They may have been the highest quality F cars built, but they were still poor in quality and reliability in terms of a vehicle. The automatic transmissions were garbage, along with the rear-ends - a 12 bolt should have been standard. What about the oil leak behind the intake manifold on the LT1s? The window motors? The piston slap with the LS1's? As fun as it was, I sold my first LT1 because it was an omen and a money pit. There is no denying that all of these problems were common across the board with 4 gens, and that they are inexcusable results of poor engineering and QA.

 

Opti Spark

 

I've had three 4th Gens; Two automatics with the LT1 and an M6 in the LS1. I totally disagree with your opinion that all 4th Gens are pieces of cr@p that suffer from the above problems.

-"Garbage" Transmissions? Don't know about that. I've had ZERO problems with my two A4's, in fact my 96 "beater" has the original tranny @ 106K miles.

-"Garbage" Rear Ends? They were more than strong enough for my "spirited" street driving and occasional blasts down the 1/4 mile. SURELY anyone that is "serious" about racing realizes that breaking parts is a risk you take. But the VAST MAJORITY of owners will never have a need for anything stronger. I will admit though to putting a rear end girdle with pre-load bolts (correct term?) on my 01 SS "just in case".

-Neither of my LT1's had the rear intake oil leak.

-Window motors? Out of the three, I've only had to replace the driver's motor on my 106K mile "beater", but I will admit the passenger's is on the way out. But I never had a problem with my 95 Z or '01 SS motors.
-Piston Slap? Big deal. Some LS1 Corvettes had the issue as well. Hell, my '01 SS would slap when it was VERY cold, but like all the others it would go away once the car warmed up a bit. Piston slap was a NON-ISSUE as far as reliability/longevity was concerned.

Sorry you had a bad experience with 4th Gens, but from 1997 to present I've owned three for a combined total of about 8 years and 60,000 miles. The only "real" issues I've had are a bad EGR valve, one bad window motor, two torn tranny mounts and a leaking water pump seal (at 106K miles).....that's it.

It seems your bad experience with your LT1 has tainted your opinion of GM in general.

 

Did I forget to mention that I will wait. And I will be happy. And I will be satisfied? Nope. Didn't think so.

Such as the ZR1 can be considered the best Vette ever -- the new Camaro will be the Best Camaro Ever.

Can't wait to prove myself right. Again. <sigh>

Let all the haters and doubters take a subtle exit to -- stage left. The bouncers are waiting for you.

FBODFATHER- Just PLEASE let us know when it will be fiscally responsible to start putting in deposits for the V8 model of this beast. I dont want the Top Dog - I just want 400+ ponies in a reliable coupe. And then, the circle between my '69 and the "New '69" will be complete.

You are most-welcome to drive her anytime you wish, should you decide to visit Big D. My pleasure.

 

I think you're exaggerating quite a bit for effect. The Forum can only be searched back to 2002, but even then Scott was telling folks to "have faith" (maybe even "keep the faith" at that time) when referencing Camaro. Surely that was meant, at a minimum, to not lose hope?

I would suggest that we all had a pretty good idea the car was coming back WAAAAYYYY before 2005 - we simply didn't know when, and most didn't expect it to be 2009 as a 2010 model.

Bob

 

The car was already on the way to being dead in 1997 or so. I believe it is accurate that 2000 was supposed to be the last year, but they managed to hang on for another couple of years. It was on "hiatus" after 2002 but there were no real plans for another one at that time. I think there were just a few documents and very basic cases studies for a long time that had just as much of a chance of being filed away somewhere and turning to dust as it did growing into a production car.

 

Dear Mr. Malice.

A little history lesson first......

The name Camaro means 'Friend, pal, or Comrade....."

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This is a Camaro site -- yes, it's a free country -- however, I notice that:

#1 -- you are new on here.....(I make that assumption based on the number of posts.....)

#2-- there is Zero personal info. about you --- (and that makes me suspicious.....)

......

I'm curious as to what your profession is.

Have you ever engineered a car or truck? If so, I'd be interested in which vehicle(s) it was/were.

I will agree that the power window motors were very problematic.....and I know this because we replaced many of them under warranty and many of our enthusiasts contacted me about it -- or told me about it as I travelled all over the country to attend Camaro/Firebird shows.

