Saturn again.

It seems they've located the problem. Faulty sparc plug wire. Apparently, the last two times they had the car, they didn't notice the engine running, well, lets just call it 'like complete and total shit' because I think that's a good description. So, one O2 sensor: flaky. That's fine, the car is 8 years old and has 117,237mi. on it. I can see that. Apparently yesterday's service tech replaced the failing sensor, cleared the SES fault, and didn't bother to test the engine other than starting it (the problem doesn't exhibit at lower RPMs, so just letting it idle wouldn't have told them anything either way).

They're doing the 120k service today. Yay, another $300, but that's severely discounted (can you say 'Half?' I thought you could), because they know I'm not happy, and it involves a complete tune-up including replacing the Happy Plug Wires of Doom.

So, supposedly, once this is done, the car's good for another 30k miles before it needs any major service again. I'm still annoyed. This is a $20 problem. If I want to buy the equivalent of Monster Cables for sparc plugs, it's a $50 problem. It took a week, 3 visits, and $600 to find and fix.

Saturn again.

It seems they've located the problem. Faulty sparc plug wire. Apparently, the last two times they had the car, they didn't notice the engine running, well, lets just call it 'like complete and total shit' because I think that's a good description. So, one O2 sensor: flaky. That's fine, the car is 8 years old and has 117,237mi. on it. I can see that. Apparently yesterday's service tech replaced the failing sensor, cleared the SES fault, and didn't bother to test the engine other than starting it (the problem doesn't exhibit at lower RPMs, so just letting it idle wouldn't have told them anything either way).

They're doing the 120k service today. Yay, another $300, but that's severely discounted (can you say 'Half?' I thought you could), because they know I'm not happy, and it involves a complete tune-up including replacing the Happy Plug Wires of Doom.

So, supposedly, once this is done, the car's good for another 30k miles before it needs any major service again. I'm still annoyed. This is a $20 problem. If I want to buy the equivalent of Monster Cables for sparc plugs, it's a $50 problem. It took a week, 3 visits, and $600 to find and fix.

Saturn again.

It seems they've located the problem. Faulty sparc plug wire. Apparently, the last two times they had the car, they didn't notice the engine running, well, lets just call it 'like complete and total shit' because I think that's a good description. So, one O2 sensor: flaky. That's fine, the car is 8 years old and has 117,237mi. on it. I can see that. Apparently yesterday's service tech replaced the failing sensor, cleared the SES fault, and didn't bother to test the engine other than starting it (the problem doesn't exhibit at lower RPMs, so just letting it idle wouldn't have told them anything either way).

They're doing the 120k service today. Yay, another $300, but that's severely discounted (can you say 'Half?' I thought you could), because they know I'm not happy, and it involves a complete tune-up including replacing the Happy Plug Wires of Doom.

So, supposedly, once this is done, the car's good for another 30k miles before it needs any major service again. I'm still annoyed. This is a $20 problem. If I want to buy the equivalent of Monster Cables for sparc plugs, it's a $50 problem. It took a week, 3 visits, and $600 to find and fix.

Yay, my car is fixed!

Okay, I'll have to say Nice Things (TM) about Saturn of Sterling (SoS for the rest of this entry) now.

They definately solved the problem, and all the extra maintenance I put into the car made it very happy. It hasn't run this well in a while now, even before it started getting weird recently (I hadn't realized how sluggish it had gotten about responding to the pedal since it degrades slowly over time). When I brought it in to SoS last Saturday for it's 117k service, they noted that the power steering fluid was a bit cloudy and should be flushed in the near future. SoS threw that in with today's 120k service for free (it's not included, and costs about a $100 in parts and labor to have done), so, SCORE! In all, I had between $900 and $1000 of work done on the car, and it only ended up costing about $600, so a win over all. It should run happily until its replacement arrives in a few weeks, and should give another 120k miles to who ever we end up selling it to (assuming that said 'who ever' continues to properly maintain it of course).

The only other maintenance note from SoS was that the brake fluid should be flushed at some point as well, since it's getting cloudy (it absorbs water vapor over time, which is also an incompressible fluid, but unlike DOT3 (or whatever number we're up to these days, I haven't checked in over a decade now) brake fluid, when you put water under extreme pressure, it boils). It's not critical, and it's not terribly expensive, but who ever buys the car can deal with that. They didn't throw that in, which is fine. Through this whole episode, SoS have been polite and accomodating.

Oh, and I replaced the cap on the coolant tank reservoir, as it wasn't holding pressure.

