I agree (as I usually do) with ok4450. While GM’s warranty coverage was not very long, they did make good on a claim that occurred after the warranty coverage had expired. On that point, the OP has no gripe, especially since he/she could have purchased another brand of vehicle if they were seeking longer warranty coverage. In other words, the OP went into the situation knowing that he/she would be covered only up to a certain point in terms of both mileage and elapsed time–yet GM honored his/her claim past that point.
And, as to shouldering half of the cost of the towing, I also think that this was fairly generous on the part of GM when you consider that the warranty had expired.
Should the torque converter have failed that soon? Clearly, no, it should not have failed at that point. However, the OP has no valid gripe with how GM dealt with this claim, IMHO.
“Good Lord. GM is good willing a major repair on an out of warranty vehicle and yet you bad mouth the entire company.
Your attitude is really beyond asinine. No problems with Honda Motor Co., huh?
Stick a GM badge on the trunk lid and the torque converter is instant junk. Jeez.”
BRAVO, BRAVO… I have been a long time belive in the badge it a Toyota/Honda way of thinking. That is if you slap a Toyota/Honda badge on any number of GM or Ford products the cars would sell like hot cakes… Just becasue of the badge. That has always been my #1 complaint, about the american car buyer. They buy a car blind, just because of the badge on the grill. I say if you drive a Toyota, a Chevy, a Honda, and a Ford and you TRULLY like the Toyota better… Then buy it… But to walk into a Toyota dealer slap you money on the table and say give me what you got, is just dumb.
My intent is not to bash the OP but to figure out what’s going on.
A torque converter failure, much less a “busted” brake caliper, is very, very unusual at that mileage.
As I always says, there is a reason behind every complaint and I just want to know if there has been any “outside influences” to cause these problems.
Without any additional and truthful input, I consider it just another rant and run whine.
For those who have not worked for dealers, you will get things like this every week. I wished I had a dollar for every person who threw a fit because “warranty” will not pay for their oil changes and dirty air filters.
Or the woman who slid her new 2 week old Nissan into the ditch during an ice storm and went ballistic when told “warranty” was not going to pay for repairing the right front suspension and fender/hood/lighting replacement.
I have read the comments from everyone and just wanted to answer what questions I can and also note what has occurred since my last post. It’s not GM as a whole I have a problem with, it is Saturn. Their Corporate Customer service is awful. We had this car in for vibration and engine noise to a Saturn Dealer as early as 6 months after the car was purchased NEW. The car was into Saturn Dealership a handful of times PRIOR to the torque converter no longer working. The repair of the torque converter (after the dealer had the car for a month!) seemed to fix the problem of hesitation and vibration for 1 day … then the engine light came on… back into the shop it went. This time, we were told there was a problem with 4th gear? On an Automatic Vehicle? I do not know enough about cars to know what that means, however after 3 days in the shop, they said they “fixed” the problem. Now a week later,the hesitation is back and we have a high pitched squealing noise at anything over 20 mph - this was the noise that the Saturn Dealership claimed was a faulty break caliper and we had repaired to the tune of over $400. I am concerned with Saturn’s lack of responsibility as we have had the same problems with this car since just about 10k miles while it WAS under warranty. Now, the new torque converter is under warranty as are the new brake calipers and front brakes so we will see what happens. Despite 4 phone calls to Saturn Corp., we have yet to have a call back.