This car is a horrible piece of shit. This is my letter I wrote to BBB

Hi there, my name is Dallas Mazurkewich and I lease a 2004 Pontiac Sunfire GT. The lease is actually in my grandmother�s name, but the reason for that is because I was not 18 at the time. Every single payment I've made for this car has come from my bank using my money. My lease is a 4 year contract which started November 11, 2003 and therefore ends November 11, 2007 of which I am paying $291 every month with a $8,067.50 buy out at the end.

I have had what it seems, every possible problem with my car. I have had an engine rebuild, a new engine, a new clutch, new drive shafts, many clutch/transmission problems and a TON of engine problems. And currently I have problems with my charging system not charging, and my battery holding a charge. My transmission will not shift into 2nd gear (standard transmission) and I have also had problems with 3/3 dealerships in town. They are Sherwood, Wheaton and SMP (Saskatoon motor products) all of which are strictly GM dealerships and deal with warranty. I dealt with Sherwood first, they are only a couple minutes from me and the other 2 are across town. I had many problems with my car and them, especially after they told me not to come back to them because my car would have trouble holding a battery charge, and the engine was leaking oil and they did a diagnosis and claimed it was not leaking and making me pay the $60 some payment. I said that was unacceptable, there was clearly oil in my garage under my car and I refuse to pay it because I know the car was leaking, I had digital camera proof of it too. It turned out that they would cover the cost if I did not come back to them again (which I was fine with, their customer support was horrible and the service manager was not up to my standards anyways) so I agreed and went to the next dealership. Wheaton. It turned out the seal on my oil filter was bad and it was leaking from there but not because it wasn�t tight enough, just the filter seal was bad. They did not tell me it came from there, and I�m sure they would have seen it.

Wheaton is owned by Russ Wheaton and 3x as far away as Sherwood is. When I went to them they were more than happy to get me coming back to them. They got in me in rentals every time I was there and fixed my car in the time they said. However, the more and more my car kept coming back to them, the worse their service got. After the 8th time, I knew almost everyone there on a first name basis and they knew me. It got to the point that they were getting tired of working on my car and started to do a half-assed job about it; they would take longer than promised or not look after all my concerns properly or tell me to come back another day. There were a couple interior pieces that should not have worn out the way they did (i.e.: my shift knob came apart at 30,000km) and they would not replace it under warranty, which no one has to this day.

Wheaton was the place that did my engine rebuild. The engine spun #1 rod bearing and it ripped apart the crankshaft and the cylinder wall. They ended up putting in a new crankshaft, main bearings, connecting rod, piston and re-sleeved the cylinder. The day I got my car back from the rebuild it was ticking, they said they inspected the timing chain during the rebuild, but somehow the day I got the car back the timing chain and timing chain tensioner were bad. Also I had to come back to them 4 or 5 times for them to diagnose it, the ticking was intermittent and they said there was nothing wrong with my car (as well as my ABS, but I'll get to that later). After they fixed that the engine was working fine but I had some other minor problems I took it in for being the clutch, brakes and some engine lights that had been on.

Exactly 4602km later after the rebuild the engine spun #2 bearing. But before that I took it in to Wheaton to get the ticking/knocking diagnosed on a Friday mid-day (during my lunch hour at work) and I was told it was still drivable and that I came too late during the day, even though all my other repairs were brought in at this same time because it�s the only time I can take the car in, I start too early in the morning to get it booked in so lunch is the only time, and I have to sacrifice eating all the time. So they told me to come back Monday.

Well I did drive it that night and the night after for work, and the noises kept getting louder and more distinct. Until it finally stopped being intermittent and was doing it all the time. This time, the connecting rod went right through the block, took a good chunk out of it and seized up while I was working for Homer�s Pizza (my weekend job, for extra cash I work 5pm-3am Friday and Saturday) and I couldn�t finish my shift, car was broken down on the freeway, this was approx 300km after they told me it was drivable at 4602km.

