2008 Vibe base
Bought NEW on November 10, 2007!!
As of 9-10-15 107k miles
Black Mica?
Aluminum Rims
Moon and Tunes
Monochrome option?
I think that's all we got for options.
Added a remote start so I could keep the bride happy (it was her daily driver for the last 6 years).
It's now my main squeeze so it got "fixed" a bit.
Blacked out the flaking rims (and the lugs too.)
Plastidip black hood "bra" (first attempt probably can do better but it works for now)
Grilles are all dipped White
When I get around to washing and waxing I'll take some better pics.
SOOOOOOOO..........
Here is the interesting part of the story. To this day the bride HATES this car. Let me explain.
When we first got it, she washed it at least once a week without fail. Until we realized every time it got washed water was pouring down the B pillar after getting past the very ill fitting weatherstripping on the passenger rear door. She was trying to take better care of this car than the last and was actually destroying it!!
I called the dealer and told them what was going on and they were polite and said bring it in and they will pinpoint the leak and fix it. (The car was about 2 months old at this point)
Bride drops the car off and they tell her to have a nice day. She asks for a loaner, they say no (politely). She doesn't flinch she asks to speak to the service manager and asks why? He gives her a car. Cool, no worries right? We get a call later that day, they need it for "a few days". What they neglected to mention as of yet was they had completely gutted the interior of the car to make sure it was completely dried out. I found out later there were puddles involved.
Any way, we get it back and they found one leak but there was another, ok, I'll take it back. The bride ends up having an afternoon off so she dropped it off instead. This time no loaner again, no manager available (busy?), so what does she do? She starts singing the "Think Ford first" jingle in the middle of the sales floor!! Grand Prix GTP sitting in my driveway when I got home. Go figure. She CAN be persuasive.
This is getting long huh?
New dealership, same vibe.
Blower motor goes out. I take it up to drop it off (no loaner needed this time) and tell the service manager it needs a blower motor.
SM: "Well, what is it doing?"
Me: "Sir, it needs a new blower motor."
SM: "Ok, but what is it doing?"
Me: "Not working?"
SM: "So its not working? What is it DOING?"
Me: "Ummm, nothing?"
Then he told me he couldn't fill out the form unless I could describe the problem. REALLY?!?!?!?!?!?
This was where the bride stepped in, deciding if this went on much longer I was going to get "shown out" of the dealership. That's why I love her!
K, that's fixed, moving on.
ABS. Anybody else have trouble with it? When it kicks in it sounds like the firewall is ripping apart!! Took it in twice. Second time I scared the cr@p out of the service manager when I showed him how the ABS was functioning. He said "make it do the thing that I brought it in for", he never said I had to drive it straight or sane for that matter. I thought sliding sideways through a parking lot was the easiest way for the ABS to engage. It's not?
Service decision: They said it's normal. Really? The second time I took it in for the ABS the mechanic replaced a REAR BALL JOINT!!
WHAT?
Finally after the Vibe was out of warranty I took the front brakes apart and found out that the wrong brake pads/hardware were on the car so they were rattling and thumping around when the ABS engaged. Replaced pads/rotors greased EVERYTHING and now the problem has been gone for around five years? GM certified 0 Shadetree mechanic 1
You know that recirculate button? I got a new one the old one got stuck. Thankfully that took them about 15 minutes and was without incident.
Oh yeah, and the original dealer got upset when I refused their free oil changes. They wanted to put conventional in it. No thanks. I prefer Full Synthetic (My opinion, don't want to start anything
). I am glad that that dealer got taken over and retrained; my Mom had better luck w/ her Buick at that dealer when Pontiac was no more and it was switched.
And the bride wonders why I hate dealerships!! I just prefer to fix it myself. Is that so much to ask?
So now you know the history of my Vibe. For a long time I was just waiting till it was paid off and I could replace it. Now that it's mine, I want to see how long it will be in service. I have really come to appreciate the MPG/cargo ratio in comparison to my Dodge Ram. Four doors make for easy loading and unloading of the munchkins too.
So even though we had a rough start I think we're good now. Just trying to decide on what mods need to be done next........