Van Nuys Plant Ranks Last in GM Quality Study

An internal General Motors Corp. study ranking 31 of its North American vehicle assembly plants places the Van Nuys, Calif., automobile plant at the bottom of the list.

The confidential document, issued in late January and obtained by United Press International, is part of a comprehensive effort by the car maker to monitor customer acceptance of its products by polling tens of thousands of buyers and using technical measurements, industry sources said.

A GM spokesman had no comment on the study, other than to say the company performs daily quality audits at its assembly plants and compiles them on a monthly basis for corporate audits.

The study, which ranks plants in terms of problems per 100 vehicles, showed that in some cases the quality level at a plant was directly tied to the age of the product being built there.

At the bottom of the car plant list was the Van Nuys facility, which builds the aging Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird coupes. The plant had a startling 676 problems per 100 cars.

“That plant is in a class by itself and would get an F,” said one industry analyst, noting Van Nuys is expected to close by 1992 or 1993 as GM redesigns those cars and shifts their production to its Ste. Therese plant in Quebec.

The GM truck plant with the lowest-quality ranking was its Flint, Mich., plant, which builds the Suburban and Blazer trucks--vehicles largely unchanged since the early 1970s.

The plant had 848 problems per 100 vehicles, although GM’s truck plants are measured differently from its car plants.

But more disturbing is the fact that several plants which build relatively modern mid-sized cars, which are critical in GM’s strategy of raising its U.S. market share from a decade low of 34.7% in 1989, ranked among the bottom half of the list.

Those plants include GM’s Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kan., which makes Pontiac Grand Prix coupes and sedans. It was 16th out of 21, with 446 problems per 100 cars.