Winnipeg GA Owners - Where do you get your GA serviced?

[DToews]

Hi all,

I've been all over. Murray Chev-Olds, Birchwood Pontiac, McNaught Pontiac (where I've had the worst service ever encountered ... I wholeheartedly reccommend going ANYWHERE else).

I'm just wondering, in your opinions, where is the best dealership in town to take your GA while it's still under warranty? To me it seems most of these guys are the same.

They seem to want to not deal with a lot of problems.

For example for a few months now my power steering had been giving me trouble. In park, I had a helluva time cranking my wheels around to put my club on.

I mentioned this to Murray's and they said everything was normal (though I knew it hadn't done that when it was new). A couple months after it began, I noticed an intermittent high pitched whining sound when I turned the wheel. Again I took it to Murray's and was told they couldn't replicate the problem.

Then last week Friday I had it in at Brichwood for the same thing (and a mysterious clunk sound that they claim is mudflap noise, but it's not a scrape, it's a clunk when I go over a bump so I think it's suspension trouble of some type). Again I was told everything looked good with my power steering system.

Well on Tuesday I pulled a U-Turn and the power steering died completely. Just 3 days earlier Birchwood had inisisted the system was fine.

Needless to say my confidence in them is pretty much nil now.

So overall, where have you guys had the best service and most importantly what shop seems to be able to diagnose the problem when you first bring it in and fix it right the first time? I hate always having to bring it back repeatedly for the same troubles.

All opinions welcome!

Darren

2000 Arctic White Grand Am GT Sedan

[grandamgtdriver]

My power steering went on me this summer too, and it was on a long weekend! I take my car to McNaught. I've had the same problem with bringing it in and having them tell me that there was no fault found. This happened twice for the same issue. Two to three visits later they figured it out. I only go there because I got a sweet deal on the car (I dealt directly with Gord McNaught, the owner) and because it is close to work. What problem did you have with McNaught? I will never step into Park Ponitiac again unless it is to get a better quote so that I can get the other dealerships to match it...they tried to play all the salesmen games with me when I went there to buy a car...

Bottom line...cars suck!

[videoman]

Most of the maintenance I do myself , but if it's something warranty wise I take it to Jim Gauthier Pontiac. They've been good to me.

[DToews]

Where to begin ...

I too got a great deal at McNaught on my car. However my problems began the first time I took it in for my first oil change and had my mudflaps installed. I was going to do the mudflaps myself as it's only a couple screws but it was brand spanking new and I wanted it perfect I figured I'd pay the "professionals" the $15.00 or whatever it was to install them so they'd all be nice and straight, etc.

When I picked up my car whoever had worked on it had dirty shoes and dirtied up my carpet. That ****ed me off, but not as much as the fact that when I tried to drive away my mudflaps were scraping the ground because they'd been mounted improperly. I had to take it back the next day to have them remounted. Then they ****ed me off because instead of using pre-existing screws and holes they drilled new ones. I'm just hoping that doesn't cause rust in the future.

Anyway that experience soured me on them so much that I didn't go back there for 2 years. (There was also the incident where I had a mirror fall off the '98 Sunfire GT I had before I got my grand am. The spring had come loose, but the power mirror still functioned perfectly. Rather than spend time remounting it for me they wanted me to pay for a whole new power mirror assembly saying that because it was knocked off ... their conclusion, I never knew how it came off ... it wasn't covered under warranty. I told 'em it still worked fine and that they'd just have to remount the new one anyway so that was bull****. They eventually relented and put it back on under warranty).

Now one day I happened to be going to a course at U of M downtown campus, and I needed my tires rotated so I dropped it off there. While it was there, my "service advisor" called me and told me that they'd noticed my rear turn signals weren't working and they needed to order a relay or something so they could fix it, as they didn't have any in stock. This was on a Thursday, and he explained that they would get me a rental car because without working turn signals they considered the car "unsafe" to drive. I had no problem with this, and was actually glad they'd noticed a problem and took steps to correct it for me.

As it happened, it looked like hail that night so I opted for the $10.00 / day insurance on the rental in the event that the car would get damaged by hail I didn't want to get stuck with the deductible. Expecting my car back the next day, I felt it was worth it.

Well on Friday I was told the part wouldn't be in till Monday, so I'd have to keep the rental over the weekend. I had no problem with this except that now my $10.00 investment would become $40.00 which I wasn't too happy about (after explaining this to the rental folks though, they refunded me back the extra I paid, so for that I was grateful). Keep in mind that I have babied this car. I wash it like 3 times a week and clean the interior at least every other week.

When I went to pick the car up on Monday, their gopher guy pulls it up and tells me. "Oh, by the way, I put some plastic on the seat because it got a little wet inside."

To which I responded "What? How?"

"The window was left open."

Now this was the weekend at the beginning of this summer when we first got the big rains. Well some dumbass left my driver's side window open ALL FRIGGIN' WEEKEND while it rained EVERY DAY.

Gopher boy looks at me and says "I guess you're not too happy about that. I can take the plastic out if you don't want it in there."

I opened the door and patted the floor matt ... it SPLASHED. There was a ton of water in there, both front and back. A little wet he had told me ...

I said no I'm not happy and went immediatly to see the service manager, whose name escapes me at the moment. For the life of me I can't remember her name.

Anyway, I told her what had happened and she said. "Really? I don't know how that could have happened. They're supposed to check for that. Don't worry I'll find out how it happened."

She did not even apologize. I replied "That's it? You're not going to give me any kind of compensation or anything? Not even offer me a free oil change or something, anything? I don't care how it happened, it's done. I want to know what you're going to do about it."

She thought it over for a sec and agreed to give me an oil change. She also said they'd dry the car out and take care of it. So once again I had to take the rental home.

I was so ****ed I stormed out of her office.

The next day, now Tuesday, I go to get my car again. It's still soaking wet inside, patting the floor still splashes water around. Basically all they did was drive it into the garage and roll down the windows. It was starting to smell all musty in there, so I really was ****ed this time. I didn't even want to talk to her, so I went to Andrea McDonald's office. She's the fleet sales manager who I got the car from originally. She was about the only one there that treated me with any kind of respect. I explained what happened to her and got the General Manager, Andrew McNaught's phone number from her and called him a bit later. I tore a strip off him and asked him why I didn't receive an apology and why what's her name didn't follow through on what she said she'd do for me. I said "If your managers don't care about the customers why should your mechanics and other employees?"

That kind of hit home to him and he agreed to have my car shampooed and cleaned inside. Finally it was done the following day.

Suffice it to say I am NEVER going back there. Ever.

[Jagey]

Jim Gauthier Pontiac is very excellent. They even took the time to spend half an hour with me showing me how to install my aftermarket superwhite headlamps FREE OF CHARGE. They fixed all my car defects under warranty too with minnimal hassle. (Leather coming off steering wheel, Body side mouldings crooked, left side of exhaust lower than right) Jim Gauthier Pontiac is good, DO NOT go to Jim Gauthier Chev Olds, they don't care about you at all there.