Dealer Surprise

rikhek · January 7, 2003

Being an individual that has no use for dealers I had a pleasant surprise last night. A couple of days ago I took my 99 Silverado in to the dealer for a "buzz/rattle" which sounded like it was coming from the glove box area or under the dash on the passenger side. Not loud at all but enough to drive me crazy. My wife said she could barely hear it and couldn't believe I would spend money to get rid of it. It did it in park at around 700 RPM and at various speeds/RPMs while under way. I tried everything to find it, even a stethoscope to no avail. The dealer had a real tough time finding it and finally said it was an exhaust heat shield on the passenger side. After paying $75.00 I drove away upset with the price but happy to have the noise gone.

Lo and behold, two days later the #### noise was back. I returned to the dealer to let them know they hadn't fixed the problem. An hour later the service writer came up to me and said they had replaced the catalytic converters courtesy of the "General" UNDER WARRANTY. Keep in mind that the truck is a 99 w/54k miles. I realize the converters are warranted for 8 years/80k but I was amazed they took it upon themselves to replace them for the slight noise I was hearing. The truck in general is quieter now so I imagine I was getting noises previous to the "buzz" that I just attributed to it being a GM truck. The service order showed $659.00 for the repair for which I paid nothing.

Pleasant surprise. I called the service writer this morning to request a refund for the initial $75.00 I paid reasoning if it was a warranty issue they should bill the factory for this charge. Am waiting to hear back from him.

The dealer is South Pointe Chevrolet in Tulsa, OK and pending a refund of the $75.00 I found this to be suprisingly good customer service.

Rick

BlueRado · January 7, 2003

I had the same thing happen to my '88 Calais @ around 150K miles - sounded like something rattling around under there. Actually it was - the element had broken up and was being pounded around like popcorn in an air popper!

That can be a big problem too if it clogs up things!

Nice to see you got it fixed w/ minimal out of pocket expenses.