Thanks,
Michael

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.

(This is really more of a “note to self” than a real post so I apologize for the vagueness. I just wanted to record this moment and will write more about what happened on Thursday as time allows).