I was really ticked off after this, I knew it wasn�t acceptable to drive but Wheaton didn�t want to take it in, and they knew they would have to give me a rental under warranty over the weekend because it would definitely not be fixed that day. But I made sure I drove it anyways, incase something did go wrong it wasn�t my fault especially after being told I could and of course the engine blew.

Another big problem I was having was my ABS light coming on intermittently which would in-turn turn off my ABS because it thinks its malfunctioning, so 50% of the time my ABS doesn�t work, and since its Saskatchewan you know how the roads can be. I think the problem was fairly simple, 1 of my ABS speed sensors acts funny when it gets wet. But no one ever diagnosed it. I paid for ABS I should have the right to use it. But enough rambling about the problem, I took it into Wheaton many times with the ABS light lit up on the dash and got the service manager at Wheaton (Ken Crawford) to check it himself, to verify that the light is on hopefully to avoid the problem where they tell me nothing is wrong with it. He saw it and hooked up a scanner, nothing showed up on the computer which I thought was a little strange, the light is on and the ABS is not working, why no trouble codes showing up? So then he told me to come back another day (which happened a couple times actually) because according to him nothing was wrong with it. Again that was something else to tick me off. After the 3rd time of coming in with problems on the dash and being told to come back another day I was getting furious, its not Sherwood so I have to drive across town to get the car looked at, and 3 times during my lunch hours was getting on my nerves, so I talked directly to the service manager and the conversation went something like this (with a little profanity, I was getting extremely frustrated)
Me: "Okay Ken, this is the 3rd time I've been told to come back now, you�ve seen the problems are on the dash. This is bullshit already I want this car taken car of!"
Ken: "I'm sorry Dallas, but the computer tells us that there is nothing wrong so we have nothing to diagnose."
"Don�t you think that�s a little suspicious that I came in your shop with the ABS light on, which you saw for your own eyes and yet you tell me to come back another day, nothing�s wrong with it?"
"We have to follow protocol and if the computer says nothings wrong we can�t do anything."
"So you are telling me to come back again? I'm going to go through this same shit again and again!"
Ken didn�t say anything to that but he walked away and I left. Wheaton made a complaint to GM about me and refused me service after this, I know I didn�t need to curse at him but what I said was true.

Recently when my engine blew the 2nd time it was towed to my house first because there were no dealerships open. Monday it was towed into Wheaton. Both tows were via Roadside Assistance. I got the car booked in prior to me showing up (I called on the weekend, service wasn�t open but I talked to someone to let them know the car was coming in on Monday).
I talked Murray McDonald, the service advisor at Wheaton ?this is the guy I see all the time. He went to find his service manager who told me they will not fix my car because I was abusive towards his staff and to go find another dealership to piss off. I didn�t understand what he was talking about "abusive towards his staff" when the only person I confronted and was "rude" to was Ken. I use rude in quotations because I don�t think it was unacceptable given the service I've constantly had there. He told me my car was being towed to SMP by roadside. So during that weekend roadside was called 3 times. GM pays $27.50 to the trucks for showing up, and for every km they get paid extra. I was towed from my breakdown on Circle Drive to my house, my house to Wheaton, and Wheaton to SMP. GM probably wouldn�t be too happy that this costed them ~$100 all because of bad service of their GM reps.

Before the tow truck showed up, I was still furious with Ken and I needed an explanation. I asked for him to be paged, which after 5minutes of waiting did not show up I went to confront him again and he was ignoring me. Every time I would walk up to him he would turn away or find something to do to make himself look busy. I knew he was doing this on purpose too. So after chasing him around for 2-3 minutes I stopped in front of him and had another conversation:
Me: "Ken, I�m pretty sure you can�t tell me not to come back here after the engine failed not even 5000km after you guys rebuild it!"
Ken: "I can do what I want, and what I want is for you to not come here for your warranty work from now on. SMP can deal with your abuse."
"Excuse me? Abuse?"
"I don�t appreciate swearing in my shop."
"First off 'abuse to your staff' is bull. I only confronted you, and no one else was around. How dare you say I was abusive to your staff. I only talked to you!"
He walked away.
"Ken, I�m not done talking to you, don�t ignore me. This is unacceptable service and I'm sure GM would appreciate hearing about this so-called service here.?"Good you do that, I don�t care, I will talk to them myself"
"Good, I bet they'll be happy to know about it then, good way to represent General Motors." I walked away and waited in the service bay for the tow truck.

