2000 green hornet

Just turned my Corvette in for service under the GM Major Guard extended service warranty. I have had my car for 5 years plus and hope to trade it in on a C6 in the next year.

Every year or so I brought it in for some service problems and always got a free loaner car. Mostly things like service ABS or bad oxygen sensor or traction control not working. Now my dealer tells me they can keep the car for 6 or 7 hours but they won't pay for the loaner unless the repair items total 2 hours or more. So it sits all day until they feel like working on it. Yet the 2 hours dosen't start till they are ready.

Hey I know the fine print. But I don't like the way GM holds me hostage to their numbers now and not the actual repair time! It wasn't like that before. 2 hours is 2 hours in this country. Do we need a lawyer now to intrepret the cost and duration of their help. By the way I paid almost 2 thousand dollars for this "GM Major Guard Extended Warranty". I don't blame my dealer. They apologized for this seemingly "small print clause" and gave me a loaner anyway. But this dealer also sells Cadillac and appreciates good service.

Just one more sour taste in my mouth over GM. It's a good thing for them that I love Corvettes so much. But I dislike smoke and mirrors even more. I wonder how their less loyal customers feel about that? Here's to their junk bond status. I wonder why??

Zig

it's not just gm that posses these productivity and perception attributes. it appears, that gm as well as the rest of our contry is experiencing customer expectation misalignment. now that technology has become fully integrated into our day-to-day existence we are beginning to expect actions that have an immediate and astonishing effect, 'the royal treatment'. it is just a matter of time before there is a realignment of expectations and actions. this, unfortunately, is the product of the instanteous gratification complex.

no, seriously.. that really does suck. it's so much better when things meant what it said. now, we have fine print that can basically deny warantee service at any time. when does bumper-to-bumper full coverage actually mean full-coverage. i don't think even the high dollar uber cars, well, come to think of it, yeh - i bet the do get full coverage... hhmmm now that sucks. but why can't it mean full-coverage ? i understand about maintence items. hoses, fluids, gas, oil. but it is my understanding, when someone says that i got a warantee for X amount of time (be it original or extended) and its full-coverage bumper-to-bumper. I expect full coverage, i should not have to pay a dime for either parts or service. everything from reading lamps, vent difussors, *****, seats, carpet to wheels - at the end of the warantee or at renewal new tires should be given and installed for the customer. alignments should be covered. any and all engine, transmission, and suspension should be covered. basically, the vechicle should end the warantee period with the same specs., active features, and creature comforts that is came out of the factory with. it should be factory new, maintained by the manufacturer during the warantee period. do you have any idea how many extended warantees they would sell. it would go through the roof.

ok, done.. off my rant, sorry about the interuption.

4CEE

In contrast, my service experience with my Lincoln has been quite the opposite. I was unavailable to authorize repairs for about six hours pushing the repairs into a second day. They experienced further delays due to a parts problem. The dealership offered and provided a Lincoln rental on their dime. They weren’t obligated by Ford to do that. Your experience could be an issue of how the dealership handled the situation. Seems they could have made your experience smoother.

2000 green hornet

I post this information about the two hour waiting period to receive a loaner car because many of us in the past have felt that the two hour waiting period had to do with the actual wait.

Gm has been pushing it's Chevy dealers to only give a loaner car if the required warranty work is in their book of labor rates is 2 hours or more. The actual time of the repair or the start of the repair or the wait for parts is not as important as before. I was told I could sit there for two days and it dosen't matter anymore. In other words the carrot has been replaced with the whip. This made me feel real good about GM and my next pending C6 purchase!

I wish 5 years ago this issue was clarified for me when I paid my two thousand dollars for my GM bumper to bumper extended warranty. Before i laid my money down two hours seemed like it would be two hours! And many of my fellow forum members thought the same way. Now it's more

When I mentioned my wife's Lexus dealer always gives us a loaner they relented and finally gave us one. The Corvette has outgrown the Chevrolet dealership and warranty system. A world class car should have world class warranty service! I would like to see it put into the class of Cadillac service with a real 4 year 50000 mile warranty.

Hoosier Red

So you basically want them to give you a new car at the end of your warranty?

Dave1

....you totally missed the point........

vetteship

Corvette did outgrow the Chevy dealer experience. It is time to sell and service through Caddy dealers or independant Corvette dealers with trained tech/mechanic that are properly trained to service and repair the car. C'mon GM enough pain already

z06monster

The CHEVY Cobalt has a 4year/50k warranty

AutoCutter

The new Corvette really has progressed beyond the abilities and interests of most Chevy dealerships and maybe should be sold as a stand alone, but I doubt the profitability. So, like the H2, the car could be sold through caddy since the technology is shared.

carjon

I can understand if you're going in for an Oil change - maybe no loaner but if it is a repair? Who cares what the book says. What happens if the think they have to fix x (<2 hours) but it turns out that y (8 hr fix) is really what the problem is. You paid for the service but don't get it. The loaner should be for any repair or long service.
On my BMW it is almost bumper to bumper - tires aren't included. But I can bring the car in every week and get new wiper blades - they fix and change flats for no charge - they even swapped out snow wheels and tires for summer ones no charge. 4 years 50,000 miles. I know that I pay for this in the price of the car but it is very nice. Part of the quality expericence and BMW isn't even known for good service.

