all hung.

Similarly, when I say for instance that Cheney is a mass murderer, I don't want you to think that therefore Hillary Clinton, McCain, or Obama AREN'T criminal psychopaths capable of mass murder.

Likewise, if I were to suggest that the CIA sells drugs, the FBI covers up false flag state sponsored terrorism like the WTC, and the ATF commits mass murder of women and children in WACO, I wouldn't want you get the impression that other cops who taser arrestees are honest.

engineers and the companies who hire them have no excuse. They aren't uneducated bumpkins who can't use a calculator to give the bottom line.

They know exactly what they are doing when the order comes from headoffice:

"That part lasts 70,000 kilometers. Make it last exactly 60,000 kilometers instead."

We don't have problems that bad down here. Drive in a lotta salt slush, and get a lotta undercarriage rust? Who would a thought it? Someone didn't keep it clean...that's not gM's fault.

"..down here." What kind of a jackass attitude is that? Jesus didn't answer the guy who asked "Who is my neighbour?". He said, ask instead, "Who can I be a better neighbour to?"

"...that's not GM's fault."

But it's GM's plan and GM's choice to look the other way when mechanics all over North America fail to include a simple step when you pay for a Lube and Oil. Is it the customer's fault when they PAY FOR a LUBE and the mechanic doesn't bother to do what is obviously mandatory?

When I pay a mechanic to look after my car, he f**king well should look after it, not ignore problems and profit by his neglect.

By /94 (or earlier) GM (and others) started removing grease-nipples from tie-rod ends and other components, KNOWING that these parts would then wear out and fail, sometimes indeed killing people on the highway.

And mechanics got to shrug their shoulders and say, "Its not OUR fault.", and pocket the savings by using less grease while charging more for their services, and making more money doing needless repairs.

Here's a tip, check the subframe cradle to body mounts...they're probably ready to drop the cradle out on the road. Happens a lot on northern-driven Luminas that didn't see enough washes in the winter...

And here's a better tip. All you Lumina owners (especially Canadians) should get a thorough bottom shampoo, heat and blow dry it, and then have a spectacular undercoating job done, because the manufacturer of the car SHOULD HAVE DONE SO BUT DIDN'T, even though they are in the best position to do so when the car is made.

And if Ralph Nader had any real balls he'd have forced all the car manufacturers to include that as a safety and quality requirement.

And all imports that didn't meet those standards would be disallowed into the USA, saving jobs, and keeping the quality of life and standard of living as high as it was in 1950.

[spytearbite]

Now, that is a Lumina owner (is S-L-O) all write tee then. You know the COE of Firestone back in the 1960's had a batch of tires that would separate from the main casing. CEO said, "keep selling them!" was the corporate decision. Congress came down hard on that idiot is now Firestone is no longer an American company. GM is on the ropes is poor decision making for that all mighty right or wrong buck is you bought it, now eat it or re0engineer it.

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by sad-lumina-owner

"..down here." What kind of a jackass attitude is that? Jesus didn't answer the guy who asked "Who is my neighbour?". He said, ask instead, "Who can I be a better neighbour to?"

.

Huh?

Managed to read more into that than what I intended. Not totally surprsing.

What I meant was south of the snow belt, I live in Missouri. And you don't have to be a mechanic to know that the farther north you go, the worse corrosion issues get on vehicles. It's easy to spot the cars whose owners don't bother to spray the bottom off a couple of times each winter...they look like they've been sitting on a lake bed for years when you look at them from the underside.

Cars from Michigan, Minnesota, Northern PA, etc. always have a different look to them from the underside. You can spot it instantly if you've been under thousands of cars in your lifetime. And it just gets worse the farther you go...I once bought a '76 Chevy Nova Concours that originally came from Ontario, sold to an owner in Detroit, then found it's way down to Missouri, where I purchased it. I only wanted the 305 and tranny, wasn't interested in the rest of it. But had to marvel at the level of complete decimation underneath it though...door skins with their spot welds and crimps eaten away, skins flapping the wind, holes through floor, trunk, wheelwells, etc, subframe mounts completely gone, you could feel it come up and hit the body under your feet when you ran over a bump or braked...rear axle shifted sideways from rotted locator bolts...it was an accident looking to happen...couldn't belive someone was driving it like that...

You seem to think automakers should be putting the kinds of triple redundancy and fail safe "every scenario covered" engineering into cars that you would see on say an F-18 or something. If you want a car that costs $41 million/each and takes 15 years to develop, I'm sure they could oblige. Otherwise it's a slow evolution, things get improved once they've shown themselves to be needing it. Things that work are left alone.

I just don't get your attitude. Cars are mass produced machines. they are reasonably well engineered, for the most part.

In any kind of mass production, a reasonable level of safety engineering is put forth, and from there you pay attention to what parts are showing early failure rates, and improve design as needed. Service parts are updated all the time to address trends toward early failure...like the rear caliper guides on your car...the new set you buy (if you got good parts and not the cheapest you could find) are made in a way to prevent the common problem of corroded guides causing calipers to seize...s - early 90's GM cars had issues with rack and pinion seal surfaces that was done way back in the 90's when it first became an issue.

