It’s been a while since I’ve had to complain about our truck (Saturn VUE), but that’s because with the price of gas skyrocketing, we haven’t been driving it! Plus one other reason that cropped up recently, but I will get to that shortly.
Today, because we do try to drive it on short trips* on the weekend, we took it instead of my ION when we went to go look for a Mi*ghty Mouse at Comp*USA, and to pick up lunch.
The gas gauge was low, but not enough to turn the warning light on. When the light comes on, there should be about two gallons of gas left before the point of no return. We assumed, since it was a short trip (maybe 15 miles one way), and the light had NOT come on, we were safe.
Yeah, the damn thing made an ass out of us. We triumphed with our goal of getting the Mi*ghty Mouse at a little Mac store, and had just pulled into Arr*iba’s to pick up lunch, which I had phoned in about 20 minutes prior. I went in to get the food while Josh waited outside. As I was walking out with the food, I saw Josh walking toward the restaurant. He said that the truck had died. Just sputtered and died while he was sitting parked.
WTF?! We didn’t think it was gas, except that every time he tried to restart it, it would try to turn over, but would sputter and die again. We called his mom, and shortly his step-dad was en route with a gas can.
While we sat outside in the shade and sweated and grumbled about the truck, we thought it could be one of two things:
1) About a year after we bought it, maybe sooner (I can’t remember exactly), there was a recall on the gas tank and gauge equipment in the VUE. It would misreport the actual amount of gas in the tank.. so if you thought you had three or four gallons in the tank, you may really only have one or less.
*2) About a month ago, we drove the truck on another outing to a mall in Phoenix, and then to meet his mom & step-dad for lunch. It made the trip out there ok, but on the way back, about 15-20 miles from home, ON the freeway, the engine stopped accelerating. Didn’t die, just stopped accelerating. We pulled off the side of the road, Josh revved the engine a couple of times, and we pulled back on the road. Less than a mile further, it then died COMPLETELY. Poof. No a/c (the fan still was blowing though), dash lights come on, no engine. We coasted off the side of the road again, sat for a moment, shut off the a/c and radio, and attempted to start it up. It did start, so we left the a/c and the radio off, and made it the rest of the way home. Gas was NOT an issue at that point, as it was nearer to 1/4 tank than the “E”. And because it started again with having to call for help.
I took it to Saturn the next day to have them check it out, and paid $54 for what essentially amounted to a very expensive car wash. They drove it for 13 miles (on the freeway, since we told them we were doing about 70mph w/the a/c and radio on when it happened), and found NOTHING wrong. The truck’s computer didn’t even show an engine failure marker in it. So now, we only drive it on “short trips”, i.e., to the local grocery store, and *maybe* to the mall that is about seven to eight miles from our house.
We were kind of hoping that it would be the second reason above for today’s failure, because if it didn’t start with new gas in the tank, then we were going to have it towed over to the dealership and dump it off in front of their garage (they’re closed today), and then go back tmw and chew them out for finding “nothing” last time.
But, as it turns out, when his step-dad arrived and put about four gallons of gas in the tank, it started right up, all nice and normal. So it seems to be reason #1, the gauge is again having issues with reporting the proper levels of gas. Guess what I get to do tomorrow? Take the stupid thing in, and report what happened today, and insist they fix it on their own dime becuase OBVIOUSLY the tank is still having a problem and the recall they did previously did nothing to really fix it. Or at the very least, it was more of a band-aid repair rather than a permanent fix. The truck has less than 75K miles on it right now… Enough to be out of warranty, but not enough to be considered “old” by any means! It’s not even four years old and the tank gauge is failing again? Yeah, I’m not paying one friggin CENT for this.
I just hope that when I go in tomorrow, my pregnant hormones will be on the “hose-beast” setting and not the “wimpering puddle of crybaby mush” setting like when I took it in last time… When I took it in for the mystery trouble and was told nothing was wrong, I started to fall apart and left rather than cry in front of everyone (although thinking back, maybe bursting into tears would have gotten me some money off the bill.. heh).
The funny thing is, I was planning on taking it to Midas tomorrow to have the a/c checked because they have a special for $19.99 at the moment, and we were commenting on how it didn’t seem like it was pushing out air as strong as it used to.. Cold, yes, once the cabin started to cool off, but the force of the air seems diminished, so I was wondering if the filters were clogged and needed cleaning or something, and possibly get it recharged if they still need to do that on newer cars… There’s no way I’m going to ask Saturn to do that, because they’ll probably charge $50+ just for the inspection, not to mention the steep cost of doing any cleaning or recharging of the system through them…
Meh. It’s almost tempting to just trade it in for something new and not even bother with all of it’s current troubles… I’m especially not looking forward to its 99,000 mile tune-up, as that is the “big one” for the VUE and is going to cost around $900 for all of the shit they have to do on that tune-up… Stupid cars.
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That's all, folks...