Charles7Mitchell

All of which you speak can be discouraging, particularly if you felt the contract was not being honored. On the other side of the coin is the cost saving efforts which GM is making. Added costs end up being charged to the customer in the cost of the cars and we sometimes forget that for the price a vette is far superior to Lexus, BMW and the XLR. Perhaps there are more amenities with these other cars, but buyers pay for them up front. GM's advertising is standard in many ways. "Thirty minutes to replace your muffler" means thirty minutes after Midas gets to your car, not thirty minutes after you drive in. Some cars come with extra accessories, but I prefer the option of buying what I want. Rather than pay extra to get a free 'rental' I prefer the option of adjusting my schedule and doing without. When I shopped for my last car there was no car that provided all that the vette provides priced uner $80000. The closest was that AMG Mercedes, but if I used it to take a lady out she would have to leave her purse at home. Space was at a premioum. I relate to your comments, but am grateful GM holds the costs down.

4CEE

Makes a lot of sense. Disrepair, dealer issue, or additional repair, warranty issue could be found in the process resulting in misrepresentation of rental coverage. I certainly agree that dealers should staff properly trained techs. I am resistant to repairs as my previous experiences included inaccurate repairs and excessive damage to my Covette. The previous experiences are why I decided against buying the first year C6, as first year models tend to require more service.

Low Rider

Got to agree with Mr Mitchell......I don't wanna pay for something I may not use. I had two C5s and I neither were in for service that lasted over four hours. My C6 has been in once for very minor work and again was there less than four hours. Most of us have a pretty good back up at home, I do and I would much rather drive it than any loaner.

catbert

My Caddy dealer will pick up your car (at work or home) and leave a current year Caddy or provide you with a current year if you bring your car in for warr. service. Now that's good customer service.

slowtrak

I had a battery go out on my Cadillac Seville in my garage . The dealer sent out a mechanic to my house to replace it in my garage . He also replaced my positive battery cable while he was in there . No charge ! That is house call service !!

AU N EGL

customer expectation misalignment ???? Sounds more like Corpoate BS. Companies need to know that the customer, who purchses the product and has the product serviced. Expects and damands attention. Any 'misalignment' is with the company that can not deliver said produtc or service and needs to get on the ball.



Corporate America needs realignment of products and services, and debit elimination.

2000 green hornet

Well I am very glad I did get the loaner car now that the dealer has had my car for 2 and a half days. And all this is due to a malfuntioning turn signal that has nothing to do with a burned out bulb.

GM will probably screw my dealer and tell them it's only bookable at a half hour. This problem is not uncommon among Corvettes and probably has to do with yet another sensor failure.

"So you basically want them to give you a new car at the end of your warranty?" And to the person that wrote this above comment, I must respond of course not. I have the 6 year GM Major Guard bumper to bumper warranty and I surely would think it would cover a safety item like a turn signal that doesn't operate at least till my warranty expires. The warranty covers all electronics, am I unreasonable to expect my turn signal to work?

Big Lebowski

This sounds like an individual dealer issue...some will accomodate in an effort to retain happy customers in the service department, who might later come back to by a new vehicle.

However, you do get a lot of dealers going through the motions, with no sense of the "big picture".

Willie Dynamite

I'm a "less loyal" GM customer. I won't bore you with the countless problems that made me that way. I can appreciate the comments about Cadillac's service. However, I'll add this: Mazda (more of a Chevy competitor) included a loaner program on my entry-level Protege. I got a loaner with no hassle both times that the car needed service. Day-to-day, the car is infinitely more refined and enjoyable than Chevy's Cavalier. Yet Mazda replaced the Protege with a more-refined model before Chevy released the Cobalt. Chevy hasn't "gotten it" since the 70s when they answered the first wave of Japanese competition with the Vega. Meanwhile, before finally turning itself around, Cadillac allowed itself to become a laughingstock and allowed Acura, Lexus, & Infiniti to get established.

These are the kinds of things that GM has never understood. Every five years or so, they're in the news with a major crisis situation involving their ability to compete. They don't make the kind of changes that enable its divisions to offer industry-leading products and service. It leads to Corvette customers that aren't given an appropriate service level. And it also leads to prospective Corvette customers that aren't sure about buying one.

As a Corvette fan, I'm torn. I love the car and I'll probably spend $45,000+ on one. But I wish I could feel better about it. I don't want to endorse GM's business practices. And I certainly don't want to deal with Chevy's inferior customer service.

Railfan

Next time you need service, try the Caddy dealor. I use the local Pontiac dealor service department (as do several other local vette owners) and get great service. We don't use the local Chevy dealor service department at all.