Thursday, May 1, 2008

Saturn of Greenville - her take

Although I was lucky enough to have Phil deal w/ all of the issues & UTTER & COMPLETE LACK of customer service there are a few things I want to expand on
(back story: my car died in Bi-lo's parking lot on Sunday & AAA had to tow it to Saturn. Our friend Casey took me to Bi-lo to get Phil's car keys & then to work where Phil's car was so that I could drive back to Saturn to pick him up - Thanks Casey!) Monday morning Saturn calls & tells us that the starter is bad & just for example sake let's say they said it was going to be 200 (they didn't it was more). So phil gave them the green flag to fix it. When they called they also said that the timing belt was bad ($700 to replace) and that the oil filter need a solution (bought at your local auto store for about $10) that would cost $150. Phil said no to both of those. When he went to Saturn to get the car w/ it's newly installed over-priced starter they informed him that it was actually going to more than they quoted on the phone (they can apparently legally do this as long as it's not 10% more than the original quote). A discussion w/ the manager that happened to be standing there lead to him admitting that they overcharge for their parts. On drive back to work it seemed that the timing belt was now making noise & it hadn't last time we drove it on Sunday. P got back to work & called Saturn only to be told that they may not have filled up the oil like they told him they were going to & that the reason it was making that noise was because of the belt not working, or it was because the car was low on oil, or the belt, or the oil (you get the idea). they offered to fill up the oil if he brought the car back. While they were filling the oil, the mechanic was sure to tell P that you just can't run a car this low on oil, it's not good for the car - umm yeah that's why we told you to fill up the oil- Since you can't, apparently, run your car w/ a bad belt either we will be taking it in this weekend (NOT TO SATURN) to get looked at. Donations can be made to either Phil or myself towards the purchase of a new belt - or maybe a new car since the Saturn isn't worth much more than 2K at this point. oh & one more thing. I was looking over the invoice after all of this had happened & they noted on there that the Saturn started fine for them Monday a.m. had we known that we would have driven it elsewhere.
UPDATED : phil & i cross-posted on this at the same time so there will be repeats in my post vs. his