The two years our VUE was under warranty, we had a few things go wrong with it, but nothing that was really cause for concern. Had the "Service Engine Soon" light come on, for what ended up being a fairly harmless exhaust problem. Got a flat tire, which we paid to replace since it's not covered by the warranty. Even had some miscellaneous wiring problem go goofy on us, but nothing serious that rendered the car unsafe to drive.
Over the past 11 months since the warranty expired, we've dropped nearly $1000 on fixes that seem to be things just plain going bad, which really shouldn't happen in a car of its fairly youthful age. First the rear windshield wiper stopped working, and rather than asking that it be fixed WITHIN the warranty - since it went on the fritz before the warranty expired - we waited until the next time we brought it in for an oil change, and casually mentioned it then. Ding, $200.
Then the NEXT oil change, they were doing the typical fluid maintenance, when the technician opened up one of the tanks and noticed that it didn't so much resemble coolant as it resembled Yoohoo. So unless someone with a chocolate drink fetish did our last antifreeze drain and refill, we had ourselves a healthy (or, rather, unhealthy) dosage of oil in the cooling system. And the last thing you want in your cooling system - i.e. responsible for keeping your engine from reaching the temperature on the surface of Mercury in mid-July - is something inherently FLAMMABLE. Diagnosis, I can't remember, but ding, $600. And that's AFTER the dealer supposedly haggled the price down with Saturn HQ (apparently from $47 billion). And oh yeah, the next time we took it in, they noticed a little bit MORE oil in the coolant system, which had better be just stuff left over from last time, or someone's getting a syringe of antifreeze in their subclavian.
Finally, last week it snowed (you might have heard) and as a favor to Mrs. Dave, I went out, cleared off her car, started it up, and left it running for her to warm it up. Oddly, by the time she got out to the car, it had stopped. Stalled. Something not good, whatever it was. But it started back up and she took it to work, no problem. Then Friday, she got it as far as work before it just refused to start up that evening. Tried jump starting it the next morning, nothing. Tried calling Saturn, oops, they're closed Saturday afternoon, can't do it. Called Monday, can they send a tow truck? Nope, they don't do that. Have to resort to AAA, who takes two hours to get us a flatbed (oops, can't tow an all-wheel drive, duh). Finally call at 3:30 this afternoon to tell us that we need to replace the crank positioning sensor. Fighting back the urge to tell the guy that I don't care WHERE he has his drugs positioned, I just smile and nod (which on the phone doesn't communicate too much) when he tells me, ding, $190.
Bluh. No wonder Mrs. Dave is going for a VW next time around.
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