Don't Buy These Trucks

If you're in the market for a new pickup truck, try not to buy a Chevy Silverado or GMC Sierra manufactured between April and October 2014.  Why?  Those vehicles were made at the Flint Truck Assembly in Flint, Michigan.

You know the story.  The city of Flint is thoroughly controlled by an emergency city manager and by the governor who appointed him.  In a classic Republican cost-cutting bright idea, they decided to switch Flint's water supply from the Lake Huron/Detroit system to the Flint River.  Fiscal austerity uber alles!

General Motors has operated in Flint for over a century and for much of that time treated the Flint River like a sewer.  Today the river water contains high levels of corrosive chemicals, among other delicious substances.

The city made the move to Flint River water in April 2014.  By October 2014, GM announced it had stopped using city water at the Flint truck plant because it was corroding engine parts.  Rust in engines -- not good.

That same lovely, cheap river water also corroded Flint's decrepit water pipes and created high levels of lead in the city's drinking/cooking/bathing/laundry water.  Diagnosed cases of lead poisoning skyrocketed.  Weight loss, hair loss, anemia, headaches, nausea, respiratory illness, skin rashes, childhood development problems.  Lead in people -- not good.  

For almost two years, Gov. Rick Snyder and his lackeys denied the problem, ignored it and hoped it would go away.  "Let them drink (bottled) water!"  Luckily, the do-nothing approach did not survive the public outcry.  Gov. Snyder has admitted his cheapskate incompetence -- "Sorry I poisoned you." -- and has begged for federal help, and Flint has gone back to the Detroit water system.

So, yeah, don't buy those trucks if you can help it.  But trucks are just disposable hunks of iron, replaceable buckets of bolts.  The people of Flint are not.