Aron9000

GM is notorious about not keeping a good supply of parts at the dealer and completely discontinuing support for models once they change body styles, especially something like this Buick, where they aren't going to sell a ton of them. Trust me, I've owned 4 GM cars and have dealt with this. Ask anybody that has a quirky GM car that wasn't built in the states(like a Holden) if it was easy to get parts for, even when the car was only a couple of years old.

mmarshall

GM has to follow at least the Federal standards for parts-availability on current and discontinued vehicles. Perhaps their complaint is with the regulations themselves and not the actual company.

tex2670

I don't know what the regulations are, or if GM actually follows them. But companies are free to do more than the bare minimum of what's legally required in order to have a better customer experience. So--the complaint, in this instance, would lie square on GM.

Aron9000

This. Your Porsche dealer still carries parts for you 1977 911. Might not be in stock, and might cost a fortune, but they can get them for you.

The main thing if you buy this Buick, and say you get in accident and need a new door. Sure the dealer can get you one, it will take about a month to come in from China. At least that was the experience for people who owned Aussie built Holdens(GTO, G8). Turns out it was easier to just get genuine Holden parts from a 3rd party company than try and deal with your Pontiac dealer.

Toys4RJill

Nice assumption, but that is not exactly how it works.

MattyG

I sure hope that no Monaro/GTO owner decides to crash their car and be in need of a door panel. What is likely going to be needed is attention to that rip-roaring LS1 Corvette engine. And that is no further away than your local Chevy store

Porsche is a different case, because they still make the 911, and it's in their interest to stock parts. But with the Monaro, it was a strange twist on bringing a marketing name to a far-away car that turned out to be a hidden treasure.

I guess what I'm saying is you can't maintain a parts inventory for just 32000 cars made over barely two years. Drop in the bucket even for a muscle car redux.

mmarshall

How can you say that? Have you actually ordered any auto parts from China, and waited for them?.....which is not likely for your Corolla, since it was probably North-American made. Also, the context of the post was for an Envision, not a Toyota product.

Toys4RJill

Where exactly did I say, mention, or imply a Toyota product or Corolla?

mmarshall

In response to Aron9000's comment about getting parts from China in about a month, you called it an assumption and said it doesn't work that way. On what grounds do you make that statement?

The Corolla was only a hypothetical example when I asked you if you yourself had ever ordered any parts from China...that's apparently the latest vehicle you own.

MattyG

The Envision could be construed as an experiment by GM's management. Already Canadian auto-workers and their union are getting signals that GM would like to shift their jobs to Mexico, or back to Opel in Germany and maybe couple of idle plants in the U.S.

If you have a markup on $25 -35/hour vehicles made in Canada and in the U.S. You can certainly imagine what GM executives are thinking when they can pay Mexican workers $5.26/hr and Chinese workers even less - like $3/hr.

The Regal will be discontinued after this production year. The Terrain/Equinox twins can be shifted south. The Impala, well that's a different question. But really if you are shifting global production around in the name of profits, you can shift parts manufacturing around to meet it.

Will the cost savings on retail cars be passed on to consumers? Not likely.

But... you have a made-in-China Buick and you can get made-in-China parts for it. How many folks on here buy and window-shop parts online? I bet they're made somewhere other than your postal code.

Not a Buick fan but will the consumer at the end of it all really care if they see quality and reliability? It's not a bad looking car, innocuous and inoffensive. Price it right and you will see the buyers come and look at it.

Aron9000

Well I will admit that my point about parts being hard to get for the Chinese made Buick is an assumption, based on how GM has does things in the past. Keeping an inventory of parts lying around costs $$$$, and you know how much of a flint-nose cheap company GM can be. But who knows, I could be wrong.

Toys4RJill

You are wrong. It costs more money to ship an individual part to a dealer for a repair all the way from China. GM is a massive US company and parts is a huge business. GM will keep a certain supply of parts for a car in the USA regardless of where the car is made. In some cases, it will be difficult to get the part and it will have a wait time.

1. Not all parts for the Envision will originate from China.

2. GM is not in the business of making people wait months on end for a part especially for warranty they do care about making customers happy

Finally, a GM dealer is not ordering the part from GM directly. They are ordering it from the distributor of GM parts for the USA or Canada. In the US, it would be GM USA.

chromedome

GM will definitely keep commonly-repaired parts in a US warehouse. It doesn't make sense for them to ship individual parts from China when needed. Hopefully you won't need rare parts though; that could take a month by sea freight. I've had to wait months for Fiat Powertrain Tech parts to arrive from Italy using air freight... the damned warranty paperwork took ages to go through.

Aron9000

This is the exact type of nonsense that I'm talking about that Buick Envision owners will encounter. Lets say that GM shipped 200 radiators over from China for this car, assuming some cars will be smashed in the front and need a new radiator. Well guess what, you're number 201 who needs a radiator, GM didn't keep a good supply(once again, keeping inventory costs $$$$), your radiator will be over in the next shipping container with 200 more radiators from China next month

chromedome

Yeah, that will definitely happen. Luck of the draw, I guess. GM won't send a radiator by air freight from China just for a single customer.