courthousedeb

I've had my HHR for nearly 2 years now and don' have a single dent in it at all, so I have no complaints about quality. I've parked mine in shopping center parking lots and have even had small rocks hit it on the hood and bounce into the windshield and the only damage I have sustained is a pit in the windshield. For the $18,000 OTD price I paid for Smoke I couldn't be happier...especially since it still looks almost as nice as it did the day I drove it off the lot.

The only damage I have had to mine was minimal...pulled up to a parking block at a restaurant and it was much higher than I anticipated, so I have some surface scratches on the underside of the bumper/spoiler area, but other than that it's all good.

solman98

Seems no different than any other late model unibody vehicle.

Please don't compare them to a BOF truck or SUV.

No dents at all on mine.

hvrod

Thin metal is a partial to it..
But really its the Temper strength of the metal..
Based on the company saving $$ the metal is probably T2 - T3 range..

A good strong range is T6 and above.. It also depends on the type of the material... of aluminun in which they can heat treat it too...

Frozenspokes

The metal is thin and of low quality. It amazes me how much the whole car seems to shudder when closing the doors. GM specked a lot of low end materials into this vehicle. But they also took a calculated risk with it as well.

If the HHR is a success in GM's eyes, I bet that we could count on some upgrades to the quality of materials used in the vehicle with the next make-over........I hope!

20vtguy

Thats an interesting point. Sounds like you know a bit about metal manufacturing. I understand heat treating effects metals strength but don't understand it past that. Why does a higher temper strength lead to higher cost of material. What establishes temper strength exactly?

20vtguy

I think it goes along with the way of thinking the American manufacturers have put on car manufacturing for years. Instead of going out of their way to build the best possible vehicle right out of the box they build what they think their buyer will accept to keep costs down and hope that it does not backfire. Since the average American car buyer is used to the quality level of American cars they generally will accept it because they are used to it. Its the perception as others have said. Those buyers who have become accustomed the quality levels of say a Honda will have a better perception of the difference of build quality between their Accord and say the equivalent Chevy. Now that GM is beginning to improve the quality of cars like the new Malibu, the lifelong Honda Accord buyer who may decide to test drive a Malibu may perceive that quality gap as less than what they may have seen 5 years ago and be more apt to make that transition. Its a known fact that Japanese manufacturers put more care into their products than the Americans. It is not to say that the Japanese manufacturers don't have problems at times but its not for lack of trying.

Think of it this way. If your a person who studies real hard you are apt to get an A. It does not mean you won't get a C sometimes. But its not always due to lack of effort though if you are getting alot of C's than its likely either you don't understand the work or you were not trying hard enough. This is why the Japanese have so many more A's in the auto world compared to their American counterparts. And that comes down to culture. Working hard and being the best at what you do is of major importance to Japanese society and they will go to great lengths to achieve it.

Bob&Pat

We just sold our 2005 Pontiac Sunfire same chassis as the HHR and made in Mexico by GM. After 31,000 miles and towing it behind the motorhome another 12,000 miles we had two small dimple dents on the drivers side front fender near the top toward the front.
Maybe shopping cart bumped it not sure. You could only see them from certain angles when the sun was shinning on the car. All in all 3 years on the road and 43,000 miles the body looked very good. They offered $7,100. on a trade-in on our new 2008 HHR. I sold it for $8,950.00 last week.

Our salesman called Monday at 9:00am our HHR is built and still at the plant in Mexico should ship soon and may be delivered to the dealer end of this week or next.

Bob
:twothumbs

hvrod

Processing costs..

You can manufacture metals in certain temper strengths...
for example , in temper 0 , you can form this into lots of shapes..
Once you obtain its shape, you temper it to hold its form and to strengthen (or hardend it) to prevent flexing and in some cases lessen damage...

They ... possible used the low end like T2 and form the parts then continued manufacturing it...

You may also see car manufactures putting creases or lines in sheetmetal..
This is another way to add strength the metal without adding additional processing tempering costs to the manufacture process.

Kingfrog

Whatever it is, it is thinner (or less tempered)then the Focus, Vibe and the PT Cruiser. I tried and it takes less "effort" to buckle the metal on the hoods of those cars then my HHR. The Vibe is especially stiff. I would rather get 2 MPG less then worry about everyday door dings turning into body work.

I don't park away from other cars when i go shopping therefore I know will get my share of dings. But those dings are dents! I like the car but I wish Toyota or even Ford made it.

I don't buy the "crumple zone" argument. Stronger metal desgined right in crash tests. is far safer then thin metal designed to crumple easier.

hvrod

If someone has a extra sheet metal part..
You can have a Rockwell hardness test on it... it will tell what temper it is..