Notice they don't have the torque convertor lockup issues they all had at 70-80,000 miles back in the 90's...the design was improved, you never see one with TCC issues anymore...

Cars are built to run in an average environment. That means if you drive on cratered roads with salt bath 5 months a year, it's gonna wear faster than the one driven in Oklahoma or something. No mystery, bad engineering or conspiracy there, just the nature of machines. If they build it for every contingency, it's also gonna cost you five times as much.

Far as sealed tie rod ends and ball joints go? They go 150,000 miles before needing replacement, from what I've seen...and as a licensed state safety inspector for 10 years I've looked at thousands of them...that's longer than the greasable units lasted even with good maintenance. Again, if you have long winters, bad roads and lots of corrosive bath, that's gonna change.

The upshot is that even with less than ideal maintenance, the average new car will go 5-6 years and 120,000 miles without any major failures...my '97 has seen 140,000 hard miles, runs like new, uses less than 1/2 quart of oil between changes, doesn't leak, smoke or sound any different than when new, and in that time I've replaced one alternator, one water pump, a throttle position sensor, and a serp belt. Replaced the plugs at 115,000 miles, although visually they were still acceptable. Done front brake pads twice, the rear shoes are still O.E.

Any comparable car from 20 years before this one was built would by now have marginal compression, a completely played out timing chain and gears, be using a fair amount of oil, have many major fluid leaks, the hoses would have all had to have been changed at least once, would have been through several sets of caps, rotors, wires, and plugs, would have had at least one A/C system major component failure, the radiator would need replacement, the load bearing ball joints would be completely slopped out, brake calipers, master cylinder, rotors and hoses would have been replaced at least once, the tranny would probably be in need of a refreshing if not a complete rebuild, etc, etc...and it would have weighed 500 pounds more and made 20% less horsepower for the displacement, and gotten 3-4 less mpg.

I guess I coose to focus on what's right with auto design, not what's wrong. I find it amazing that any one system as complex as a modern car can go a year without something going horribly wrong, much less 10 or more...

Try to think of any one type of mechanical, electrical, computer based or hydraulic system that can work 10 years without a major failure, then try to think of one that blends all of those and more together in a mobile unit with thousands of individual parts exposed to extremes of heat, cold, vibration, shock, corrosive elements, dirt and operator neglect/abuse, but still keeps coming back for more each day...

You can't...cars are unique and amazing...

[RollDBlunt]

I live in Saskatchewan with my lumina and she barely has any rust (bottom of fenders). We're smart and don't salt our roads. Who cares if we slide all over the place learn to drive!!! :-)

[4x4 blazerguy]

Boy this is quite a thread. All this because a bolt rusted. We have a 93 Lumina we are in the west but we get snow & salted roads our Lumina looks great. It only has 247,000 mile though. Maybe when it gets some miles on it it will turn into a piece of crap.
I'm a retired mechanic & I have never seen the perfect engineered car YET. I have worked on Mercedes, & most European & American cars not to mention the Japanees cars. Flaws can be found in ALL of them.
I agree if you don't like your Lumina unless someone has a loaded gun to your head telling you, you can't sell it then SELL THE DAMN THING. Why own a car you don't like. Our Lumina is bullet proof. Do I have to fix things YES.

[DnaProRacing]

luv my lum. has a rebuilt everything. 217,000 miles and still going strong. southern car, 16 years old and no rust, anywhere. used to live in NY, all the cars I owned up there were undercoated first thing, its just something you do without thought...

[sad-lumina-owner]

I like my Lumina. I never said I didn't. I like GM. It employs people in North America.

Thanks for the many monologues in praise of gasoline cars.

Your harrangues and putdowns however don't negate a single thing I've said.

Nor have any of you even addressed the issues I raised, such as the question of preferring PLANNED obscelence in pursuit of profit over quality and durability.

Nor have you attempted to be honest about greed, and dishonesty, and corruption, which is rampant throughout our economic and political system.

So your comments have no real effect at all on the discussion.

Its IRRELEVANT that "cars are wonderful examples of complicated engineering".

Its IRRELEVANT that "we don't salt our roads here in Texas" (or Saskatchewan).

Its IRRELEVANT that "you can always buy a different brand".

Your comments are so irrelevant that to offer a longer response would itself be irrelevant.

The reason I am keeping the Lumina is simple. Its the only economic choice I have. I can't afford to buy another car, even if I thought that some other model, brand, or manufacturer was marginally more honest or delivered a marginally longer lasting or more reliable product.

I continue to fix this car, because like MOST other car owners, the cheapest thing I can do on many levels is just to fix the f***ing thing.

That doesn't make it a great car, or magically turn oil executives into honest citizens concerned for my rights and liberties.

Don't try to sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. Your salesmanship sucks.

[4x4 blazerguy]

Keep It Simple. It Is Easier.

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by DnaProRacing

luv my lum. has a rebuilt everything. 217,000 miles and still going strong. southern car, 16 years old and no rust, anywhere. used to live in NY, all the cars I owned up there were undercoated first thing, its just something you do without thought...

