The government bailout of the auto makers requires that a trust be established and funded to the amount of 125% of the dollar amount of warranty work expected to be done on vehicles sold during the restructuring process.
If you have purchased a GM vehicle, which is still covered by warranty or are thinking of purchasing a GM vehicle, then your warranty is good...... right! Sorry but the answer is NO, your warranty is practically worthless.
Today I received a nice postcard from Ross Foss, a Toronto-area "family" of dealerships advising that they are closing their Saturn Saab store. They are no longer covering or performing any warranty work on vehicles, new or used, sold out of the Saturn Saab store. Its not like Roy Foss doesn't have the capacity to do the work. Roy's GM dealership, which sits beside the Saturn store, is one of the largest in the world. Roy also has several other dealerships within 500 metres of the Saturn store.
Now, it is possible to get warranty work done. You simply call GM and ask for the Saturn/Saab dealer closest to you. And you beg them to do the work. In Toronto, there are a number of such dealerships. But what if you live in a smaller town that has just one GM dealership and one Saturn dealership? Once the Saturn dealership is closed, you thought the GM dealership would cover the warranty since GM owns Saturn and Saab. Sorry, you are out of luck. There is no "store" left to perform the work. And the same thing will happen when that GM dealership closes. And GM is closing thousands of those in the next year. So, you might well have a warranty guarantee but no dealership to honour the warranty :-). And remember folks, even if you have a Buick with a warranty, and the dealership that is left in town sells Chevy, Cadillac and GMC, then the Buick warranty is worthless.
Funny how the auto makers and dealers neglected to explain this nuance when they asked for the bail out money.
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When Roy Foss closed its Saturn Saab dealership on Eglinton Ave, another dealer in Etobicoke began to advertise that it was Totonto's ONLY Saturn sales and service dealership (Roy Foss's alternate location being in Thornhill in the City of Vaughan).
ReplyDeleteOur 2003 Saturn was purchased at the Eglinton dealership which closed last December. We had it serviced until Feb at the Thornhill location and have received no notice that the dealership's days are numbered. Did someone tell Roy Foss that we sold the Saturn and bought a Canadian-assembled Toyota?