Some backstory; I don't have a garage to keep half assembled vehicles in or much room in an apartment complex parking lot to work on them. In addition my experience and tools are quite limited and I work a lot of varied hours so I end up farming out maintenance to local shops or dealerships at inflated costs. I don't drive often aside from maybe a weekly trip to the store, but I do take long trips out of state in the summer time when I need my vehicle to be unquestionably reliable. To this end I try to keep up with maintenance issues big and small. The frequency at which repairs were necessary was the very reason I got rid of my 1999 GMC Jimmy to begin with despite the fact that I enjoyed it very much and had no need or desire for anything bigger/different. The Jimmy cost me somewhere around $4500 in non-routine maintenance costs over 6 years. I consider tires, fluids, filters, wipers, etc to be a given. That total was before I ran out of money and left the vehicle in the hands of my Father in another state for a couple of months to work on it for me. He charged me nothing but the cost of the parts and a couple of very enjoyable Father-Son dinners for his time. After he was finished installing the pieces necessary to keep it running long enough to drive back home to Ohio like the MAF sensor, fuel pump, fuel filter, rear differential seal, and some other work that escapes my mind it still needed a new intake manifold and gasket, oxygen sensors, replacement of rotted vacuum lines, a catalytic converter, u joints, rear trans seal, and a heater core all before 125k miles most of which had been highway.
So I bought the Saab so that I could escape that cycle. Today I realized that the GMT360 is just another GM vehicle and therefore it's going to nickel and dime me to death just like my GMT330 did. I've had this Saab just shy of 4 months in which time it has been driven less than 400 miles and it seems as though something new breaks every other time I get behind the wheel.
I got in it this evening to find the clear plastic covering the instrument cluster has developed several cracks that were not there Saturday when I had been cleaning the interior. Quite possibly due to my use of an Armor All Glass Wipe I had been using on the windshield. If that's the case it would certainly be my fault for using a glass cleaner on plastic, a problem for which I claim ignorance as I had not encountered it using the same wipes on my GMC Jimmy. A bit frustrated but still having somewhere to be I rolled my windows down to enjoy the weather and the driver's side window made a lovely crunching sound as it tried to roll down, then wouldn't roll up, then finally did roll up with more crunching. Add that to the little trim pieces falling off, the flatspot in the left rear tire, the slip yoke that jerks you around when you stop and the lovely squeak I'm getting from one of the pulleys or the belt that disappears every time I pop the hood to find it and I'm not much better off with this than I was with my GMC Jimmy except the Jimmy was paid for.
I'm sure that many of you have never had these problems or possibly any at all and I look upon you with envy. I seem to be haunted by unreliability when all I really want is to be able to get in the car and enjoy the drive. Thank you for letting me share my frustrations with you complete strangers as my family have understandably become tired of hearing about my vehicle woes. I have been alternating between franchise third party shops and main dealers for the GMC, if anyone has any suggestions on good shops in the Columbus, Ohio area please do let me know. I need to get at least the window fixed before I leave to go out of state in two weeks.
So I bought the Saab so that I could escape that cycle. Today I realized that the GMT360 is just another GM vehicle and therefore it's going to nickel and dime me to death just like my GMT330 did. I've had this Saab just shy of 4 months in which time it has been driven less than 400 miles and it seems as though something new breaks every other time I get behind the wheel.
I got in it this evening to find the clear plastic covering the instrument cluster has developed several cracks that were not there Saturday when I had been cleaning the interior. Quite possibly due to my use of an Armor All Glass Wipe I had been using on the windshield. If that's the case it would certainly be my fault for using a glass cleaner on plastic, a problem for which I claim ignorance as I had not encountered it using the same wipes on my GMC Jimmy. A bit frustrated but still having somewhere to be I rolled my windows down to enjoy the weather and the driver's side window made a lovely crunching sound as it tried to roll down, then wouldn't roll up, then finally did roll up with more crunching. Add that to the little trim pieces falling off, the flatspot in the left rear tire, the slip yoke that jerks you around when you stop and the lovely squeak I'm getting from one of the pulleys or the belt that disappears every time I pop the hood to find it and I'm not much better off with this than I was with my GMC Jimmy except the Jimmy was paid for.
I'm sure that many of you have never had these problems or possibly any at all and I look upon you with envy. I seem to be haunted by unreliability when all I really want is to be able to get in the car and enjoy the drive. Thank you for letting me share my frustrations with you complete strangers as my family have understandably become tired of hearing about my vehicle woes. I have been alternating between franchise third party shops and main dealers for the GMC, if anyone has any suggestions on good shops in the Columbus, Ohio area please do let me know. I need to get at least the window fixed before I leave to go out of state in two weeks.