Exactly 26 hours after I dropped my car off at Saab to have some general warranty work done, I get the phone call that my car is ready to be picked up.  My first thought, great, its been there so long they took the time to go over everything that I reported.  And my second thought, again, what the hell took so long and why.

Regardless, I finish up a conference call and head to the dealership.  Upon entering the service area, Joe (the gentlemen that took my car and called when it would need to stay overnight) welcomed me with a smile and by name–great.  He pulls out the work order and starts the run down of what the original issue was and what they did to fix it–this felt good and I’m glad they did this.  The standard ‘yeah we fixed everything, get out of here’ sucks, so I’m glad that didn’t happen.

I notice 3 things right off the bat once I get into the car:

- Some sort of plastic cover is hanging down near the gas/break pedal.  Perhaps the plastic cover for the diagnostics hookup?

- My mirrors and seat were moved.  Not just a little, but a lot.  To the point where I needed to spend a couple minutes readjusting my seating area.  I have those pre-set, but they just didn’t feel right.  Probably because I’ve adjusted things overtime without saving the changes into the cars memory.

- The car wash that took place, well, not that great.  Rims were still dirty and the carpets are now half full of salt rather than fully salted–why even bother cleaning them if you’re going to do a half assed job?

And on my way home, I start to get pissed off.  You know that rattling noise in the passenger side door that I’ve reported to the dealership twice?  Yeah, still there.  Even after the technician claims he’s tightened everything in the door.  It was very apparent that they didn’t test their fix.  A song with moderate bass at an elevated level brought the rattle right back.  Ugh.

So I have a choice.  Do I bring the car back today/tomorrow for them to go over things again?  Do I wait and tell them about the issue again when I have my summer tires put on in a month?  Or is it time to escalate things to head office where the hope is that someone is listening and will get this fixed.  At this point I’m about ready to smash the car into a wall so that I can get a new one.  I love music and I love driving my car, they go well together.  But this rattling is pissing me off.

At 16:30 ET I get a phone call from my Saab dealership (a full 8.5 hours since I dropped off my car) to tell me that they got busy and couldn’t get to my car today.  So the choice, leave my car there for the night to be hopefully be ready by noon or make another trip to the dealership to pick up one of their loaner cars.  I declined the loaner and hope that I’ll have my car back by tomorrow at noon.

The thing that gets me is the amount of time my car has been at the dealer.  I dropped my car off exactly 50 minutes after they opened for the day.  I cannot imagine that many people getting to the dealer before me, let alone enough emergencies to push my car to the back of the line.  So, because I’m asking for warranty work, does my car get pushed to the back of the line?  It kind of feels like that.  When I dropped $1,700 on service and tires, they managed to return my car to me within 4 hours.

Next time its an Audi, Lexus or Acura unless Saab restores my faith.

So my car is at the shop. My appointment was at 08:00 ET, I got there 10 minutes early and they took my car right away. The gentlemen pulled up my cars profile by my telephone number, verified some details and then went down the list of items I had sent them ahead of time. He clarified each issue and then appeared to add some sort of code to each issue so that the technicians can easily locate the location/issue.

I decided to use the shuttle service. I wasn’t really feeling the $50 cab far to get home and then back to the dealership. The wait was about 20 minutes, the waiting area was comfortable with TV, plenty of seating, telephones, computer and refreshments. The shuttle driver is a temp for today only. He was courteous and knew the city as best one could expect him to know it. And I was home by 08:30 ET.

Now I hurry up and wait for the call from the dealership to let me know my car is ready to go. I expect this to be within 4 hours. I’ll post again once I get my car back. Hopefully all of my warranty issues are addressed this time around.