Brakes: Good
Tires: Good
Hoses: Good
CV Joints: Good
Steering: Good
Engine: Tuned
Sunroof: Lubricated
CD Player: Mighty!
AC: Cool as a Cucumber.
CruiseCon: Movin' right along.

Next month, it gets its annual VA safety inspection and biannual emissions inspection.

EDIT: This Black Swan Shiraz/Cabernet blend is a really nice wine. Inexpensive, smooth, nice tannins, and a good berry undertone all combine for a pleasant table red. The weird thing is, the 'nose' (how it smells for us normal people) would lead you to believe it would be a fairly harsh red.

Yay, my car is fixed!

Okay, I'll have to say Nice Things (TM) about Saturn of Sterling (SoS for the rest of this entry) now.

They definately solved the problem, and all the extra maintenance I put into the car made it very happy. It hasn't run this well in a while now, even before it started getting weird recently (I hadn't realized how sluggish it had gotten about responding to the pedal since it degrades slowly over time). When I brought it in to SoS last Saturday for it's 117k service, they noted that the power steering fluid was a bit cloudy and should be flushed in the near future. SoS threw that in with today's 120k service for free (it's not included, and costs about a $100 in parts and labor to have done), so, SCORE! In all, I had between $900 and $1000 of work done on the car, and it only ended up costing about $600, so a win over all. It should run happily until its replacement arrives in a few weeks, and should give another 120k miles to who ever we end up selling it to (assuming that said 'who ever' continues to properly maintain it of course).

The only other maintenance note from SoS was that the brake fluid should be flushed at some point as well, since it's getting cloudy (it absorbs water vapor over time, which is also an incompressible fluid, but unlike DOT3 (or whatever number we're up to these days, I haven't checked in over a decade now) brake fluid, when you put water under extreme pressure, it boils). It's not critical, and it's not terribly expensive, but who ever buys the car can deal with that. They didn't throw that in, which is fine. Through this whole episode, SoS have been polite and accomodating.

Oh, and I replaced the cap on the coolant tank reservoir, as it wasn't holding pressure.

Brakes: Good
Tires: Good
Hoses: Good
CV Joints: Good
Steering: Good
Engine: Tuned
Sunroof: Lubricated
CD Player: Mighty!
AC: Cool as a Cucumber.
CruiseCon: Movin' right along.

Next month, it gets its annual VA safety inspection and biannual emissions inspection.

EDIT: This Black Swan Shiraz/Cabernet blend is a really nice wine. Inexpensive, smooth, nice tannins, and a good berry undertone all combine for a pleasant table red. The weird thing is, the 'nose' (how it smells for us normal people) would lead you to believe it would be a fairly harsh red.

Yay, my car is fixed!

Okay, I'll have to say Nice Things (TM) about Saturn of Sterling (SoS for the rest of this entry) now.

They definately solved the problem, and all the extra maintenance I put into the car made it very happy. It hasn't run this well in a while now, even before it started getting weird recently (I hadn't realized how sluggish it had gotten about responding to the pedal since it degrades slowly over time). When I brought it in to SoS last Saturday for it's 117k service, they noted that the power steering fluid was a bit cloudy and should be flushed in the near future. SoS threw that in with today's 120k service for free (it's not included, and costs about a $100 in parts and labor to have done), so, SCORE! In all, I had between $900 and $1000 of work done on the car, and it only ended up costing about $600, so a win over all. It should run happily until its replacement arrives in a few weeks, and should give another 120k miles to who ever we end up selling it to (assuming that said 'who ever' continues to properly maintain it of course).

The only other maintenance note from SoS was that the brake fluid should be flushed at some point as well, since it's getting cloudy (it absorbs water vapor over time, which is also an incompressible fluid, but unlike DOT3 (or whatever number we're up to these days, I haven't checked in over a decade now) brake fluid, when you put water under extreme pressure, it boils). It's not critical, and it's not terribly expensive, but who ever buys the car can deal with that. They didn't throw that in, which is fine. Through this whole episode, SoS have been polite and accomodating.

Oh, and I replaced the cap on the coolant tank reservoir, as it wasn't holding pressure.

Brakes: Good
Tires: Good
Hoses: Good
CV Joints: Good
Steering: Good
Engine: Tuned
Sunroof: Lubricated
CD Player: Mighty!
AC: Cool as a Cucumber.
CruiseCon: Movin' right along.

Next month, it gets its annual VA safety inspection and biannual emissions inspection.

EDIT: This Black Swan Shiraz/Cabernet blend is a really nice wine. Inexpensive, smooth, nice tannins, and a good berry undertone all combine for a pleasant table red. The weird thing is, the 'nose' (how it smells for us normal people) would lead you to believe it would be a fairly harsh red.