After I started driving my 78 Catalina Wagon this spring, I noticed the rear window air deflector moved a lot at highway speeds it would actually cause a low pitched rumbling noise above 65mph. I also noticed a rough hole in the exact center of the deflector that I had never noticed in my 78 Impala Wagon. So I looked at the Impala and sure enough the deflector has brace that bolts to the body by way of a long countersunk screw. I thought no Problem I will just take it off my 78 before I sell it, problem solved right? Well not so fast when I pulled the brace off the Impala I noticed a rivnut installed just above the window for the screw to thread into. I did not remember seeing the rivnut on the Catalina! Sure enough it isn't installed. So scratch that Idea! I was reminded about this by the pictures of the 77 Grand Safari Currently posted in the CL/Ebay for sale section. I at 1st thought maybe the roof rack on my car was dealer installed, and they just did not bother to drill the hole and install the needed rivnut and brace. But then I received the Pontiac Historical Paper work on my car, and there it is on the factory invoice, luggage carrier! So much for American workmanship, the Catalina was built in Kansas City, and the Impala was Built in Ramos Mexico! Having a bad day at work, just felt like venting!!!!
That is sad. You hear about, on the one side, the bean counters telling the line to just ship 'em out, and the dealer will 'deal' with the problem. Kinda like the scene in Gung Ho!, where the Japanese inspector tells Clint howard to fix a problem, he retorts something like "Let the dealer fix it," and the inspector says "No defects!" Then, on the other side, you hear about the dumb@$$ workers who put nuts inside hubcaps, soda cans inside doors, and just simply do all kinds of s#!t in an attempt to punish the company.
What's even sadder is that GM's build quality in the late 70s was better than Ford's and, especially, Chrysler's and AMC's. That was a truly bad time.
I know this is very very late but the question about where in Canada the car was built, that would be Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. GM had been building cars there since the 1920's and still do to this day but probably not for long.