saint_monkey | Entries tagged with car woes

now a break from the bad news and slight paranoia below. recently, i wrote about all of my adventures with my old Ford Escort, which died an uncertain death on my birthday, August 20th. the resulting series of events resulted in the purchase of a 2002 Saturn that i really can't afford right now, and i left my story there, supposedly finished.

except...

when we filled the car up with gas for the first time (at 221 miles,) we started noticing an odd sound, sort of like a tiny whiney puppy or a sound that a car alarm would make, several blocks away. this gradually began to become a constant sound, and it increased and decreased in volume, sometimes drowning out the radio and the freeway noise. A concerned call to saturn produced some ridicule from the service department, who seemed suprised that we would be complaining about a tiny noise. And since the noise was intermittant, they told us not to bother bringing it in until it became constant enough to "verify." Otherwise, we could just be someone attempting to abuse thier service centers.

We planned on asking about it at one of those repair tech seminars. But the next one was held on ... September 11th.

We all know what happened then. We called to find out when it was rescheduled for, and they told us that they had actually held the seminar, and that we had missed it. We would get a postcard letting us know when the next one would be (more about that in a minute.)

By this time, the noise had become more than intermittant, it was present whenever the car idled. Figuring that this was a good time to bring it in, since it certainly could be "verified" now, we made an appointment, and i took a day off of work (the job i was forced to take in order to make the payments for this car.) And i brought the car in. Several technicians came out and listened to the whiney puppy under the hood...

"huh. sure is a squeaky sound. Can we get steve over here? Steve?"
"yup"
"sounds squeaky, like a mouse."
"more like a chihuahua."
"yup sir, you got a chihuahua in there."

After this witty reparte, they decided to tell me that we should just wait until the car had about a ten thousand miles on it. maybe by then it would "go away" or "get worse." Yes, it was an ODD sound, and yes, it wasn't NORMAL, but there was no reason to believe that anything was WRONG. After discussing this with Mystery, and remembering that there was a 90 day no-questions return policy, we decided not to risk a lemon, and exchange this vehicle for another. Oddly, we could find no mention of the return policy in our paperwork, and when we confronted them, we found that they had a 60 day policy. (which is very odd, since Mystery and I BOTH received the impression that this was a 90 day return, independantly, and without corroboration, which makes me think that we were intially told that it was 90 days, in a sort of slip of the tongue.) In any case, we had gone over our days by two weeks.

They told us that we could call the corporate office to appeal, and so i began a two or three week battle with Saturn corporate. At first they would offer nothing but after some cajoling, they agreed to offer us an extension to our warranty. In the course of the discussion, Saturn corporate told me that i should not be so upset, since it was clear from the service record that our local dealer had hooked our car up to a "diagnostic computer" and that it had passed with no problems. I had to infomr them that unless ridiculing my concerns and belittling me is now a diagnostic method, that this was patently false. BUT, I would certainly be willing to have this diagnostic performed. So i set up the appointment for the next possible day, and I asked for the offer of warranty extension in writing to be faxed to us by that time.

So i once again took a day off of work, and brought the car in for a diagnostic. They then discovered something wrong, and made another appointment to bring the car in and tear it down, and set us up with a loaner.

When i arrived home, saturn had called and rescinded thier offer of the warranty, or at least held back on it, until the results of the repair were known.

This began to look like they would not offer us anything. But Mystery said that she would be fine if they would just fix the damn car.

So we brought the car in, got the loaner, and by the end of the first day, they had located and replaced the faulty part. The car runs perfectly, and we were willing to leave it at that. But then Saturn corporate called, and told us that they had heard that our car had been fixed, and that they would fax us the extended warranty anyhow, so that "thier words would not be hollow." (Saturn's customer rep's words, apparantly thier blurbs are now written by indian chiefs.)

So by and large, this problem was largely smoke and mirrors, but i am pretty dismaye4d that this trouble, which could have clearly been simply and quickly resolved with an investment of less than a week on Saturn's part, took almost three months to clear up.

So, we had about had enough of car dealerships, but we still needed a car. So we went back home and looked at some other "similar" cars to the Accent on Autobytel.com. One of the things we came across was the Saturn SL series vehicle. We had overlooked it before as too expensive, but the base model was just a little above our price range. So we did the same thing we had done before, gathered the options we wanted, looked at MSRP for that car, worked out the budget, found a local dealer (Saturn of Bellevue) and I went out in the morning (once more, in the rain) as sort of an advance scout. Ther prices on the sticker were the same as the ones we scouted on the net (with a slight allowance for profit. Now I don't want anyone to think that my previous diatribes are part of my usual anti-capitalist rants, and i'm trying to short the often troubled American Auto Industry. I'm not going to begrudge anyone thier profit, as long as it's fair. A certain amount of profit is good for everyone. But greed for greed's sake really drives me crazy, and dealing with your customers in a manner that insults thier intellegence and frustrates them intentionally is a simply foolish thing to do.) In any case, our experience with the Saturn dealer was actualy quite painless. I noted as I said before, that the prices were in line with what I expected, and that the model with options and color that we wanted was available, and to my suprise, a special financing rate (1.9%) is in place until the end of August, on the exact model we wanted. So we bought one.

