Upcoming Recall/07035 97-03 GP & Regal 3800 S/C vin 1

[higher67]

I thought it was a freak accident when my 97 Pontiac GTP went up in flames as I was about to pull into parking garage at work in late Jan 08. Thank God I didn't pull into garage. I didn't have fire and theft on car since I had paid it off a few years earlier. Then, I get letter from GM informing of recall. I Filed a claim. Apparantly, the police report is not enough for them stating engine fire. They want the car. I said if I had the car, they could have it. I signed title and gave away burnt shell of GTP over to mechanic, (what was I going to do with a burnt shell). Anyway, a few weeks after claim was filed, I received a letter from GM stating that the claim was denied. This letter also stated that if I wish to pursue this claim, "I must keep car in its post-incident condition". Apparantly, there is no one at GM listening to it's loyal customers. So now, I am a "former loyal GM customer". The only thing I was asking for was the value of the car at the time of the incident. I will keep my 2 remaining GM vehicles, but I will not buy another new GM car again.

[Yackem]

1999 Regal.

I've noticed a burning smell for a couple months. And just this past weekend, it got increasingly worse. Oil was leaking this whole time as well.

I had the recall done this morning and still smell the burning. Could this be from old oil leakage?

Should I clean the oil off? And if so, how? And where?

Thanks.

[GMCSonoma]

Originally Posted by Yackem

1999 Regal.

I've noticed a burning smell for a couple months. And just this past weekend, it got increasingly worse. Oil was leaking this whole time as well.

I had the recall done this morning and still smell the burning. Could this be from old oil leakage?

Should I clean the oil off? And if so, how? And where?

Thanks.

Take it back to the dealer....we've been degreasing them all along at my dealership...

[Orbit Orange]

Follow up:

Took it to the dealer and I'm assuming the new gasket is on (I can see a little gasket maker oozed out around the valve cover and it looks much cleaner/degreased). The thing is there is NO new wire loom/holder for the spark plug wires. I thought that this was also to be included. Looking at the pictures earlier in this thread, it looks like I could just go buy a wire loom/holder and do it myself. I don't feel like wasting my energy fighting it out with the service department, then making another appointment etc. Anyone else just go out and buy a wire loom and install it just like in the pictures earlier in this thread?

[Orbit Orange]

Follow up Part 2:

After bundling up the wires with zip ties for a week (I did it because we took it on our family vacation, round trip of 2000 miles), we get back home and I see a letter from the dealer. It's from their customer service requesting that when I receive a survey from GM on the service that I consider giving them ALL COMPLETELEY SATISFIED on it. Well I call up the Customer Relations person at the dealer and she's very understanding when I tell her it was missing the wire holders and says they'll try to make it right. OK, good. She transfers me to the Service Manager and I relate the story of my missing parts and he says the parts were put on if they were listed on the ticket. I tell them they are not there. I also ask if they can just be sent to me because it literally takes less than a minute to put these on. Since it's just $1.22 for each of these parts (a bag of 5 no less) could they just mail them to me since it's about 25 miles to the dealer (50 mile round trip) so it would cost me about 8 bucks just to go down there. He hems and haws about needing to see it while I'm trying to tell him I'll just go into my local Chevy dealer and buy them there because it would actually be CHEAPER for me to do so and save on gas since these holders are literally a quarter a piece. He says he'll talk to the parts manager and "get back to me".

So today I call them up again as he's obviously blowing me off and ask what he's found out. He still claims they put on the parts but he'll have to order them and then send them to me. OK that's fine (if they actually do it because I don't trust them now). We hang up and I play the waiting game.

But here's the kicker.... I run into my local Chevy/Buick dealer and talk to the guy in parts. They have the wire holders and say they've stocked them because of the recall. I tell him I'd like to buy them both, so he pulls out one of each (out of a bag of 5) AND JUST GIVES IT TO ME FREE. I relate my story and he actually listens (as I'm sure he'd like my business) and I tell him he's probably got mine if something else comes up. I haven't called the dealer back that I took it to for the repair yet but as far as I'm concerned they basically called me a liar and wanted to dicker over 50 cents worth of parts. Either the tech left them off, I understand they get busy. Or they didn't actually have the parts (I think that is BS). But whatever the case they just lost a service customer AND a future G8 purchaser as I'll be getting one for my wife next year. I plan on letting them know they screwed up through the survey and a call to Pontiac Customer Service and we'll see if they actually care enough to remedy it or not. Whatever the case is I don't trust them now (how do I know they actually replaced the valve cover gasket with a new one??? I'd have to pull the cover and it entails quite a bit of pulling other parts to get it off completely)

A total case of what is wrong with dealers/service and what chases people from domestic to foreign. Thanks for listening to my little story/rant.

[GeminiSky2005]

This unfortunately has happend to us. July 10th, 2008. Its my boyfriends 2001 GTP, and he had just gotten home from work. He was home for about 10-15 minutes and I smelled smoke, and thoughthe was just cooking something but he said he wasnt. I went to the kitchen and sure enough it wasnt coming from there. I followed the smell and went into the garage thinking, maybe a cig wasnt put out or something. I opened the door and our garage was filled with smoke, all I could see was the smoke and the fire coming from where his car was parked. I opened the garage door immediately and called 911. We did receive a letter from GM regarding the recall, however our copy of this letter did not state what-so-ever that we were not to park the vehicle in the garage, and the letter itself was pretty general basically stating that they were aware of a recall, but didnt say specifically what the recall was, and they would give us further instructions once they had more information. We lost everything in our garage, lots of things that arent replaceable, mostly I lost my sense of safety. I cant sleep at night because its all that I think about, I couldve lost so much more, thank goodness that my boyfriend, our cats and myself made it out okay. My car was parked outside of the garage and once we got out I wasnt permitted to go back and get my car keys to move my vehicle and the fire spread to my car and totaled it as well. We are in the process of working with GM on coming to a resolution, all we asked was to be compensated for the things that we lost or that was too damaged to recover, that our landlord is compensated for the damages done to the home, and that our roomate be compensated for his belongings. I honestly dont think that this is too much to ask. I work at Best Buy and can say that them settling with what we are asking is like if I were to compensate a customer with a $10 or $20 gift card. Thats all I've got but I thought that I'd share my experience with you all.