General Motors has announced that it is recalling 400,000 2004-through-2006 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, and the 2006 Isuzu i280 and i350 vehicles. GM is on the fast track to being the "King of the Recalls for 2006". At their current rate, they should easily top all prior records.
In the midst of financial woes, one might think that GM needs to go back to the drawing boards on quality and maybe teach its accountants a thing or two about economics too ... but it ain't necessarily so, so to speak.
GM plants rank high in "initial quality" studies and some GM models rank high in a recent "dependability" study. So how does one of the largest corporations in the word do both, high in quality and high in recalls? It's all a matter of how you look at it.
GM cars and trucks have fewer than industry average problems but, strangely enough, the same 2005 model year study says that Lexus, Jaguar and BMW (in that order) all beat out GM in having the vehicles that have the fewest problems. And what nameplate has the most problems per 100 vehicles built? Suzuki "bottoms out" the list, just slightly ahead of Mazda, with the often-more-expensive Land Rover nameplate just slightly ahead of that. Given the Land Rover's cost, one would think the average quality level would be much higher than it is reported to be. Maybe you should check out the report before you go shopping for your next new car or truck.