Mystery says that the lack of dealer hassle, and the delivery on each and every promise without any obfuscation was one of the main reasons that Saturn got our business.

Little Dog then sat with us at the supervisor's desk, and proceeded to collapse in a silent pile of rumination and quiet sobbing upon seeing a small stuffed Pokemon doll. (Later we learned that Little Dog's ex-girlfriend had taken a much larger, more expensive version of this doll, plus a large stuffed "Pikachu" from him, and had not given them back upon thier subsequent breakup. Such are the wages of love, my friends.) In any case, shortly a trap door in the middle of the floor opened and the supervisor, our New Best Buddy No.1, appeared in a puff of oily smoke, and half hearted flames. The man was an uneven mixture of every new car salesman cliche in the world, with a few of the common loan shark cliches thrown in for good measure. He was literally the slickest man alive. He was so slick that he was coated in Number Nine Ball Bearing Oil. After about fifteen minutes of his nickle ante Machiavellianisms I began to long for the quiet and subtle machinations of the Lieutenant Castillo cloning accident from Honda of Bellevue. Fortunately, a little known aspect of my wife's personality emerged. Somewhere in her southern fried families' past, there must be a Yankee Trader in the woodpile, because she cracked this five and dime huckster like a nut. She demanded an explainations of the costs, and our supervisor produced the dealer invoice, and when it stated $10,499 as it should have, instead of $14K which is what their price was with the second stickers added in, she demanded a complete and itemized list of the extra costs, and a complete explaination of each. Finally, she realized that the man was literally taking items from above the total, and adding them back in on top of the total on the invoice, like so:


Subtotal           :   $9,749
___________________
Transportation :      $500
Advertising      :       $250
____________________
Total                :  $10,499

Quoth Mr. Machiavelli: "Now, as you can see on the invoice, the total is $10,499 but you need to add that transportation and those advertising costs there onto that total for this puppy, giving us $11,249, and we still need to add "Dealer Prep" and "Street Value" to that."
Once that came out into the open, we simply stopped listening, in the end I think he offered us the car we wanted at a thousand dollar markup and a 7% finance rate and a $500 "Search fee", but by that time he could have been offering us an Arista Records recording contract and a "Fiddle Made of Gold" and I wouldn't have listened. As soon as we could, we broke for the door, a stiff arm block was required to stop the tall man from throwing an illegal clip our way ("excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear..." yeah, right, good car dealer bad car dealer? No thank you.) All the way home, Mystery and I quoted lines from "Fargo" at each other. ("Yeah, that Trucoat. They put that on at the factory you know. I'm gonna talk to my boss, and he's not gonna be happy about that.")

in our last adventure, we went out to look at Honda Civics, and we found them to be well out of our range. So we went home and called it a night. After an hour or two on the internet, we discovered that the tiny, underappreciated Hyundai Accent, starts out at around $9888, and garners some suprising accolades from various sources, like autoweb.com, and cartalk.com) All sources seemed to think that the extensive Hyundai factory warranty, which is a simply unheard of 11Year/110K Miles, made all of the minor imperfections in the vehicle worthwhile. So after some searching, we found a Hyundai dealer in Bellevue, (Sound Mazda, or more accurately, "Sound Mazda, Suzuki and Hyundai." It pays to be a jack of all trades, I guess.) Whose website promised that the 2001 model would run us $10,448 with a base option package that includes automatic transmission. (Check it yourself, www.soundmazda.com) So we set out in the worst rainstorm of the year to test drive and inspect the vehicles, and see if they kept their money anywhere near thier mouth. (Or at least near their website.) We were hoping to find a 2001 model since special financing is available on these (6.9%) until the end of August. (According to Hyundai.) When we arrived, all of the salesmen were lined up outside like those long-haired hoodlums on the corner, smoking and joking. All except one, who seemed to be the little dog on the porch. The others looked at us and our battered Escort, and seemed to shrug us off instantly on Little Dog, who rather tentatively approached us, (I thought he might run away at any moment.) Instead, he showed us the Accents on the lot (All 2002 models, for which there is NO special financing.) Oddly all the stickers on the lot started at about a thousand more than the website and competetor's sites, even for the 2002. In addition, a second sticker added another two thousand dollars in dealer costs. (Advertising, Dealer Transportation, Dealer Prep, Dishonesty Waiver, Stupid Tax, and the like.) We looked at that oddly, but Little Dog rushed us on to other vehicles any time we looked like we were inspecting things too closely, and when we finally looked like we were going to get to speak to each other, he suggested a test drive of one of the base models. All the while, a tall man from the row of Usual Suspects tailed us at a discreet distance (or at least, I assume he thought it was a discreet distance in his private detective fantasies... as it was he was as conspicuous as a bird in a punchbowl.) So we took the little Hyundai around town and up onto the freeway. The car was noisy and rough around the edges, but not much more so than the used Civics. It would truly be a bargain for 8K, but rather outrageous for 13K. After the drive, we asked about the possibility for a search of Hyundai dealers nearby for the 2001 base model plus automatic for $10,448. Since Little Dog couldn't handle this level of transaction, he rushed us inside, and then went to fetch his "Supervisor."

