Amen! I don't have the stomach for this stuff either. You should trying living in Florida - it's the most anti-consumer state that I've ever been in. The motto here is "The customer is always screwed".

 

No I am not an employee or connected in any way to GM other than being an HHR owner. I just posted my thoughts..agree or disagree. There is an old adage "the customer is always right"..but we all know that is NOT the case. As someone said, a TSB is not a recall. Are the problems real, or are they made up...of course they are real. No customer comes in complaining of a problem they made up. But you know..the people who work at GM dealerships are just us..people. Some good, some smart, some capable, some idiots! But lets be real a bit. Let us say you are a washer repairman. A customer says "hey, sometimes when I push on start wash, the washer won't run, other times it does". The repairman comes to your home, tries the washer 10 to 20 times, and it starts every time. He asks you the customer to come try it. You do. It starts. What is he to do? Replace parts on a piecemeal basis until he may or may not hit the right one? Do you think that Toyota or Honda would do anything different than GM is doing on this one? You think they would say "oh my gosh, let us replace the entire system because you say sometimes it does not work"! Of course not. It is the unfortunate state of affairs with all things technological. I've had many cars in my over 40 years of owning. Some I've driven without every a problem, others I have felt I knew the service personnel on a first name basis all too well, it happens. It is a pain..but it happens. SELDOM will a non constant problem be fixed on just one or two trips to the shop..be that American, Japanese or German..I've owned them all.
I do feel the overall fit, finish, quality of a Toyota or Honda is superior to GM (but the HHR styling won me out of my Honda). BUT I found the cost of maintaining both the Toyota and Honda to FAR exceed the cost of maintaining a GM...no wonder they last so long, you eventually replace so many parts and fluids with their expensive scheduled service.
As for the painting and chips, etc...I am one who gets absolutely sick on the smallest of chips or dings in my car. My last car, a VIBE, I replaced the body side molding 3 times (at $175 a clip) because it got a chip in it here or there from other car doors opening. But really...is that the dealers fault? Yes there is a TSB on chipping on the rear lower 1/4 panel flairs but yes a dealer does NOT have to honor a TSB. But as much as it would bother me I sure would find the 15 minutes it would take to meet with the general manager or regional gm manager area rep to ask them to honor the TSB in my particular case. If I have time to write about it here, I have time to go to the dealer and talk it over with him..the owner!
Once I had a Pontiac Grand Prix, white. When I got it home and eventually washed it for the first time I noticed these tiny tiny black specs throughout the paint on the hood and trunk. Dealer said "not bad, won't hurt anything". I asked to see the area rep next time in town. He looked, called the body shop manager and general manager to come look, and they agreed to fix them, that some would come out with heavy buffing, it was clear coat flaw. I said but you will be taking off a lot of the clear coat, that concerns me. They gave me a letter which extended the warranty on the paint for 5 years, to cover that concern. But the guy got his two cents in, with what I think is a pretty good commentary..."I am doing this service as a customer satisfaction action. These are $20,000 massed produced vehicles, not $100,000 hand made cars and we would simply be out of business if we tweaked each and every one to satisfy every customers concern over a paint indifference or other imperfections". It is sad, but it is true I suppose. It was a royal pain to get satisfaction..but I got it, with persistence.

 

You are the Man

 

Hey Guys, TSBs are not recalls or flash notices, They are simply a tool for techs to use to help diagnois or repair known or similar problems . If a tech sees the same problem a few times they may advise the manufacture of their way of fixing the problem or the manufacture may develope a way the make repairs. Some of these should be recalls but they are not. TSBs are free under your standard warranty and are customer pay out of warranty. They can also help out when asking for out of warranty assistance.. Hope this helps.

 

Teech....

On the remote starting issue, it may be the fuel pump issue. This is a single line fuel system. The check in the fuel pump fails so the fuel pressure drops almost instantly....then slowly peters out to nothing. That's when it usually doesn't start because it's trying to still pressurize. It's hard to recreate because they don't let the car sit around long enough.The test takes just a simple fuel pressure gauge to check. They can see the pressure drop long before they can repeat the hard start issue.

I kinda understand on the paint, it sucks that it's so subjective. I know they feel that if they can't substantiate the claim, they won't get paid for the work they already preformed. I would recommend the general manager route as well. Then just take it to the GM customer service line. Take pics and document. You can get them to contact the dealer and TELL them to do the work.

Best of luck

 

This is an instance of choosing ones battles. I had to decide if it was worth a bunch of fuss to get somebody to do something (probably half-assed and prone to more damage because you made them do it) or walking away and denying them my business.

Funny thing is, I bet if it wasn't a warranty issue, there would be no problem getting it done. I've had all kinds of piecemail work done when I'm footing the bill...

I guess it also bothered me because they aren't (seemingly) difficult fixes. Why not make the customer happy if it'll take less than hour to do. Its an hour well invested if its keep people coming back. Or is it a waste of your time? Its the latter that would send me down the street to give somebody else a shot at customer satisfaction.

Bottom line: I'm not happy with the service I'm getting from these dealers in this area. If its my job to get good service from you, I don't want to do business with you and I'll tell anybody that want to know.


*dead*

 

I was using the TSB to substantiate my claim that there really is a problem. My car cut off this morning and then growled as I pull in to work...too bad I can't prove it!