Hey - whatever you want to call it. I personally cannot speak about Houston Metro (and other agencies), but I know about NYCTA and their BS. We can leave out the buses that Grumman rehabbed and resold - although my thought is that.. if they were junk then it's likely they would've remained junk even after a rehab (sort of like American cars in the 1970s through 1990s).
My big question remains... If the NYCTA buses were unsafe - why is it that those units at Green, Triboro, Queens/Steinway and Jamaica Buses were able to continue on in service for many more years. If anyone is wondering... yes, these buses are part of the 1013 870s - 837 for NYCTA/MABSTOA and the rest for the privates. Also - anyone here familiar with New York City in those days knows that Queens had lots of really bad streets, yet the privates' 870s mysteriously survived. Hmmmm.
I've never said (or implied) that the 870s were flawless or even close to that. I've always said that Grumman did it's part in retrofitting over 2600 defective buses and NYCTA tried ride that bandwagon to blame them for its own shortcomings.
If you look at NYCTA... they seem to have numerous problems with just about any major purchase they've made. I remmeber around the same time that had "issues" with the then new Bombardier made R-62A subway cars, but the problem went away as it usually does.