I have no damage yet but I talked to my dealer anyway and they agreed to repaint for free but I would have to pay $600 for the running boards installed..I know there have been mixed reviews on the invisible paint protection but is there any chance it would work for this problem?

 

The point is that people couldn't have forseen this problem, or even considered it, before they ran into it (unless you use your crystal ball). How can buyers be expected to "take responsibility for their actions? Mike, have you seen the problem with the cutom made mud guards? Maybe the solution is to just make longer ones if the available ones don't stop the problem. For those with access to teh stuff, you can get Kydex in India black with a textured surface. I've made plenty a darkroom guard with the stuff over the years.

 

Jack...now I'm totally confused...one minute you call us stupid for not knowing this would happen then you say we couldn't have forseen this happening ? but you know who should have known this would happen ? GM's design Engineers who design car/truck bodys for a living....and when I saw the guard they stuck on the fender I thought that maybe this WAS the answer to the problem, it wasn't....not even close ! so I'm the one that should pay for their mistake....

anyway, on a high point, it seems my b!tching paid off, the Dealer sent me a check to cover the labor for putting the running boards on. NOW I'm done talking about this.

 

Jack's been in the darkroom too long.

 

No problems at all. Back is clean as a whistle. I just got back from our main plant (I work at an offsite location). I saw 3 HHRs in the main plant parking lot, all 3 had no mud flaps and no running boards. I could definately tell that they were getting blasted with dirt. But running around with my front flaps, I get almost zero dirt spraying up back there. They work well, and I kinda like the look of them being fairly low cut. I may eventually get the running boards, I don't know if I like that look, but I'm not at all worried about paint chipping now.

 

I was being sarcastic with inchworm's post saying that anybody buying an HHR without runningboards should have known better and was only asking for trouble and needed to take responsibility for doing so. The implication, by him, was that anybody doing so wasn't any too bright. My point was that nobody was going to stand back and analize the damned thing for possible future problems before buying. You just expect the designers to take things like this, along with a lot af testing, into account to eliminate problems.

 

Jack, that's almost exactly how I put it in a letter to the dealership and to Chevrolet. Hell, GM had to know about this, they just never told anyone outside of engineering and design. The dealers never knew a thing until the stories started to roll in. I think Chevy put this out just a bit too fast, hoping to rake in some of the dough that never materialized with the SSR.

PS - My wife's cousin works in Delaware in Pontiac engineering. Going through a few similar problems with the Solstice. First model year growing pains I guess.

 

I get Hot Rod magazine and they've put together a Solstice with an LT1 in it! It took a giant shoe horn, but it can be done.
Can you imagine the difficulty in diagnosing a problem like this running board thing?!! "Get in the HHR and drive through that muddy puddle while we take some high-speed videos." "Duh, sir, I think we have a problem."

 

Apparently, they did considerable testing of HHR's without running boards:



Funny how they never found the problem isn't it??

Someone had to know.

 

Hey, where did they get that stubby antenna? What's with the tape? Are they looking for body panel shift?