When we got into SMP and talked to the first available service person, I don�t remember her name but she was nice when I told her that my car came from Wheaton. They wouldn�t authorize me a GM rental until they got it in the shop and verified it was something that will be covered under warranty. I wasn�t used to not getting a rental and I figured a blown engine was enough to warrant a rental but I guess not. I wasn�t too impressed but I accepted a shuttle ride home from them, they told me I would get a ride back after they looked at the car and verified it was warranty, and I would get put in a rental. Their service manager Tom McAndrew, called me up. Who after a long drawn out conversation of a bunch of useless babble on his end, basically told me he wont be working on my car either and that it has to go back to Wheaton. I explained my situation with Ken Crawford and how much of a bad service rep he is, but Tom didn�t care, he just wanted to get rid of me. I called Wheaton and told them my situation and they wouldn�t agree to work on my car because "I was abuse to their staff".

I immediately got on the phone with the GM customer service line and filed a complaint against Wheaton (again, this would be the 3rd or 4th by this time) saying that they won�t work on my car. Took them a day or so to get back to me, but the GM rep told me that Wheaton has the right to not work on my car. Well that�s great, 3 dealerships won�t work on my car and now I have no vehicle. My car stayed at SMP for a while, while I cleared things up. I called my selling dealer out of town at Mainline Motors in Watrous and talked to Shawn Fossen who I bought the car from, he got me a bit of a deal on the car when we bought it from him back in November and he knows my family. He and Ken talked; Shawn got back to me the next day saying that Wheaton and Mainline will split the cost of the tow to get it out to Mainline after I had been talking with the big manager at Wheaton. I don�t remember his name. Then an hour or so later the same guy from Wheaton called me back and agreed that they will in fact take the car in for this service, because it�s possible it was a workmanship error on Wheaton�s part. And they got everything taken care of, they put in a new engine straight from GM and bled my clutch and put it back together.

When I get the car back on Friday I have to go to work. I've complained about the clutch many times in the past about it grabbing inconsistently and it felt like there was air in the lines. But I got the car back and it was perfect, the clutch grabbed like the day I bought it. However about 45mins into my Homer�s Pizza shift it started to grab really low, almost beyond the length of the clutch pedal travel (meaning with the clutch pedal fully to the floor, internally it the clutch really wasn�t disengaging all the way). So I got a buddy from work to help me re-bleed the clutch. This allowed it to work for a while. It lasted for 1 delivery, maybe 10mins. I got to the house delivered the pizza and I went to leave the house but it wouldn�t go into gear because the clutch would not fully disengage.

I had to call my girlfriend to rescue me because the car started smoking, smelled like clutch and was coming from under the hood. I had to call roadside again the next morning (got the car pulled to my house from a friend) because I didn�t want to leave my car there overnight or in front of the dealership with my stuff in it. I also called Wheaton on Monday and told them the clutch burned up. Murray McDonald said that was fine and they would look after it because 5 hours after I got it back it was burning up, so they figured that an adjustment was off. Once they actually pulled everything apart they found out the master hydraulic cylinder in the transmission cracked or broke and it leaked fluid everywhere, thus the lack of hydraulic pressure not disengaging the clutch which covered the clutch disc in hydraulic fluid. And it burned up the clutch and scarred the flywheel. So they had to order me a new clutch, new pressure plate, new hydraulic cylinder and hydraulic lines and have the flywheel machined to accept the new clutch. Again, lots of work.