As to your charges that the transmissions were ...." Garbage " (your word, not mine) I would ask you to please show meaningful evidence and the data to back up this charge. (you can't.........and "well mine and my buddy's failed" isn't meaningful data.......)

Yes -- a 12 bolt should have been standard -- and we should have had larger brakes -- and many other parts should have been more "heavy duty" -- there's a problem with that -- and it's called "weight" --(wanna get peopel hysterical once again on this site? Bring up 'weight' and sit back and watch the fur fly......) ............ Adding a heavier axle and brakes and such would have negatively affected CAFE not only for the F car but the entire GM portfolio. The number of axle failures are very low -- below industry average, as a matter of fact -- and that's WITH the knowledge that most axle failures are due to drag racing or 'stupidity" ( by 'stupidity" I mean "Hey everyone - watch me ruin a perfectly good set of Goodyears!!!!" -- as I unfortunately witnessed all too often........)

Piston Slap? Most of what people consider to be 'piston slap' is actually noisy fuel injectors or, in some cases, bent pushrods -- (from that "hey everyone-- watch me ruin a perfectly good get of Goodyears and a couple of pushrods!!!)

You may be interested to know that we repurchased several dozen Fcars with LS1engines that exhibited more noise than normal -- and ran some of them at the rev limiter for 24 hours or more -- and took others north of 250K miles -- none failed. I'd say that this is a great testament to a great engine family.

You may also be interested to know that the early 4th gen cars won awards for quality -- and in fact if you go back to read magazine articles in that timeperiod, many journalists talked about the great quality. The problem is that the car got old.

I'm not saying the Camaro (and Firebird) were world-class quality leaders -- but they weren't as bad as you seem to be making them.

Further, a decision was made to end production at the end of the 1998 model year--- and this decision was made at the end of 1995 or early 1996.........we were able to keep it in production thru 2002 based on demand for the LS1 engine which drove profitability. (you'd fall off your chair if I told you how much money we lost on the Fcar in 1996-1997.....)

(Do you want to guess when the initial engineering took place on the 4th gen architecture?)

I don't mean to flame you -- but you need to perhaps chill a bit and learn a little bit more about the 4th gen Fcar. And perhaps you need to attend a few Camaro/Firebird shows and look at the cars out there with little or no warranty claims..................

 

If you mean the REAL initial engineering, I'd say late 70's.

 

Well, you should probably take a seat in some of these rental cars, and then take a seat in some of these quality giants like Hyundai or take a gander at all mighty Toyota. GM WAS unable to keep up with the foriegn auto makers, but that gap was being closed in on in 2004, and here we are in 2008 and we have the CTS winning car of the year, Silverado winning truck of the year, Aura and Malibu winningback to bac North American Car of the Year, on top of tons of other awards and comments made on the "New GM".

Again, grab some seat time in these poor cars. Please do so. Bring your friends. Ford dominates the police market? NYC uses ALL Chevy Impala. A lot of local police stations are switching to the new Impala for police duties. Impala sales are still higher then the LX and Panther cars.
Mustang is the only car in its class? What class is that? Muscle Car class?
In the 2 door sports coupe class, it is not alone. Just cause a 40 year old name got put back in rotation doesnt make the Mustang any different then any other 2 door sports coupe.

Malibus have been out for less then 2 months. Sonata, Accord and Camry's have been out for 2 years now. I have seen more new Malibus then new Accords.
GM and Ford did rely on the heavy profit SUV's, but guess what sells at a million units a clip? I guess they put their money on there best selling product. They didnt forsee that there would be heavy speculation in the gas market, artificially inflating the cost of gas, on top of the dollar falling like a rock off a cliff. Not to remind you boys and gals, that 5 years ago gas was cheaper a gallon then water was for 20 oz or 1/3 the price of a tall mocalatte from Starbucks.
And to tie it all together, take a quick peek again at Green Toyota Tundra and bigger and thirstier Sequia. Toyota is falling into the truck trap as well, but people are still buying.


Here we go again with too little too late. TOO LATE FOR WHAT!!?!:?!?! SOMEONE TELL ME LATE TO WHAT!! Is there a limit to how many cars that a compay can sell at a certain dead line?
Was it too late or Chevy to release a Camaro 3 years after Mustang launched to over 1 million units sold in the first 1.5years?
Was it too late for GM to launch a modern high tech tuned port fuel injection to give us both performance AND economy, breathing life back into the whole muscle car?
What is Camaro late for? Do you have some where to be come this time next year, andyou need a 2 door sports car? Global oil market, blah blah blah enviromental jiberish crap.
LS1 Fbodies got up to 30mpg in highway crusing, it was a ULEV engine, and oh yeah IT MADE 300HP.
Please, tell me what Camaro is late for? Is it too late for you? Cause its not too late for me. Hell, its almost right on time.

