I’m so glad that we’re bailing out a company that has as much concern about their consumers as the Cymothoa Exigua appears to have for it’s host.
First, a little backstory:
I purchased my car in 2008 from Allison Saab Mitsubishi of Reno, NV, and have to date had nothing but excellent experiences with them (aside from a 3 hour wait to replace the A-Arm covers due to a recall – but I guess it was their first done). It was a beautiful 9-5 with only 53 miles on it, cherry inside, and out (and still is inside).
In May of 2009, GM officially removed them as an authorized repair center, as well as their stock and parts. GM did this with no prior notification to either Allison Group, or anyone who purchased a vehicle through them – although they’ve been more than capable of pestering these recent buyers with biweekly surveys by both mail and telephone (the most recent conducted on June 1st at 7pm by a firm out of Canada).
My car was my ‘prestigious’ vehicle, and my first new – as such, I have done my best to keep it in great condition – I refused to drive it during the winter months (they salt and sand the roads), opting to use my old vehicle. When I finally opted to sell that one in April, my SAAB became my daily driver.
I work from a home office, and as such, have a short commute – my car has less than 4,000 miles.
I began noticing rather odd color changes/marks to my clear coat over the last month (the marks are not chips, they do not penetrate the clear coat, and the coat is still entirely smooth).
My car has been claybarred and carefully waxed to keep it in excellent shape. But this was enough for me to decided that upon my next visit (I’m about 500 miles until it’s time for another oil change), I’d have this paint issue looked at.
The last month’s heat combined with this month’s cold, and one of the tiny caps upon the bolt which cover the interior portion of the door above the interior handle release popped out, and will not reattach. The above listed issues, and a minor irritating squeak in the console became the catalyst for me to take my vehicle in for service.
Upon arriving, I was told that they could not look at my car, nor provide any warranty services. Out of loyalty to their customer, they did look at my paint, and stated that it was ‘odd’, and that they had not seen this issue before.
Upon returning home, I called GM (SAAB) Customer care, and was told that not only would anything from this days-prior-years-of-service dealer be denied for any warranty work, but that they would not even consider their assessment of the paint, either, but I could – at my own time and expense, take it to the nearest dealer (in Sacramento, CA – over 150 miles away, across the Sierra mountains) for one.
I have a brand new car with under 4,000 miles on it, defective paint, a squeaky console, and the nearest place I can even have it looked at is 2 hours away at best – and they’re not open on weekends.
My 4 year/50,000 mile warranty is only as good as I am able to use it – and my No-Charge Maintenance will cost me about $20 in gas, 300 miles of wear, and at least 4 hours of my time for an oil change.
I feel abandoned.
[Update: June 5th, 2009: It’s now started to make a ‘clicking’ noise in the console when I depress the brakes when in park, it sounds like a relay tripping. How the hell am I supposed to get this worked on? GM told me I could probably just drive it over for service – but since the nearest place is still 2 hours away and closed on the weekends, how am I meant to do that?]
[Update 2: June 25th, 2009: I was able to get the Sacramento dealership to diagnose it over the phone. Evidently, my solenoid has become noisy, but it’s a known issue.. however, “only annoying.”]
