Topic: Motoring Memories: General Motors J-Cars

[Autos_Editor]

Introduced in mid-1981, GM's compact J-Cars, the Chevy Cavalier, Pontiac J-2000 (Sunfire), Oldsmobile Firenza, Buick Skyhawk and Cadillac Cimarron were designed to fight off the imports, which they did with limited success, says Bill Vance.

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[sailor723]

Some memories are best forgotten.

[overtakeyouintheleftlane]

I've only driven 2 J body cars as rentals (why else?) the Cavalier and Sunfire. The worst part of those cars were the horrible seats. I couldn't drive them for more than 5 minutes before my back started to hurt.

This was a time when GM started to get too comfortable and starting to let themselves go. Hopefully they have learned their lesson by now.

[JohnM]

The J car is where the American car manufacturers really lost touch with the leading imports.  I saw my first J car in Chicago and two businessmen standing by me nodded their hopeful approval as "the import killer" cruised by.

However, the launch was probably its high point and nothing better demonstrated GM's real attitude to small cars (which they hated) and their customers (whom they held in contempt) than the Cimarron which has to rank as one of the most cynical ripoffs in automotive history.

Cheers,
John Meyer

[Randy]

I remember test driving a Pontiac Sunbird turbo back in 1988. Crappy seats, the upholstery while durable seemed like it would get dirty very quickly and acres of shiny plastic. Engine was rough and tons of torque steer causing it to be dangerous on wet roads.

After test driving the Sunbird, I test drove a 1988 Accord Hatch. No contest. The Accord was far and away a more satisfying car to drive. It had a lower price and less equipment than the Sunbird. The Accord's engine was smoother and the chassis was very well balanced and no torque steer, although you gave up a substantial amount of power compared to the Sunbird. The 5 speed manual gear shift was excellent. The interior too was head and shoulders above the Sunbird. Better instrumentation, plastics and upholstery.

GM never did figure out how to design a small car. Even now, the new Cruze was designed in Europe if I'm not mistaken.

[Gardiner Westbound]

GM put a lot of money and effort into hyping the J-cars. Excepting the Cadillac Cimarron, which was universally seen as an unfunny joke from the get-go, initial excitement and sales were good. If as much effort had been put into designing, engineering and building them their latent crappiness would not have been as quickly apparent. Most buyers soon realized they weren't in the same league as competing Honda and Toyota products and, excepting the Chevrolet and Pontiac versions, they were gone within a very few years.

[Mike]

When I got my license my parents had two cars.  One was a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier (last of the square bodies).  It had a 3 speed auto and pushrod 4 cylinder engine (in 1994 )

The fact I preferred to drive thier other car for better handling, power, fun to drive, refinement, better stereo says a lot about the J body.  The other 'car' was a 1996 GMC Safari extended.

[footlong58]

Some memories are best forgotten.

Agreed.  I had a 2000 Sunfire.  It ran perfectly fine, but after 3 years the ABS was dead, the strut mounts were all shot, the car was loose, the dash was full of rattles and squeaks, and the half the guage cluster lights burnt out, as well has half the lighting on the radio.

Absolutley no quality what so ever.  I'll never buy a GM again, and have bought 3 non GM's since. 

[toolatecrew]

They seemed like a big improvement at the time..mind you the comparison was a Chevette :-)

J cars were crap from the start. I rember diriving a 1st year Sunfire with a 4 speed manual. I've not to this day driven anything that understeered like that. It was scary

[Weels]

Man oh man, hard to believe how crappy the General was back in the early 80's.
In 1980 the X car was born (my dad bought one of the first ones, poor bugger..) and in '81 we got the J.

[Mike]

They seemed like a big improvement at the time..mind you the comparison was a Chevette :-)

J cars were crap from the start. I rember diriving a 1st year Sunfire with a 4 speed manual. I've not to this day driven anything that understeered like that. It was scary

4 Speed manual. I assume you mean a first gen sunbird?  Those were unersteer champs (like the 94 cavalier I mentioned)

[Scaerio]

Before finding the Clio, I was intrigued by a few 1988 Opel Asconas that were on the market here with relatively low kms for around 1000 Euros...

[jamie1]

I worked at a Caddy dealer when the Cimarron came out. The owner refused to order any for stock.

[TopGun]

Agreed.  I had a 2000 Sunfire....

Absolutley no quality what so ever.  I'll never buy a GM again, and have bought 3 non GM's since. 

Well we're at least making progress.  At least we're within a decade or so now.  Oh...here's a Sonata from the same vintage...they kinda sucked...would you buy one of those now?

[rrocket]

Agreed.  I had a 2000 Sunfire....

Absolutley no quality what so ever.  I'll never buy a GM again, and have bought 3 non GM's since. 

Well we're at least making progress.  At least we're within a decade or so now.  Oh...here's a Sonata from the same vintage...they kinda sucked...would you buy one of those now?

