The Black Cloud Above Me
On Friday, I paid my car off in full and on the way in to work, thought to myself how good this car had been to me. Never once had it broken down in an unsafe spot or cost me a lot of cash to maintain.
On Saturday, while driving to a friend's single malt Scotch tasting party, my car died at a gas station parking lot in Issaquah. I mean died hard. Luckily, I had purchased a premium AAA membership a few weeks before so I gave them a call since Amy was not abvailable. Two hours later, the tow truck driver showed up, took a look at the car, looked back at me and said "DuuuuuDE...." We towed it to the Saturn dealership and dropped the keys off. So I asked them to just fix what will enable me to get the car home. Lame.
I got a call this morning saying just about everything was broken beyond repair and that I needed $4,880 worth of repairs. The car itself is worth about $2,300 including the custom wheels/tires and the enhanced stereo system. If I'm lucky.
So GM must have a good racket. As soon as the customer pays off thier obligation, send a signal to make x,y,z break. In these times of low margins on automobiles, that's the only way to compensate the dealer.
Update: I received a second call from the dealer who gave me a new quote of $6,390. Lol. For a car that looks as good as mine both inside and outside and has had it's oil religously changed every 3,000 miles, I find that hard to believe. Granted it hasn't been into the actual dealer since the 50,000 mile service, but that was only 23,000 miles ago. I can't justify spending 3x what the car is worth wholesale so it looks like it's gonna get junked. Lame.
July 18th, 2006 - 07:35
Ouch. Sorry to hear that.