so, faced with a vehicle with (possibly) a major wiring problem, and repair prohibitive (and unrelated) body damages, and the absolute, non-negotiable need for a reliable vehicle for the three years after next year, Mystery and I decided to go the new car route. We first thought that we would try for the basic, entry level, two door civic hatchback, listing at about $10K and change. We drove off to "Honda of Kirkland" (According to thier obnoxious television commercials, "The Honda of Kirkland Connection.") When we arrived, (in the middle of the second worst rainstorm of the year,) we were greeted by our prospective car salesman and new best buddy No.1, a man whose looks and demeanor instantly reminded me of a cross between Edward James Olmos' marvelously underplayed "Lieutenant Castillo" from Miami Vice, and Reuben Blade's slightly slimey yet still slightly honrable Hospital Administrator on Gideon's Crossing. Sort of the quiet listener type, the type who does the hard jobs when they have to be done, even when the hard job is attempting to sell too much car to a poor college aged couple. He calmly listened to our woes, and rather simply said that they no longer make the entry level Civic, and tried to interest us in a wide variety of excellent used cars. Some sample phrases from our discussion:

"Yes, but those are highway miles"
"you can call our mechanics and ask that type of question any time you like."
they are priced higher than kelly blue book because we buy them back at a higher price, because they are such good cars to re-sell.

After an hour or so, and after learning that the new entry level Honda starts at $14K without any options (special bonus phrase: "and they don't make them without options. Nobody will buy the base model you know.") we decided to give up on the Civic, go home, and research other cars in the $10,000 range.

well, i'm just glad yesterday is over.

I got the car at three and took the battery in to Shucks. Ford said that it was cold cranking 11.9 volts at 100 amps, when it should be generating 12 volts at 300 amps. Shucks put a multimeter across the old battery and found the same thing. The guy at Shucks says that this is the kind of Voltage and Amperage that they see with a battery with one dead cell. Apparantly this is not an uncommon thing, even among new batteries. If so, why isn't a load test standard practice? In any case, I asked them to test the new battery. (That honestly didn't occur to the counterman, I mean we had one bad battery and they were going to give me another without taking a moment to put a meter on it.) Anyhow , It's fine. So now there are a few possibilities:

the aforementioned electrical system failure, which is draining batteries and blowing fuses
an unusual "comedy of errors" ... the earlier NAPA battery was drained by mystery's lunchtime uses of the car and AC (She ate her lunch in the car, while listening to the radio, to avoid the mindless tedium of her office. A few times, she left the lights on all morning. Mystery only began driving again recently.) Then the engine fuse blew or wore out, preventing the jump from working. I then went and purchased a battery with a dead cell, and replaced my old battery with it. The Ford folks replaced the fuse, but didn't put the new weak battery through a load test, because it (barely) had enough juice to turn the car over, so nothing appeared to be wrong. A few days later, the lame battery can no longer push enough amps to turn the car over, and i interpret this second failure as a reoccurance of the first issue.

So what will tell? A daily check of the battery Voltage and Amperage I guess, which I will do. If the battery appears to be rapidly loosing oomph, then we know there is a wiring fault somewhere.
Maybe it's time to buckle under, get a part time job, and invest in a new car. It has to be this year, cause after this, any finance check would uncover Mystery's impending Stafford Loans for Law School. Right now with our severance money, we could put $3000 down on a new $10,000 Civic easy. If we can scrape up a few more thousand for the initial down payment, plus whatever i'd get in trade for my beleagered Escort, then we could get a long term lease, so we don't have a huge required payment in case things get rough(er), but we could overpay and apply any excess towards the priciple and probably pay off the whole tab by next July, and then we would have a reliable vehicle while Mystery goes to Law School. Any other opinions? I'm open to suggestions...

went out to the car tonight to go get apricot jam and won-ton wrappers, and guess what?

it wouldn't start.

so we get to call the tow truck again, oh joy! another $80 tow! and we get to drag it in to University Ford and ask them:

why the fuck didn't my car start yesterday evening after a $200 repair to replace an $8 fuse?

