Naturally concerned over Nugget's sudden and unexpected scream for attention (see yesterday's post) I took the day out of work to bring her to the service station. I needed a day off anyway, after all its been a whole 7 work days since my last call out. I mean, they gave a lump sum of 120 PTO hours and are pretty much (so far) hassle-free about my "sick days". They surely don't know me well, do they...Anyway, long story short, it turns out its just a faulty gas cap. Sheesh, that's it? Couldn't Nugget give me a more subtle, less threatening warning than "Check Engine"? I mean, what does the gas cap have to do with the engine?
And I found out she's still under factory warranty, so it cost me nothing for the repair. But I saw the bill to GM: it would have only cost about $55 anyway. But then if you think about it, that's a good repair bill amount had it really been engine problems, but for a stupid gas cap? Whatever, I don't have to pay it.
The other thing was the amount of time it took them to fix Nugget...three and a half hours! Ya! Oh, he excused it due to the fact that it was a Chevy part and they were a Saturn dealership and that they had to go to South Orlando for it. Um, I drive like a turtle and I can still make it from Casselberry to South Orlando and back in about an hour.
Oh but here's the kicker. The service manager tried to sell me on getting my fuel injectors cleaned ($150)..no thanks, and he also offered to refill my tires with nitrogen gas to increase their longevity for about another buck fifty. HUH!?? Nitrogen gas. I politely declined but felt like telling him that my tires already have about 78% nitrogen in them, for free. That's right, plain old air is mostly nitrogen with about 20% oxygen and a small amount of trace gases.
I overheard another service tech talking to an elderly couple who had just fallen for this gimmick. She was explaining that if they did need to inflate their tires to stabilize tire pressure, they would be ok to use just regular air. Sure, why not, I thought, its practically the same thing.
True, times are bad, but why resort to scams when you have a good name-brand to supposedly uphold? Especially in light of the fact that my tax dollars are going to help out the parent company.
I just thought about it...I didn't check to insure that they did, in fact, replace my gas cap. My luck would suggest they didn't...they may have just disabled the pesky idiot light.