[legalcat]

Hi everyone...

I am hoping for some advice...

Ever since Ive had the car it has made some noise, groaning when I make a tight turn like in a parking garage etc... lately it has also started making some popping noises when I make a tight turn... The noise is only occasional and to be honest the performance of the car is fine except for this noise... it happens rarely and so I havent brought it in to get checked out...

On Saturday I had the car at the dealership getting an oil change, when I picked it up the guy pulled me aside and said "why didnt you tell me about all the noise the car is making???" and I was like, OH, the steering, sure, it makes that noise since I had the car, but not all the time, so when I brought it in, I didnt even think of it... so he says "You need to bring the car back in, I think it is the power steering pump... since its not a safety issue, I couldnt call yu and ask you if you wanted me to check it, we arent allowed to make suggestions of warranty work unless you specifically ask about it..." so he tells me to bring the car in on Monday (yesterday) and act like he didnt say anything and that I was just bringing the car in on my own to report the noise so he wouldnt get in trouble... he says their policy is that they dont tell you about problems that are warranty covered unless the problem is a life and death kind of problem... oook...

SO... i take the car in yesterday, again he tells me he is sure its the pump so they will have the car for two days probably... so now I just get a call and he says... the pump is fine, everything looks fine, the fluid level is fine... the car is not making any noise... so he suggests a synthetic fluid flush at the cost of $130 to me...

I'm no mechanic but I feel like I'm getting shafted... can the groaning when turning be caused by something else? and the popping? Is it possible its a drive train issue or something? Im not car smart at all.. but the car IS under warranty (20,500 miles) and maybe they see something else but as he said before,they arent going to tell me unless I specifically ask...

Is there anything specific I should request that they look at?

 

[legalcat]

I know! This dealership used to be independently owned when i bought the car, they would know your name before you said anything and they knew which car you had etc.. they even knew which car my husband had and would ask about his car etc... they were great.. then last year it got taken over by a bigger company... the first time I went there I had to spell my last name 4 times and its not that hard... ugh... now i feel like i'm the one getting shafted for sure...

 

[legalcat]

Obviously I'm well within warranty.. could I take my car to an independent mechanic, have them give it a full full look at, and then take their report to the dealership and have them perform the work under the warranty? I assume if an independent mechanic does it the warranty wont cover it...

 

[legalcat]

Well that obviously depends on what the extent of the problem is... i mean if we are talking about a few hundred bucks then getting it done right the first time is more important than getting it done for "free"... but if its a more extensive issue, then i would expect them to take care of it... there isnt another dealership in my area, luckily this one is very close to my house and I have a backup car I can use...

 

[legalcat]

hi everyone... ok so a week or so ago they had my car for three days... they couldnt find anything wrong with it then tried to talk me into doing a $130 power steering flush "just in case"... I declined... ok so they acted like I was making the noise up, even though THEY told me they heard the noise and told me to bring it in...

anyway... last night on the way home the car started making the noise again, its basically a loud groaning noise every time i turn the steering wheel.. especially to the left... so we finally realized that the car only makes the noise at low speeds and when the car is hot... so it makes no noise when i am leaving for work in the morning but 45 minutes later when i get to work its making a lot of noise...

ok so with that in mind i left work early and drove directly to the dealership... let me skip over how rudely i was treated but finally we got a mechanic to actually come out and see the car... it as the same machanic that worked on the car last week...he was positively giddy to see that the car was actually making the reported noise, immediately took it to the back and put it up on the lift and came back a few minutes later and said that the tie rod is defective (??) and they have to replace it and the carw ill be ready inthe morning... so i will see what happens

 

[legalcat]

Update

OK so on Thursday is when the mechanic looked at it and said it was clear it was a bad tie rod end and it would be fixed by Friday morning...

ok so by 3 pm on Friday i havent heard a peep so I call them... now I speak with the service guy alex who is the guy who on the first day said he heard the noise and told me to bring it back....

OK so he starts by telling me they cant hear the noise... im like... what... the other servic guy Eddie heard the noise AND the mechanic heard it and even said he found the problem.. so he says, oh yeah well they replaced the tie rod end but i personally dont think that was the cause of the noise, but the car isnt making the noise now so we have to keep the car until we get it to make the noise again so we can see what the real problem is.... WHAT????
so now the service front end guy is saying the mechanic doesnt know what hes talking about??? but the noise stopped but yet the mechanic was wrong?? huh???

so so they still have my car lol

 

[legalcat]

ok so on Saturday they basically told my husband that the reason they are keeping my car is that they do not think the tie rod was the problem and they basically want to prove the mechanic wrong... so, even though the car stopped making the noise after the tie rod was replaced, they think the mechanic was wrong and they insist that it wasnt the problem... so on Saturday they gave me a loaner car, a brand new (less than 50 miles on it) Saturn Aura... so...right now i'm not minding as much lol cuz at least I have a car to drive and its a decent car... and it still has that new car smell... but now it seems like my car is in the middle of an office drama issue, LOL

 

[legalcat]

Yeah its very bizarre... well i looked at the car on Saturday when I picked up the loaner, they just had it parked in the regular lot where they park it when they are done working on it... anyway it looked fine, I didnt see anything to indicate they had damaged it or anything... I havent heard from them yet but honestly I'm not pushing it right now cuz the car they gave me gets much better gas mileage so I figure I'll enjoy it while I can, its nice to be driving around in a brand new car, lol

 

[legalcat]

Hi everyone...

When I last updated.. the mechanic had diagnosed my car with a faulty "tie rod end" and immediately replaced it... told us to come get the car... when we went to get the car, the service manager said we basically couldnt have it, because the mechanic didnt have authorization to replace the tie rod end and that was NOT the cause of the problem. Note that the mechanic actually came out, heard the noise, drove the car while it was making the noise, and put it up on the lift immediately... It basically turned into a drama between the mechanic and the service managers.. they said he was always doing stuff without authorization etc etc and he was completely wrong and the tie rod end could not have been causing the noise (they were not there when i brought the car in while it was actively making the noise - they had previously been unable to re-create the noise)... anyway... long story short, I had rental for the time they had my car so I didnt really care I just thought the whle thing was VERY peculiar... they were trying to prove that their own mechanic didnt know what he was talking about... of course... they were unable to re-create the noise the whole time they had my car after it was "fixed"... they finally had to give the car back to me... it hasnt made the noise since... seems like the mechanic fixed it afterall... its been about 2 weeks now and i havent had a single noise or popping from the car at all, also the steering is more even, not looser turning one direction than the other as it had been... hmmm...

so far so good...

then the funny thing was... i realized that where the dash board meets the front windshield there is a rubber hose of some sort squished between and sticking up... as in, they took off the dash board and then when they put it back on the rubber piece (About 8 inches of it is sticking up) got stuck in the wrong position... its not really a hose it looks more like some insulation or something... so I'm not sure if they took the dash board off or... ??? So I'm going to take it by on Saturday and have them fix that.. .,it looks like i could just push it back down through with my fingers, but I didnt think that was the best way to resolve it...