Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Car Incident #3 (the 10 days of hell overstay their welcome)...


So on Friday morning I press my car starter button & hear my car hum as it turns on. I go about my business and get ready for work. Getting into my car to go I put the key into the ignition, go to put it in gear and the car shuts off. Awesome. So I go to try it again and the car won't start. Now the really fun thing with Saturns (and they'll blame the car starter but I blame the car maker) is that they have a theft deterrant programmed into the car so that if the right key isn't used to start the car is disables the fuel. This translates to sometimes when I used my car starter my key won't turn on the car. The solution is suppose to be to leave the key in the ignition in "run mode" for 15 minutes and then re-start the car. So I do that, which will make me late for work so I call from my cell & leave a message.
After the obligitory 15 minutes I try to start the car, it won't turn over and I get an error message on my odometer that says "PWR STR" (a.k.a. power steering). I'm none to happy about this as my car was in for service just over a week ago. I call Saturn servie department and they say: we're really busy but if you drop your car off and leave it here all day we may be able to look at it. Right, but first I have to get it running. I schedule an appointment for Monday morning instead.
Then I wait some more and try to start the car. Still doesn't work. Go inside, make some "tension tamer" tea & call work again. Wait some more, try again, still doesn't work. Shovel my walk way, wait some more, still doesn't work. Then my odometer flashes "COOLANT" in addition to the "PWR STR" message. I call Saturn again. Get a different person who reiterates what the first girl said.
Wait some more. Try again, still not working. It is now about 45 mintues later. So I'm starting to worry that maybe my battery has died now. I try using the car starter button again. It starts. I stop swearing and thank god. I put my key in, go to put it in gear & it shuts off. I start swearing again. So I call Saturn again & get a third different person. He informs me that most likely my car will not start now and I'd better get it towed to Saturn.
I call AMA (luckily I have a membership) who tell me it'll be up to an hour wait. It isn't. The tow guy is really nice but trash talks car starters a bunch. I get to Saturn about 9:30ish (which is over an hour after I'm suppose to start work). Then I have to wait for the shuttle. So I got to work at about 10am. The shuttle driver told me that it was their busiest day in history in the service department and that she was working by herself.
At about 11am Saturn calls me and informs me that my car starter blew a fuse and so it's my cost. It took them 1 1/2 hours to be sure that was the issue so I owe them $100. Yay. I complain that it's barely been there 1 1/2 hours, he says "oh we started working on it right away." Then I asked if it can't go under warranty. He claims that cuz the code said "ignition interference" he can't. So I'm out 2 hours of work & $100.
Then at 4pm I call Saturn for a shuttle ride back there to pick up my car at 4:30pm. The guy tells me they are running at least an hour behind. So I convince Cynthia that she should drive me there.
After all that, I went to Costco & got an amazing deal on a basket of bath stuff. That helped.

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