I bought AJ's Groovy Igloo (my name for my 2002 Pontiac Montana--a minivan) back in the summer of 2002 from Reginold Pontiac (now no longer in business).
At the time I bought it, I took out an excellent extended warranty that would be good through 75,000 miles or the summer of 2007, whichever arrived first..
I'm happy to say that my wonderful minivan hasn't needed a lot of "medical care" over the past four-plus years, but it HAS had its moments.
For instance, there was the time when my driver's side window didn't roll up and down and the place to plug in my cell-phone had ceased to work.
At that time, Reginold was still in business, and I had those problems efficiently-repaired (for free!) at their place.
After they went out of business, they passed their customers with warranties to their neighbors a few businesses south of them:
Myers Autoworld
This was a place that sold used GM vehicles and, also, had their own garage.
I began to notice something scary when I was driving, and I was wondering if it were my imagination or if other people noticed it, too.
Barbara (wife of my "adopted" kid brother and computer guru, Mark) and I had gone out on a drive when she, Mark, and Mark's brother, Steven, were up visiting from Tennessee, and I began to notice that scary feeling.
"Does this car feel strange to you?" I asked Barbara.
"Yes," she replied. "It feels as if it's pulling to the right."
"Then, it's not my imagination?"
"No, it's definitely not your imagination."
I made an appointment for it a.s.a.p. at Myers Autoworld--but, in the meantime, I used the drive-through at my bank.
The drive-through is located in the basement of the bank's parking garage, and you have to drive down an incline to get to the level of the service window.
Now, we're just talking a slight incline here and not an Olympic-style ski-slope, but I suddenly felt as if my minivan were going to move forward and crash into the vehicle ahead of me the next time I moved up in the line.
Instead of putting my vehicle into drive as I would normally do, I shifted it into a low gear just as if I were on a West Virginia highway that was clinging to the side of a mountain and overlooking a deep valley.
WHEW! I was so glad to get that problem fixed.
Some of the repairs needed weren't covered by the bumper-to-bumper warranty because they fell under "wear-and-tear on the vehicle" and weren't covered past the initial manufacturer's warranty, but the people at Myers did everything they could to make it as easy as possible for me to afford the work.
The main issue with the scary pulling WAS covered, however.
I had been noticing a problem off and on with the blower on my climate-control system, but it had been more off than on, so I hadn't really given it much thought until it got to be more frequent to the point that it seemed as if each time I went out, I had to run AJ's Groovy Igloo over either this one railroad track or this other one in order to kick it on--either that or else take it to be "spanked" up at Checkered Flag (where I was told to get it looked into a.s.a.p. before it got to the place where you could spank the living daylights out of it to no avail).
I began to try to find a convenient time for me to go out to Myers Autoworld to have this taken care of--and, meanwhile, another problem came up:
The windshield-wipers went on strike!
Because I have a trick-knee, I have to watch for winter slickness when planning to leave home, but it has never bothered me to drive in most rain.
Now, choosing rainy days to travel was out-of-the-question.
My mom and I chose a day that was mostly cloudy but no rain in the forecast to go down to Cunot (the village where she grew up).
Then, it unexpectedly began to rain, and we were traveling west on US 40.
I pulled into the nearest service station to run a squeegee over the windshield and wait there until the rain had passed.
It was Sunday, and the station was closed, but the squeegee was available.
Standing there working on the windshield in the coolish weather, it suddenly occurred to me that I REALLY had to pee.
The passenger side was facing the closed building, so I opened the door on that side to make a stall wall.
My middle door slides instead of opening out, so I was only able to create a partial stall, but I wasn't really expecting anyone anyway.
I was just starting to pull up my jeans and panties when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a MAN heading towards the building (the owner).
I said something like, "Oops! Sorry!" and he mumbled something back as he hurried into the building. I called after him that I thought he was closed, but I don't know if he heard me or not.
He simply did whatever he'd come there to do, hurried back out past me as quickly as possible, got in his car, and drove away.
Soon, the rain stopped, and we took off, too.
After a few delays (my doing due to being under-the-weather one time and dealing with rainy weather one or two other time), I got my minivan out to Myers Autoworld.
It's a good atmosphere out there with everybody being very efficient, friendly, and helpful.
They were able to find out what was wrong but didn't have a part to fix the windshield-wiper motor, so they said that they would try to get it in the following day.
It turned out that they were unable to get it in on time, but they told me to get in touch with them on Wednesday and see if it were in. It was.
Let me say right here and now that the entire thing turned out to be free! FREE!
This included the use of a nice car to use to run my errands while waiting. All I was asked was to return it to them with the gas tank at least half-full.
Today, I was out running errands in the pouring rain with the toasty-warm defroster on full-tilt, thanks to the great folks at Myers Autoworld.
There's this urban legend that you shouldn't trust used car dealers, but there isn't a single person in that entire building whom I wouldn't trust!
Check them out here on the Internet:
http://www.myersautoworld.com/
As you can tell, they aim to please their customers, and I, for one, believe that they succeed!
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