A question for the paper trail gurus..what was the purpose of the transit or IBM card?? Anyone know? :idea2: Tom
Tom, Those cards were put in the glove box of each car at the factory and the Dealer was supposed to send them back to Buick once the car was purchased. They carry codes that would allow Buick to know all the "exact" info regarding engine internals trans internals etc. That way if the car needed warranty work they would know which pistons, cam, etc were used and would alleviate the need to send multiple parts for any "parts changes" that occurred during the model year. Beyond the warranty issue, the bean counters probably also used them to track which cars/options, color combinations, etc were popular in each region. Duane
Hi Duane, Thanks for the reply. But this still doesn`t make much sense to me?? Obviously the factory already had the info via the build sheets and hence the printing of the cards to include in the glovebox. So why create the extra step to make the dealer return the cards? Was this in case a dealer reassigned a new car delivery to another dealer? But even so, the factory would need to send warranty parts in response to a specific request from a specific dealer, right? Or was this possibly a recall issue in which case Buick would just send out replacement parts and not need to field a request from the dealer for said parts? Never worked at GM or a dealer so I`m unfamiliar with the status quo regarding warranty/recall campaigns. Still a little unclear as to how the process would have worked and why the existence of the IBM glovebox card. Tom Mooney
Tom, You are talking about computer sysytems in the early-mid 70's here, not today. Today everything is linked together, but I would bet that was not the case back then. Then you get to add that "Buick" built Flint cars, while "GMAD" built all the cars from the other plants. Plus you are talking about production plants vs dealerships vs warranties etc. Another thing to consider is there were different versions of these IBM 80 Column Punch cards. Maybe some were retained by the dealerships when they sold the cars. I don't know about that.o No: Duane