To this day the clutch was working fine, grabbed like it did when I bought it and I haven�t had any weird problems with it. However 2 days after the clutch was fixed my alternator was giving me trouble. I have a voltmeter in my car, and normally the car runs between 14.2-14.5V while it�s running, and it was dropping into low 10's while I was driving, which caused a lot of things to not work. I have rundown protection on my car which turns off non-necessities if power gets too low. So it would turn off ABS, my airbags, cruise control, my dash lights, my gauges and everything else to allow the engine to keep running. Now I know from personal experience that a faulty alternator will bring down the battery with it eventually too. And sure enough another 2 days later the battery stopped holding a charge. I'd charge it overnight, 2 hours later it won�t start. Great. So I called SMP, thinking it wasn�t a problem with Wheaton�s workmanship (this time anyways, but who knows) so it was booked into SMP. Couldn�t get it in for almost a week during which time I had to work (which are 10 hours shifts like I stated before, not the best thing for the car to be running that long while idling). The appointment was set for Monday Feb. 28 and I called Tuesday the 22nd. I called and complained more about the car and asked to have it changed sooner if I could and told me they had an opening on Friday. But then they said I wasn�t even booked in at all and that my car had never been registered at all with SMP. How could that be? I know for a fact I was booked in, it�s a good thing I called to get it changed or I would be running around some more with these un-helpful GM dealerships.

During this week of waiting I was driving to Safeway when all of a sudden it won�t stay in 2nd gear, it grinds and pops out as soon as you touch the gas but if you don�t touch the gas at all, it will stay in gear. Great, now the transmission is screwed up. I called SMP and told them to add this to the problem list, they did and on Friday I get it towed in there because the battery was dead and there was no one able to boost me, I figured I might as well call roadside again, no 2nd, no charge in the battery. We showed up at SMP and I talked to the same girl I did before. She sees me and tells me that I wasn�t supposed to be going to SMP for service. What! Never did anyone tell me that I can�t go to SMP for service, just that the engine was Wheaton�s problem. Now that Tom McAndrew comes out and tells me that SMP will not touch my car and that it has to go back to Wheaton again. I ask them what for and I'm told it�s because of the history with Wheaton; my car should always go there for service. I told him that this is not a problem with Wheaton, they did not touch my transmission internally, and they just replaced the clutch. He said it doesn�t matter, go back to Wheaton and was really rude about it. So again I called roadside, and told them I need it towed 2 blocks over to Wheaton, again another 30 some dollars GM has to pay because their service people are incompetent.

I called Wheaton and tell them my car is on the way, Murray gave me a blank tone on the phone and told me to talk to the service manager. Ken gets on the phone and I tell him SMP won�t look at my car because again they think its Wheaton�s fault and I have to back to them because of the history.
Ken Crawford: "Well we won�t look at it Dallas."
Me: "What? Why not, SMP tells me you guys screwed up again somehow."
"Nope, we won�t touch it, and we never screwed up before."
"Well thanks. What am I supposed to do? Again you guys are denying me service for some stupid reason; I was not abusive to your staff."
"I don't know you deal with it we won�t fix it."
I said bye and just hung up, didn�t want to talk to him anymore and it wasn�t getting anywhere. Now the tow truck was about to show up so I waited outside in the cold. Because I didn�t know where the car was I had to track it down in their lot and I sat in it, couldn�t turn it on because it had no working battery. Tow truck came and I told him �I guess where going to Sherwood now, not Wheaton because they won�t fix it? Got it to Sherwood without calling them to let them know I was coming, which wasn�t really fair, but I had no way of contacting them I needed to wait for the tow truck. When we got there the same guy I used to deal with, Kevin Pryce, remembered me and got me in the system and said it will be taken care of. After he got all the information about the problems booked in he took off without saying anything, and 5 minutes or so later he came back, didn�t say where he went but asked if I needed a ride home. I told him I needed the car for work, so if they could authorize a rental for me it would be great. After a little bit of talking we agreed that they would give me one of their rentals, off their lot that they give out. It was cheaper than calling Enterprise rent-a-car. I got home around 12 noon from Sherwood.

