Detroit Automaker Bailout: Just Say No

Count me as one of the majority who don't think the taxpayers should bailout the automakers. The taxpayers have been subsidizing the automakers for decades, paying high prices to buy cars made by workers with overly lucrative contracts in companies ran by overpaid badly performing executives.

My sympathy for Detroit disappeared when Detroit showed no sympathy for me. In 1999 General Motors made a piece of junk car called a Buick Century. I bought one of those pieces of junk.

In 2004, barely 5 years old, the driver's side window ceased to work. This seemed a serious problem that should be a recall type thing. As in it's a bit dangerous to be unable to roll down your window.

It did not take much Googling to learn this was a chronic problem with this make of car. I took the piece of junk to a Buick dealer. They wanted over $500 to fix the problem.

I then found a Mechanic on the Go guy who came to my place and fixed the window for $200.

A week later the passenger side window stopped working. A couple weeks after that the driver's side window quit working, again, followed shortly by both back seat windows. The Mechanic on the Go fixed a new problem with the driver's side window, for free, and it was working again. For a short time.

Prior to the windows no longer rolling down, the piece of junk had developed a bizarre chronic problem of periodically not starting. I'd turn the ignition key and nothing. It could go weeks without this happening. I'd sit for up to 5 minutes, give or take, and then it'd start up. You never knew when you were going to be struck by the random ignition problem.

I took it to a GM dealer for the ignition problem. They had no idea what would cause such a thing to happen, but, for I forget how much money, they could test the components and try and find the problem.

Then there was the piece of junk's problem with over and over again the turn signal light would go haywire.

Now, did GM bail me out of any of these problems that were caused due to GM's bad car engineering? No. I bailed myself out by selling that piece of junk car.