If its too long for you or anyone else, please dont waste your time posting on here. Take your money on down to Ford, pick up one of the 20348u03248203843 variations of the Mustang GT with whatever decoration package you wana throw together and be done with it, "before its too late!"


Knowing all the reasons why....what? Why the Camaro team is putting together probably the best sports car money can buy in abit over 2 years, out of nothing? Yeah...wtf snap out of it GM!! That brand new Delta platform, scrap it! The new Epsilon II platform, with its ability to deliver a world class midsized sedan, STOP!
And everything else, hault so we can get this car out to people!!

GM is doing a great job and improving opinion with its new produts.
If you have been waiting from 93 to get a new Camaro...dude, thats really really sad.
Ive been waiting 24 years to own a Camaro, my first Camaro that I purchased new with my money, the way I wanted, so I can park it next to my other 2, which were purchased new by my father and grandfather.


Sorry if I come off a little harsh, but I have been growing sick of hearing "opinions" of people about the Camaro taking too long.
I grew sick of people laughing in my face saying that Camaro would never return.
I got sick of people telling me that GM wont ever make a quality car
I got sick of people giving me thier opinions that Chevy would butcher the Camaro when it returns.
But you know what happens? I let my laptop rest for 7 mins, and it flashes that awesome (thanks Jason) Camaro concept screen saver. It takes me back to that wonderful morning in Cobo Hall, watching, hearing, feeling what people told me would never happen.

 

three questions, if you'd be so kind...

if the window motors were a known issue, why were they not fixed? or changed? i've been in a buick with windows that seemed to be the same size or larger than my camaro's and its windows fly, so there was absolutely a parts bin motor that could have been used. where did the window motor come from? was it a parts bin part or was it designed for the f-body?

when was the engineering done on the 4th gen f-body? late 80's?

did piston slap show up in testing before production? or was this one of those things that showed up in production vehicles and it was deemed fine? my camaro's piston slap you can hear clear through the house and can be heard at all times when its cold out, even when the car is warmed up


oops i guess thats four questions

 

agreed I would rather have them test the crap out of the car to work out any major bugs.

 

One of the things that people see (present website excluded) and one of the problems,
is that the car was shown in a concept form, (that pretty much reflects what the final outcome will be, or at least 95% of the look) a while ago.
Change a dimension here or there, or even some fine points, it still looks extremely close to the final design.
We have had now entering Autoshow Season #3 and you can still not buy the car.

Showing it so early, it is extremely hard to keep the hype train at full tilt.
I do know a lot of people who have lost interest in it.

The faithfull will stay, but some will just get tired of waiting.

 

You can ask FBF anything you want. But since this is a public forum, I'll add my comment about the idea. He's not your personal 800-CHEVY-ONE contact for warranty issues. I've had several 4gen fbodies, including two with LS1's I bought new. I never had a piston slap or power window issue with my LS1 Firebirds. (I also never just sat around roasting my tires either - although I did take them to our local dragstrip a few times). I replaced a window motor myself on a used LT1 Formula I had previously. It's really not a big deal, if you are a little handy with tools - and the part was $20 on eBay. I wish people would stop the soulful window motor melodrama.

As for the OP in this thread, I agree with him about keeping the faith and yes, waiting is tough to do. But for him to malign the overall 4gen design is incredibly short-sighted and ill-informed. That design was an incredible performance coupe achievement for its time and an outstanding value for its buyers. I expect the new Camaro will be the same

 

By the time of the 1987 recall - when widespread knowledge of the engine fire problem on 1984s became public knowledge, the Fiero's fate was already pretty much sealed.

And those drivers didn't just "watch their cars spontaneously combust" due to no fault of their own. While the rods are admittedly an inexcusable design flaw, it is still the responsibility of a car's owner/driver to make sure that there is actually oil in the engine.

 

Amen to that brother !

I agree, the power window gets tiresome.

Hell, I had to replace 2 window motors on my 92 Z28 within a month of each other....I think I'll go to thirdgen.org and about it now.