The Little Car that COULDN'T

I'm having a bit of a love hate relationship with my car lately. Except it's been more hate hate than I care to admit. In fact, I actually had to call GM Canada the other day to lodge my hate hate complaints with them so that they know that their car building sucks.

Which is kind of funny because I live in motor city Canada. Right beside the real "motor city" and I have this thing about buying North American cars. And really, my car has seen me through a lot. Two moves, countless trips up the highway, a farmers field in the middle of the winter. You know the drill. But the past month has seen me in the dealership to have it repaired three times.

First, in September my front brakes were making this horrible sound. Kind of like if you had a younger sibling and you were holding them down and punching them in the kidneys. It did this while driving, while turning, while braking. I knew it was bad. Turns out, it was a rock in the brake pad. A rock. In the brake pad. How the hell does that happen? So they removed it and only charged me $75 for the labour. I won't get into the amount of time it cost me going all the way out to the dealership and then all the way to work and then all the way back and forth again.

Then, I took it in for the regular oil change. That was last Thursday. Monday night my car alarm started going off for no reason. I just left it unlocked because the car alarm is this high pitched wailing sound. Not pleasant in the burbs. This was kind of bad because there have been a few break ins to cars and actually, my car was broken in to in the driveway a couple of months ago. So I figured I'd check it the next day. No alarm at all during the day. Pull into the driveway on Tuesday night, boom, alarm goes off. I actually had to leave the trunk unlatched to stop it from automatically locking and arming. I took it in the next day. Turns out I had the exact same problem I had a year ago. The wiring system shorted out because it got too close to the body and heated up.

While I was there the service guy noticed my serpentine belt was cracked. He asked me if I wanted it repaired. I asked him if this was something that should have been found in a semi-annual inspection. He says "are you due?" and I said "yes, last week, when I had it done". He talked to the manager and they decided that they would replace it and I would only be charged the cost of the part, not the labour.

So I called GM customer service this week to discuss with them the cons of owning a Pontiac Wave. Not to yell, not to be all bitchy, just to tell them a few things so they can look into the design of it and maybe make a better car. After all, the only way they'll know about these things is if someone tells them right? Well, I got a free oil lube and filter for my trouble.

Really though, for a car that is supposed to get great gas mileage and have such a great model, it's not been an ideal car. The driver side windshield wiper has never laid flat against the windshield leaving a big blur along the bottom. The car shakes when you go over 105 km/hr. The alarm system has shorted out twice. The car doesn't get the proper gas mileage it's supposed to. It's had two recalls on it already. The automatic model has really uncomfortable seats. And in addition to all the regular maintenance, you have to have special maintenance done to the cooling system because of the size of the car. I'm sure I've forgotten a few things that I'm unhappy with but ya, that's a good list.

Sigh....only 14 more months until I can trade it in...