My truck is in pieces

A few months ago, the speedometer on my Suburban went out.  It was a gradual process.  At first, there was a click, click sound.  Then, it started to get stuck at certain speeds.  Finally, it just stopped working.  We took it over to the Chevy dealership, and they confirmed that it was the cluster motor.  They said they would have to replace the whole instrument panel.  The parts alone would cost somewhere in the range of $500-600.  That figure didn’t include labor. **sigh**

When we went home, D hopped on the internet to do some research.  It turns out that this is a known problem.  GM has issued an extended warranty for this problem, but we’re past the warranty period.  If you try to get the problem repaired prior to it not working, it’s not covered.  Yet, it’s a known problem, and they were suppose to send us a notification.  Being military, we’ve lived in several different locations since we purchased the Suburban, so needless to say, we never received the notification.  Humph…

I started using my gps as my speedometer until we figured out what to do about the problem.  D did some more research, and then, I hopped on the internet to do my own research.  After reading lots of information, I got frustrated and called the company.  After all, we have been loyal gm customers and purchased several vehicles from them.  I talked to someone on the phone.  After first, I didn’t get very far, but I pointed out the fact that we’ve been loyal customers for many years and purchased some high ticket vehicles from them.  I started to make some headway.  They may be able to help, but I had to get everything put in the system at the dealership first.

We head back over to the dealership.  Even know they already diagnosed the problem, they would require a payment of $90 to check it and enter the information in the system.  It didn’t matter that it was a known problem or that a diagnosis had already been made.  Well, we weren’t going to fork over that kind of money just so they could plug the information in the system.  Grrrr….

We left and came back home.  Looks like GM wasn’t going to back their products.  The dealership stinks and refuses to work with us.  (Man, I miss our old Chevy dealership in NC.  We had a great working relationship with them, and we happily sent many people their way.  This dealership… well, we’ve already found that they’re less than stellar.)  Thankfully, D found the motors (it’s recommended to replace all of the motors on the panel at the same time) on eBay, and he found someone locally who can take care of “installing” the new motors.

We received the parts at the end of last week, and D disassembled my instrument panel.  I have a big whole in my truck now as we wait to get the panel bag with the new motors attached.  The cost for the motors?  Less than $40.  We figure it was worth the try to see if this works.  Normally, D does all of the work himself, but he didn’t want to mess with the electronic components and soldering involved with this.

In the mean time, there are Suburban parts here and there, and I’m still really frustrated with Chevy for having such poor customer service.  One would think in this economy that they would want to take care of their loyal customers…