It may be something you do without thought, but you don't do it without money.

Whether its $60 or $200+, its cash, time, and effort.

I have actually spent the last few weeks painting the bottom of this car, first using up a quart of black gloss enamel, then buying a $8 quart of John Deer Green Rust-paint, and applying it with a brush. Although a cheap solution, it is hardly an easy or fun one.

As anyone who has tried jacking up their car and spending 4-6 hours under it with a paintbrush knows, its dirty, messy, takes forever, and covers you with shite and sticky paint. I've gone through a half-dozen brushes, And the cleanup so far has taken a half-gallon paint thinner, and an extra half-hour per day.

So lets say the true cost of undercoating is more like $20 in materials, and 20 hours in labour. I don't know how you value your time, but mine I would like to put at $50-100 /hour, when I'm doing something that requires training, brilliance, and technical knowledge.

Is it cost effective to paint the bottom of your car with a paintbrush? Yes, if you have no more disposable income to spend on this thing, like me at the moment. If I had $200 lying around, and did not foresee any future economic emergencies, I'd probably fork out for a 'proper' undercoating.

I have tried paying to have the underside sprayed with oil (another cheap solution around here), but that had no real effect on the key places where the body rotted out (in front of the stabilizer bars) on my pontiac bonneville.

So I think there's more to it than mere undercoating.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but these cars are DESIGNED to rust at just the wrong place, so most people are forced to scrap them and buy new ones.

[Blue Bowtie]

Rants and missives aside, it all comes down to one thing - Reading the owners manual.

I have lived in the salt belt for over 45 years, where the 140" of snow is quickly turned into 140" of slush by the over-zealous road maintenance crews with salt trucks. Along the way, I have learned (sometimes, the hard way) that the phrase "Read and follow label instructions" applies to more than just spray paints, shampoo, and fertilizer. Once a year, the body is supposed to have an inspection and lubrication. That's more than just spray lube on the door hinges and a wash. There are rubber suspension bushings, body mounts, seals, and even those pesky cables to be checked. Just like those bridges are supposed to be inspected and maintained if they are going to last, your car cannot be expected to take care of itself.

As anyone who has tried jacking up their car and spending 4-6 hours under it with a paintbrush knows, its dirty, messy, takes forever, and covers you with shite and sticky paint. I've gone through a half-dozen brushes, And the cleanup so far has taken a half-gallon paint thinner, and an extra half-hour per day.

I have done that to all my vehicles when purchased new,and maintain that paint accordingly. My 1986 Pontiac doesn't even have rust on the springs and axle, although it avoids salt. The daily drivers get the same treatment, and a bit of due diligence goes a long way in keeping them sound.

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by Blue Bowtie

Rants and missives aside, it all comes down to one thing - Reading the owners manual.

...I don't see how at all.

9 out of 10 used cars (I've never been able to afford a new car) I have bought came without any manuals. I learned what I could over 30 years by talking to mechanics, and mostly other owners. There weren't even any good repair books that were easily accessible, never mind any internet.
If you were lucky, a garage might let you look at their "Chiltons" manual for a few minutes.

Salesmen are unreliable (if not downright dishonest), and car manufacturers have been inaccessible.

Glad it all comes down to something so simple for you.

...

(A) Along the way, I have learned (sometimes, the hard way) that the phrase "Read and follow label instructions" applies to more than just spray paints, shampoo, and fertilizer.

(B) Once a year, the body is supposed to have an inspection and lubrication. That's more than just spray lube on the door hinges and a wash. There are rubber suspension bushings, body mounts, seals, and even those pesky cables to be checked.

Just like those bridges are supposed to be inspected and maintained if they are going to last, your car cannot be expected to take care of itself.

Again, somehow your "B" doesn't follow from your "A".

What you describe in (A) should be the responsibility of any and every mechanic who does a "Lube and Oil", and claims to do a '16 point inspection' or whatever wonderful package deal they offer at x time and x place.

Its not the responsibility of the owner at all. Every owner shouldn't have to micro-inspect and micro-manage every mechanic he hires to do a professional job. If that were the case, he might as well do the job himself.

But that is just not practical for little old ladies or handicapped, or the young and inexperienced.

What IS practical, and IS required, and IS a reasonable expectation, is a professional standard in this profession (mechanic) that demands integrity, honesty, care and diligence, and a work ethic that guarantees that work paid for GETS DONE, and done properly.

We shouldn't have to double-check and spy on every mechanic or garage that makes promises and claims. HONESTY and ACCURACY SHOULD BE THE NORM.

We HAD this standard, up until about 1970. We can go back to it again, by insisting on it, and punishing those who refuse to meet it by carelessness or greed, with criminal prosecution if necessary.

I have done that to all my vehicles when purchased new,and maintain that paint accordingly. My 1986 Pontiac doesn't even have rust on the springs and axle, although it avoids salt. The daily drivers get the same treatment, and a bit of due diligence goes a long way in keeping them sound.

Lucky you. Does your mother also get under the car once a year for a 100 point inspection and maintenance regimen? Or do you do it for her?