I grew up around GM products. My dad still has the first car he bought new, a '74 Pontiac GrandAm. When they say that domestic cars lost the battle of quality to the Japanese back in the late 70's and throughout the 80's, our GM cars held up very nicely. Stuff like the occassional waterpump or alternator and such is not a big deal to replace on those big, easily serviced, rear drive cars like our '85 Z-28, '81 T/A, '81 Chevy step-side, '74 Impala, and aforementioned Grand Am. Both the '85 Z28 and Grand Am were bought new and have held up nicely, both mechanically and cosmetically. The Impala is long gone; mechanically it was a champ, but the NewYork winters and Texas heat ate up the body. The '81 Step-side is still around but it's on it's last legs with 300K+ miles; paid $3K for it in '89 with 75K miles, so I think we got our moneys worth out of it.
But my mom bought a new Blazer back in '98, it now has 70K miles. The moment she got it home the little rest for the rear wiper fell off. Since then the thing squeaks over bumps like your stepping on mice, it has 2 blown speakers and the occassional engine service light shines brightly when the tranny starts to buck from 1st-2nd, and no shops we have taken it to has been able to figure it out; the tranny problem started the moment the 36K mile warranty expired BTW.
On my 135K mile '97 Z-28 (purchased used w/63K miles) the following has failed so far since I bought it:
-waterpump
-fuel pump (my fault for running it out of gas)
-driver's side window motor
-driver's side window switch
-cracked dash
-rattleing and squeaks galore
-rear taillight harness
-upper ball-joints
-outer tie-rod ends (well both boots are torn and leaking grease, haven't replaced yet)
-intake manifold oil leak at the rear
-air pump (replaced under recall)
-whining rear end (probably my fault from the nice DR launches, but the 7.5" F-body rear is notoriously weak anyways)
-Security Light/system was leaving me stranded for 5-20 minutes until the light would intermittently go away, then the car would start (recently bypassed with .99 resistors from Radio Shack)
-cheapo GM pleather that is torn on the driver's seat and beginning to crack on the other seats
Both the '98 Blazer and '97 Camaro are less than 10 years old, pretty shitty if you ask me and we experienced nowhere near any of these problems in our old GM cars. I can understand the wear & tear of some mechanical components with mileage, but a cracked dash or rusted taillight harness on a car less than 10 years old? Our '85 Z-28's interior is literally perfect compared to my '97 and the '85 has 190K miles. Even my coworkers with their '98 Cutlass, '01 Tahoe and '00 Aurora are beginning to feel the pinch of GM quality in their wallets, and the funny thing is most of their problems started as their warranties expired as well.
I think GM packs a lot of features in their new cars for the money, but those same features are probably sourced from the cheapest bidding suppliers to keep costs competitive. IMO I'd rather have a simpler, more well-built car, than a junker with a lot of features that'll fail in a few years.
I'd love a new GTO, but in the latest issue of GM High Tech there is a rash of complaints from GTO owners about the gauges intermittently sweeping from one side to the other while the car is in motion; supposedly some sensor needs replacing, what more after 5 years? The whole dash?
A new Mustang is looking more like a viable alternative once my Z-28 is paid off this year, though I hope they build a non-boosted, 32-valve Mach 1 like last year, maybe use a version of the 5.4L mod-motor out of the '00 Cobra-R for it....375-380hp would be nice middle ground between the regular 300hp GT and the upcoming 450hp Shelby GT500.
I used to be insulted when someone would mock GM quality, but now I wholeheartedly agree with them about GM cars built from the '90s-up, especially since I'm paying out of my wallet to repair stuff while I'm still making payments on the damn car.