gordon21 said:
Exactly what did you expect the dealer to fix on an 11 year old car under warranty? Even drivetrains were usually warranted for only 50,000 or 75,000 miles back then.
At the time this happened, the car wasn't even 2 years old, was still under warranty, and it was one thing after another. First thing, about a week after we got it home, wife pulled in drive and turned off car, but couldn't get key out of ignition. Carried it back, and they found gummed up shifter cable (caused by a testdrive before we got car) where someone had put a coke in cupholder (which was right behind gear shift lever), and they made an abrupt stop, coke spilled, ran down through console and gummed up lever, not letting shifter go far enough forward to fully go into park, thereby not letting ignition turn to position where you could pull key out. After about 3 months, the headlight motor burned up (this has the lights that go up and down when you turned them on). I tried to get them to replace them both, they wouldn't, only the one that was broken. 3 months or so later, another trip to replace the one that I had tried to get them to fix earlier. Now this dealer was in Dallas, and it was 60 miles round trip from home to there, had to call ahead and schedule in, etc. etc. Fast forward 6 months, wife is at grocery store, raises rear deck lid to put in groceries, trunk won't close. Gas shock that holds it up locked up. Check out boy had to take bad device loose to get trunk to close. I called dealer, he said they were 60 bucks. I said no, it's still under warranty, he said it wasn't. Car was about a year old, had about 35000 miles. He said no, it was worn out (gas shock), I said no, if it was worn out it wouldn't stay up, this is locked up and wont come down. That's when I got out the shoe polish, went to dealer on a saturday morning, parked right in front of dealership, and went in to see the guy who sold me the car. He told me to take it around to service dept. I went around there and they still wanted to argue. They finally replaced it at no charge to me, other than my loss of time to have to keep going to dealer for minor stuff. I ended up selling car before it was 2 years old, because the water pump went out and they wouldn't fix it (cost me 400.00). I wouldn't have a GM product if you tried to give it to me.
My Dad was in the auto parts business, said he loved Ford, that they kept him in business, just didn't want to own one. Prior to 1952, he drove Plymouths, but from 1952 on, he drove Buicks or Oldsmobiles.