Shawn Sorichetti

My wife took our van over to the dealer to get a lube, oil & filter. About 2 hours later the phone rings “The intake gasket is shot and it’s leaking coolant into the oil, and needs to be replaced”. This is the 4th GM vehicle we’ve owned that has required this work. The repair bill would have been $1100, GM offered to pay all but $200 of the bill. However….

Couple years back CTV did a story on GM vehicles that had were experiencing intake gasket problems. It included pretty much all cars/vans built between 1995 and 2003. There were several internal memos where this problem was acknowledged but GM would do nothing about it (there are several class action suits in progress). At the time my car was experiencing the problem and noting the van was also on the list, I called GM to complain.

They logged my complaint about the car, plus my concern that a couple months after the warranty on the van was up, the intake gasket would blow and I’d have to foot the bill yet again. They said they couldn’t repair something that isn’t broken, but they’d keep a record of my concern and should the time come, something would be done.

So I called and sure enough it was logged just as I said it would be, and the woman who took my call said she’d look into it and get back to me.

She later called me back and said they were doing everything they could and no further action would be taken. I informed her of the fact that I’d already expressed concern over this issue 3 years ago, and that I’ve paid for the same issue 3 times previously. That them not handling their quality assurance problems is not the customers fault and I should not be paying for it. She didn’t agree.

At this point I made sure she documented the fact that I would never be buying another GM built vehicle. That in fact my last vehicle purchase had been a VW to avoid the shoddy workmanship and general lack of quality in GM vehicles.

The part that kills me, is GM is wondering why more people are buying imports. Willing to pay more than what a GM vehicle sells for.

I often come across “Top $x OS X Applications” blog posts. I usually take a quick look, see the usual suspects and move along. Every once in a while I’ll find an application that fills my need. This happens enough times to keep me coming back.

Today I came across Top 100 best open source mac software. The biggest find in this batch was AppFresh.

AppFresh searches your hard drive in all the usual places (unusual places can be added in the preferences) for applications. The application list is compared against the application list at iusethis.com, checking for updates. Each application lists the current version number, the last time it was accessed (doesn’t seem to work that well), the up to date status, and if the version is not current, and its iusethis.com.

The iusethis.com integration allows you to see what is offered in the newer version, how many other people are using this application, plus, if you configure your iusethis.com profile, you can update your profile from within AppFresh.

While most of the software I use does automatically check for updates, it’s not always running, nor do I launch all the software daily or even weekly. Having one central place to check for all application updates is well worth the download.

The software is useful, it is still rough around the edges, but still worth installing.