As a non-confrontational person, I feel like I am deserving of additional compensation for being forced to confront someone when it isn't in my natural disposition.

grrrrr. (teeth gnashing, etc.)

but first, before we venture into our tale, a little online auction abuse.rubylou posted this rather risque pic of an aussie man's teapot.

But i digress. Yesterday, as I was about to foray into coffee777's informative expose of the new Big Brother cast's shortcomings, my lovely wife Mystery (yes, that is her real name) called to tell me that the car wouldn't start, and all attempts to "jump start" the automobile were fruitless. Rembering the "Ignition Triangle" from numerous episodes of "Car Talk," (Imagine if you will, three capital "F's" arranged in a circle. A car will start if it has Fuel, Fire, and Oxygen. (Well, re-imagine the triangle as 2 "F's" and one "O.") The Fuel is misted with Oxygen to make vapor, and it is Ignighted by the Spark plug's "Fire," causing a rather massive explosion. (One Gallon of gasoline has one fifth the explosive power of a stick of TNT.) this explosion is contained within a stong metal container, and it's energy is used to force a piston upward within this containert, which in turn causes a cam to turn slightly, converting the up and down motion of the piston into a circular motion, transmitted along the vehicle's drive shaft, but I digress. ) As the vehicle is Fuel Injected, the "O" portion of the triangle, controlled normally by the Carb, absent on fuel injected vehicles, wasn't likely unless the computer was gone, and seeing as Mystery had filled the vehicle with Fuel just recently, we must therefore deduce that the culprit is Fire. Since all of the spark plugs couldn't go bad simultaneously, the starter wasn't "kicking" at all, but the lights did work, the Alternater couldn't be the issue. At this point, I could only think that the situation required a new battery, (even though the existing battery was a NAPA Superstart 35, A Consumer Reports "Best Buy," and guaranteed for 5 years (and currently less than a year old,)) So I rushed off to my neighbor, patty puke, to borrow her automobile, rush off to NAPA, purchase a newer, assumingly less defective battery before the establishment's closure, and drive out to Mystery's place of employment to install said device and act as heroic rescuer. Needless to say, by the time I arranged the aforementioned transportation, the NAPA store in question had ceased it's business day, and I had to ambulate about until I encountered a "Shucks" of ill repute just off of Denny, where I was able to make the required purchase. Oddly, I passed three stalled automobiles along the way, two of which involved the presence of Jumper cables. When entering the Shucks, I had to wait behind three other troubled citizens, all purchasing Car Batteries. I was afraid that they would not hasve the battery in question, but I need not be alarmed. The requested battery was in stock, and easily purchased, but for $60. So then, armed with this 35 AMP marvel, I then proceeded to 3901 6th Street S, (Where my beleagured vehicle and lovely spouse awaited,) and installed the battery. Afterwards, when the vehicle would not start, even equipped with a new battery, we were forced to the conclusion that the initial diagnosis of a faulty battery was not the problem entire. So, recalling that the cabin lighting on my poor Ford Escort had just a few days before, crapped out, I assumed that the problem could be either the fuses or the complete electrical system. Since fuses are easily replaced, I opted to attempt to replace the "Engine" "Drive" and "Ignition" fuses with new fuses, all of which proved fruitless. Since at this point, all of my options were exhausted, I called my Insurance Agency, to attempt to use my promised "Roadside Assistance" insurance, which the agent on the phone, "Could not promise" that they would cover. (At this point, I began to think "And why the fuck do I pay you ~$80 per month then?" (Pardon my French.)) But I restrained this Francophillic statement. An hour later, a delightful Russian tow truck driver from "ZZ Towing" (Any company that places it's name to be last in the phone book is OK by Mr. Steffan Ziegler,) arrived, courtesy of my uncertain Insurance provider (State Farm, whom I am thinking of dropping,) and he quickly and agilely hooked my vehicle up and towed it to my garage of choice, University Ford. This operation cost me ~$80. (Making me wonder, once again, why I exactly the fuck I am paying my insurance provider the same amount.) In the morning, as I learned of a "Glacial Outburst" on Mount Ranier (Several thousand gallons of melted glacier burst free of it's retaining crust, and rushed into the Willamet River, I also learned that the vehicle's difficulties were caused by a second set of fuses (known affectionately as "Engine Fuses") one of which had expired, causing the cabin lighting woes, as well as the vehicle's ignition trouble.

Mystery expressed the concern that the "Glacial Outburst" was related to her high stress levels lately, and I can't help but wonder if the high heat is somehow increasing a charge in the air, and causing everyone's engine fuses to blow out.