caddyowner

4000+ 2012 Chevy Sonics (now assembled in Michigan instead of Korea) have been recalled to check for missing brake pads. Per one of the comments, a GM assembly worker claims the assemblies with brakes already installed are made in Mexico.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011123...text|FRONTPAGE

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Mods please move this thread to the Recall thread thanks!!

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/car...ll-thread.html

97-SC300

iTrader: (17)

Wow... what else did they forget to install? That's embarrassing.

<VENOM>

Wow how crappy are these cars that you can't even tell when braking, but I wonder how my people passed on a sonic cause the brakes felt not right

mmarshall

If those cars got off the assembly-line without pads (assuming nothing else in the brake-system is missing), then it would be easily noticed by a loud scraping-noise on the rotors, or, more likely, by the "screechers"..........the built-in nubs on the calipers that, when they contact the spinning rotor from worn-out pads, make a high-pitch screeching noise. That, of course, is designed to keep one from continuing to drive with missing or worn-out pads and damaging or destroying the relatively expensive rotors.

BTW, I was very impressed with the Sonic I recently reviewed. It is far and away, IMO, the best subcompact GM has ever built, and light-years ahead of the Aveo in powertrain and road-manners, though the top-line Aveo LT2, IMO, had a very plush small-car interior with nice wood trim.

JessePS

Sorry officer I couldn't stop my car, seeing GM forgot to put the brakes on them.

caddyowner

According to a story I heard on Detroit radio today, the problem was discovered during maintenance by a rental car company.

STIG

Brake Pads were optional.

<VENOM>

The craptastic quality of Domestic cars is unbelievable, when I worked on cars I saw more then a handful of GM cars with calipers wearing into the rotors, complete metal on metal and the owners did not have a clue, probably due to the cheap quality GM consistently keeps putting on their cars, if you were impressed with a sonic, by all means go retest it and see if the braking performance just improved

KillaIS250

iTrader: (1)

Talk about cost cutting

mmarshall

Well, it's true that usually test-drive and review brand-new cars, not those with tens of thousands of miles and a lot of wear on them. And, yes, in the past, GM and Chrysler have left a lot to be desired in vehicle quality and design. If you think that the cars you worked on in recent years were bad, you should have seen some of the real GM/Chrysler crapola of the late 70s through the late 1980s....(Volare/Aspen, X-cars, Omni/Horizon, K-Cars, etc....). I actually owned some of that junk (too much of it, until I learned my lesson). So I know exactly what you are talking about.

But this is not the past.....this is now 2012. And some companies that produced some real junk in the past (like the GM cars you worked on) are now producing respectable quality (as Hyundai and Kia have shown). GM itself has also shown some improvement, though they still have some lower-than-average reliability in some of their vehicles. Chrysler, in just the last couple of years since Fiat took over, has shown enormous improvement in fit/finish, interiors, powertrain refinement, and in making vehicles that are pleasant to drive, but it is still too early to tell if that will also translate into better long-term reliability.

Still, even if the Sonic does not prove a lot more reliable than the Aveo it replaces, it is still a far nicer vehicle to drive, and light-years ahead in its road-manners. The only thing the Aveo had going for it was a nice plush interior in the upmarket LT2 version....not much else I can think of.

Aren't the "Screechers" [low-pad-wear indicators) supposed to contact the rotors and give off a loud noise before that happens? Or were they just driven by people who were half-deaf?

DustinV

Careful, Marshall, the "enthusiasts" would disagree with you.

To them this is the best Chevrolet subcompact GM ever produced.



Why? Because it is RWD!

-J-P-L-

Wow. Wouldn't this be as noticeable during transport as say, missing 1st and 2nd gear? I mean seriously. Cars are tested by the automaker before shipment. They missed the grinding?

I had read that GM had to go to extremes to build this car in America and still make a buck. Didn't realize brake pads was where they'd cut back.

BNR34

iTrader: (1)

This is so awesome, extreme cost cutting?

And to think it take this long to discover, so some people are driving with a missing pad...........WOW

GS350Lexus

iTrader: (5)

I still dont understand how u forget to put brake pads