Dont forget,, these were made in Mexico,,possibly by illegal immigrants from S. America,, no, wait,, they have better control of their borders and deport or imprison border crossers. I digress............

 

Update: The dealer showed me some of the hatches on the other HHR's on the lot this morning and they all have the same problem on the bottom edge. So it's not damage, just shotty workmanship on Chevy's part. They are going to wet sand the areas for me to make em look a little nicer and they are still going to replace the entire sunroof package that isnt working correctly. They went over the entire car to see if there were any signs of repair or repaint and didnt find any. My wife's uncle works there, so I trust him. So right now the only thing that we believe happened to this car was a broken sunroof, probably done while still in the factory and then the factory quickly replaced it without properly cleaning out the rails. Once they get the new sunroof installed I should be good to go!

 

While it sucks to hear that you got off to a bumpy start with your HHR, I am glad to read that your dealer appears to be doing their best to get these matters resolved.

I hope I'm not prying, but there was a conversation on another thread discussing the HHR's quality, and one thought that was raised was the quality of dealer service. It was said that faults with a car can often be overlooked if they do not recur, there aren't many problems, and that the dealer treats you with respect. It sounds like the dealer is handling this well(you'd hope so as family works there!), but how do you feel about the car?

Anyhow, I'm glad to see that things are being resolved.

 

I love the car. Its my first new car in 12 years, but when you lay down that much coin on something, you want it to be perfect. I know that is a fantasy, but all in all it's a good car and once the little things are taken car of, I think we will really enoy it.

The dealership made a comment that GM is making it harder and harder to get warranty work done. They said you really really got to prove to them that a car needs the parts before they will authorize it. So in a way, I think the dealerships want to give great service, but are hindered by GM in doing so.

On another note, the actual owner of the dealership did personally come out and look at the car today and introduced himself to us. He told the service manager to note the small paint flaws in the computer so if or when we did ever have a problem with rusting or what not that they would fix it.

 

Glad to hear you still love the car

Car makers cracking down on warranty work is a problem. The issue is that GM was forced to do this. When "warranty repair costs" are taken from quaterly reports by the press and then used to prove that you make good or bad vehicles you would be remiss if you didn't try to get as low a number as possible. It also doesn't help that a lot of techs would also milk the system to get paid as much as possible. Not ALL techs mind you! My brother was at a local Ford dealer where one of his co-workers did that all the time. Customer comes in with a squeak and they leave with a pile of work done. The Customer isn't paying so they don't care, the dealer doesn't care 'cause Ford was paying, but then Ford started to care...

Anyhow, I'm just happy to hear that your HHR is back on the road making PT owners jealous

 

The HHR I'm looking at was born on 1/15/07 also...other than these issues how is the car? Running smooth and A-OK? I don't want to think that the workers had a rough weekend and cars built on 1/15 have some issues!

I bet you all 07 HHR's more than likely have the paint thingy...you just happened to eagle eye it


Goose

 

'07 here and no hatch paint problem here! Now other paint issues yes

 

Easiest way to tell if it's a respray is to run your finger down the inside edge of the hatch. If it's rough, it's a respray. Factory paint is glass-smooth on the edges.

BTW, it's entirely possible that the sunroof was damaged and replaced at the factory, but it's more likely that it occurred during transit and the glass panel was replaced at the dealership w/o them getting all the glass out of the track. Sunroofs are tested when they're installed and during final process, so it's highly unlikely it made it through the assembly plant like that.

As for GM cracking down on warranty repairs, it's more like they're cracking down on needless repairs. In the past I've been to more than a few dealerships that'll say I need a full transmission rebuild at 33,000 miles, then I'll go to another and they replace a wiring connector in an hour and the problem's solved. The dealers have really bilked GM and their customers for YEARS on warranty repairs. That's why they say to never go back to the dealer out-of-warranty. They make anywhere from three to four times the hourly rate on out-of-warranty repairs, and it's also why a lot of dealers are selling other extended warranties besides the GMPP.

 

The 06's had a paint thingie also in that mismatched panels were caught by some owners. any bad thingie is unfortunate/disappointing with the HHR/owners in general.

 

I talked to a friend of mine last night that told me his brother worked on a line for GM and his job was to touch up known paint flaws as the cars came off the line. Did one of these such guys hit up the two spots on my tailgate edge before it left the factory? Maybe! LOL