He calls me at 4:15pm, 45mins before I have to go to work at Homer�s on Friday the 26th just a couple hours after I get the rental car and the conversation went something like this:
Kevin: "Hey Dallas, Kevin here, got your car up on the hoist right now and we're looking at the transmission. Brought up your file and it looks like Wheaton�s done a little bit of transmission work to it. Just wondering if we could run a couple questions about the car over with you and hopefully get to the bottom of this."
Me: "Yeah I suppose I could quickly swing by before work, I start in 45."
"Alright, shouldn�t take too long just want to make sure we know what Wheaton did and didn�t do."
"Yeah no problem, I'll leave now, I got nothing to do right now, I'll be there in 6-7mins."
"Okay, see you soon, just park your vehicle in the drive through bay and I'll be at my service desk."
"Alright, bye."
I left right away, with the hope that something might get solved soon.
I pull into the service bay in the rental, leave the keys in the ignition and go talk to Kevin. Almost as soon as I leave the rental someone jumps in it and drives it away! I look over to Kevin who�s tapping away on his keyboard and he motions for me to come over, he tells me the service manager wants to talk to me, I couldn�t remember his name either.
Service Manager: "Yeah Dallas. Looking at your car here, we told you before we will NEVER look at your charging system because of all the aftermarket stuff in your car."
Me: �Aftermarket stuff? It�s in the process of being installed. I had to take the car in, so it�s not even done ye-"
"It doesn�t matter; don�t bring that up with us here ever again, we told you before!"
"Uhhhm... whatever, anyways whets going on with the transmission?" Because that was the main concern right now, I�ll take the alternator up with GM.
"We won�t fix it, we looked through your file, and GM doesn�t like cars that have been abused."
"Nah, I�m nice to it. I don�t abuse the ca-"
"Your tires prove otherwise, all 4 of your tires are bald, and especially your drive wheel, the left front" - I know for a fact that both fronts are equally worn and the rears are a little less
"Well what do you expect? There is 40 thousand on them; they are probably on the edge of their lif-"
"It doesn�t matter, I took pictures of your car, and sent them to GM. Your warranty is on hold now."
"What! Why?"
"All these modifications to your car."
"That has nothing to do with my transmission failure!"
"Well that�s not our problem."
�It is now, I brought the car to you and it should be covered under warranty. I don�t beat on my cars.?Well and here I thought that having my dash modified a little bit for my sound system that is going in (which was supposed to be Monday or Tuesday) wouldn�t screw up the transmission. Silly me, I must be wrong because Sherwood knows all.
Service Manager: "Dallas, we pulled your file, there has been fifteen thousand dollars of work for warranty done to this car. That does not happen under normal conditions."
Me: �No kidding? That�s what I�ve been saying for 6 months, this car is not normal. And I was wanting it replaced."
"Well GM is investigating your car, they have halted warranty to your car and we are not authorized to fix it."
"You did that? You halted the warranty? What happens now? What about my rental your pawn boy took away?"
"The rental is just a 1day thing, you don�t get it anymore." By this time its 10 to 5, I start in 10mins, and they took my means of transportation away from me.
"What! I have to go to work right away, what about these questions I was supposed to be asked?"
"What questions? We brought you down here to tell you this."
"Your kidding me, Kevin told me you had some questions to run by me and my car was up on the -"
"There are no questions Dallas, this is final. You can take your car back now, because all 4 dealerships will not work on your car."
"4? I�ve only been to 3 here, and they all are not helpful, especially you. Never have I had such horrible service like I have here."
"You bought your car from Mainline Motors correct? They will not work on your car either."
At this point I know I just got tricked and I didn�t ask about Mainline, they brought my car around to the front, which was running and I was going to go to the car when Kevin said "Just go up to the cashier and she'll give you a receipt."
"What about the rental? The 10k I put on it I don�t have to pay right?"
He shook his head "Nah."
I go to the cashier and she tells me that I owe money, $18 something.
"What? Kevin told me I wouldn�t have to pay. I only had it for a couple hours to go home and back."
"Doesn�t matter, we still charge it as a day."
"Well then you better get Kevin up here, I guess I need to have a little talk with him."
After almost 10minutes Kevin still didn�t show up after the cashier paged him, so I tracked him down. He was standing around some minivan that came in the service bay; the person was being helped so he was standing there uselessly and he knew I was waiting to speak with him. So I interrupted him while he was doing nothing and told him that I was being charged for the rental even after he told me that the 10k was not a problem and the cashier needed to him to tell her. He told me he said no such thing and that I had to pay for the rental. There was no way I was going to pay 20 dollars for a ride home while my car is (not) being serviced if I could have gotten a free shuttle ride from one of their drivers. So I lied and said I didn�t have my wallet on me, he looked pissed off and right away went directly to the service managers desk who basically told me that the charging system diagnosis was 60 bucks, plus the 45min labor was 50 bucks plus the rental was 20 bucks and that he would cover all of it if I don�t come back again. Hmm... sounds a little familiar, just about the exact same thing that I was told the last time I went there. I shrugged it off and said whatever I didn�t care, I don�t plan to go back to them again anyways, there�s no reason I should have to pay for the rental. I just can�t believe he tricked me, lied to me and then tried to get money out of me even after he told me they won�t fix the car.