Well Hyundai chose to keep re-freshing and improving the model to bring it up (and beyond) the competition.  GM?  Not so much.  GM instead...ummmm....wait they discontinued the model, so they were unable to keep making it better.  What car now has replaced the J series?  Not really the Cobalt.  Not really the Cruze.  So yea, someone might be tempted that try a car that has been made better over the last decade through re-designs and continuous improvement.  If GM had stuck with the J platform, in 2010, it might actually be decent.  But GM always seemed to release a car in this segment that was always behind the competition..or if it was on par with the competition only lasted a year or so.

[Schmengie]

Motoring nightmare is more like it. I remember taking a brand-new Cavalier wagon out for a test drive in '83. It was an uncomfortable, gutless, creaking rattletrap. A couple of blocks and I couldn't wait to get out of the damned thing. 

We ended up with an '83 Subaru GL wagon. It was a Rolls Royce compared to the Cavalier.

[footlong58]

Agreed.  I had a 2000 Sunfire....

Absolutley no quality what so ever.  I'll never buy a GM again, and have bought 3 non GM's since. 

Well we're at least making progress.  At least we're within a decade or so now.  Oh...here's a Sonata from the same vintage...they kinda sucked...would you buy one of those now?

After the Sunfire I had a 1997 1.6EL.  A warmed over Civic.  That car was 3 years older, had more km's, and not a squeak, not a rattle, the ABS still worked, and no burnt out light bulbs that are un-replaceable all over the dash and console.  IE, QUALITY.  Sure, it needed maintenance like any other car.  But on the Sunfire, it was like they built a car that was mechanically OK, but they put no effort into anything else.  If an alternator goes, sure, change it.  If half the LCD display on the gauge cluster and the radio burn out, after 3 years, you can't just change the bulbs.  You need a whole new radio and a whole new gauge cluster.  Same with the struts, they worked perfectly fine, but all four mounts were shot.  The car again worked fine, but the noise was unbearable.  There was no quality whatsoever in that car at all...  That one car, that one very expensive experience, made me hop of the GM wagon... Sad, but true...  For what its worth, I had an '85 Fiero V6 that was brilliant...

My parents beater car is a 2001 Sunfire GT that has the same issues mine had... My girlfriend has a 2003 Sunfire, and that one has 4 good struts, with 4 bad noisy mounts as well...  My brother's Cobalt isn't enough to sway me back either...

The Jbody did GM no favours for getting young people into the GM family, thats for sure.

[rob]

I had to smirk on reading that one of GM's goals with this car was to improve quality including the gaps between body panels. I looked at a new Chev version in 1982. The gap between the front fenders and the cowl under the windshield was so wide you could lose a wrench.

I drove the car and remember it had what looked like nice quality seat upholstery. However it drove like a typical Detroit car of the time, which is to say it was awful.

This Chev with air conditioning and power windows was about $2K more expensive than the 1982 Volvo GLT that I eventually bought. The difference in drive and build quality between the cars was staggering - almost as amazing as the idea that the GM was the more expensive of the two.

I see parallels with GM's current offerings where they're asking as much or more than their competition while still labouring under lingering concerns about quality. 

[Biff Riprock]

Hello Everyone!  From what I can gather from the comments posted regarding J body cars, I must have been the only satisfied customer.  I bought a brand new 1995 Pontiac Sunfire, 2-door 5-speed in May 95 and as of this year, May 2010 finally retired it.  I paid $13,000 for it on the road.  It had the old cast iron block 2.2 litre engine, I swear that engine was tough as nails.  It didn't sound like a high performing engine but, Hey! I needed a car it was the right price and my wife and I loved it's looks.  I never really planned to keep it all those years, but it was; dare I say, realiable! and dependable!  I drove the car to Ontario and back 3 times without problems.  Didn't matter what the tempature was it always started and got me to where ever I needed to go, okay it never didn't warm up very fast.  However, it did need a head gasket replaced at year 3, about 90,000kms and that was the only major issue until the last 2 years of operations; the slave cylinder went.  I did regular maintenance;  ie religiously changed oil and oil filter every 5,000kms and at the 150, 000km mark a put a litre of dura-lube in, and replaced filters and such as required.  I got 375,000 kms of dependable safe driving out of it!  I took care of the body (had it painted once).  Well, I actually miss that ride, I got descent gas milage as well  approx 600kms to a tank.  If anyone else out there has a similar story I'd be glad to hear.   

[saint_satan]

I remember the horrible GM steering racks from the 80's.  My Dad would call it "morning sickeness".  If they weren't allowed to warm up for 2-3 minutes, the steering was so stiff it was almost undrivable.  Aside from some okay pick-ups, GMs from the 80's are best forgotten. 

The first and last GM I owned was an '84 Camaro.  Pure Junk.