I went home after this (couldn�t go to work as I had no reliable car) and called Mainline Motors immediately and asked to talk to Shawn Fossen again, he was busy so I left an urgent note for him to call me back before he leaves. He called me back 20mins later after they are technically closed and asked what was going on. I explained to him that there was a hold on my warranty or something and no one will fix my car, it has no 2nd gear and it won�t charge or hold a charge if I plug the battery in overnight. He told me that since everyone left, he would call me back in the morning. Since it was a Saturday I was wondering if he would actually be there and be able to figure this out for me. But he did, he called me back around noon and told me there was no warranty hold and that Sherwood shouldn�t have said that. I called the GM customer service center again and asked them (since them are GM) if they are actually refusing me warranty. The girl on the phone told me no, that Mainline Motors would have looked at the same screen she just did and there was no warranty hold. So I asked to file a complaint against Sherwood, for lying to me, tricking me and telling me there was a hold on my warranty. Which it was put into my file, probably making it near 10 pages long. And now I'm sitting here, at work using my girlfriend�s car inconveniencing her and having to work without a car. I need a car for work and yet 3/3 local dealerships will refuse me service and a rental. There is no reason a car that I've had since November of 2003 should have had $15000 of warranty work done to it. With much more to be had.

What I am requesting is all the equity of the car that I have put into it, be returned to me and to terminate the lease so I no longer have to suffer owning this car. My car is sitting in my garage right now, the battery is totally dead already, it will not start and I still don�t have second gear. I can drive this car if the battery had a full charge, but it seems that the engine draws too much power to run the fuel pump, spark and the onboard computer stuff until 2 hours later the alternator can�t keep up. My grandmother is not impressed that a car of this nature is in her name, she wants to get rid of this car as well as everyone else who knows about the problems I've had with it. I have spoken with a lawyer already who agreed to help me get out of my lease agreement by possibly finding a loophole in the lease contract, where it says something about a reliable vehicle and they are in breach of it. But I read over my lease agreement and all the ends are pretty much tied up. Plus I don�t have $120/hr to pay a lawyer to look over stuff that I know will be a waste of time. I have been screwed around by 3 dealerships, not 4. Mainline would be more than happy to work on my car if there is no warranty hold. The problem before was getting it out there. $400 tow doesn�t seem right if there is a local dealership that should be working on the car. So again Sherwood lied, no one from Mainline ever even talked to anyone from Sherwood, so why would Sherwood say mainline would not work on the car either?

I'm at a loss right now, I have no vehicle and yet I have to pay for it. This is ridiculous, please help me resolve this, there seems to be no viable resolution with the GM dealerships in my city.

Dallas Mazurkewich

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