Some guy from Progressive, my insurance company, called me yesterday and told me that work had been done to my car and someone was driving it on the highway but it was now having a problem with the engine. This seemd odd since Progressive bearly towed the car to their claims building to get it on a rack for an damage estimate. I figured it would take at least two weeks for the repairs to be completed and it had only been 4 days since Progressive has had it. He told me he had no other information than that as of now but he'd get back to me.

Intrigued, I called my insurance claims agent, Trevor and asked him if he knew anything about it. Apparently I knew more than him as no one had said anything to him about it yet. He gave me the number to Midway Chevrolet which is the dealership Progressive goes through for GM collision repairs. I managed to get a hold of the guy that was driving the car when the problem occured. Our correspondence went like so:

Him: "Hi, how are you today"
Me: "Fine. Whats the deal with my car?"
Him: "Oh. Well I was driving it today on the highway and the engine overheat light came on. It might be a glitch."
Me: "So the collision work to my car is finished then?"
Him: "No not yet."
Me: So you guys got the radiator and the rest of the internal stuff completed then?"
Him: No. But it says here on the repair list that those need to be fixed."
Me: "So why were you driving it then?"
Him: "I was picking it up from Progressive and taking it to Midway for repairs."

This is the point when I finally was able grasp the reality of the situation.

Me: "So you drove my wrecked car to your dealership for repairs instead of putting it on a flatbed?"
Him: "Yeah"
Me: "You do realize that car was completely empty of engine coolant right?!" "And the radiator has a massive crack at the bottom?!"
Him: "No I wasn't aware of that"
Me: "Well you knew the radiator was damaged because it's on the work order. Why the hell would you drive my car when you knew the radiator was damaged?"
Him: "Well the guys at progressive told me there was nothing wrong with it."
Me: "It was towed on a dammed flatbed to Progressive! Why would you guys do any different? You know that block is fried right? It needs to be completly replaced!"
Him: "Well I don't know about that, I think it will be okay. We still need to look over it."
Me: "You cannot run an aluminium block/head without coolant and expect it to be okay! It's going to be warped."
Him: "Well we'll see about that."

At this point of was fed up with him and told him I had to go.
I called my agent back and filled him in on the details and he said he'd make some calls to find out who is responsible for any damages to the vehicle. He called back later and said the guy who overheated the car actually looked at it on a lift with the manager of the Progressive shop and knew fully about the damages to the cooling system. Also, when the dealership takes posession of a vehicle, it's their responsibility for it's transportation and they my the decision on how to transport it. All I can figure is that the idiot wanted to take it for a spin cause he was curious about what it could do. I'm still waiting to find out any more information as of yet.

If they are planning on trying to mill any warped parts, or patch the motor up, I won't accept the car. I'm only going to accept a new motor, or a new car. We will see how much hell they give me over their idiocy. What a damn fool. From what the car wrecker told me about how far he got with my car before he overheated it and had it towed off the highway, and from the location of where he started out. My uncle and I figured the guy drove it about 8 miles before he shut it down. I was surprised it made it that far without seizing up.

On a side note, after hearing what happend yesterday to my car, I picked up a rental that is covered for 30 days by Progressive. I hadnt done this before cause I've got my truck, but with rising gas prices and all it's costing too much to run a 10mpg vehicle. So I figured I'd get a freebie since I pay for that service every month anyway. My loner is a 2005 Mercery grand marque with a 4.6L, heh. It's pretty cool for an old man's car, rides smooth too.

Edit: I copy/pasted this from my origional post on AF.com, so it seems a bit out of nowhere. My car was origionaly in the shop to have the front end repaired(the 3 heat exchangers, radiator support, front clip, fog lights...$3600 total). My ABS went out on a hard stop causing the brakes to lock up for a good 25-30 feet and the car smashed into a dirt mound that happend to have a few football sized rocks in it. That incident happened about 2 weeks ago. This happened last friday. I am pushing for a new car as I am tired of all the problems with this one.

The collison center from Midway has also contacted me and said it needs a new long block.

 

gotta freakin love midway , ive heard alot of horro stories about that place !!!

and to think i even applied at midway chevy and pontiac as a tech , lol and i live about 5 minutes from them


sorry to hear about your car man , i hope you get a new motor out of all this

 

Wow.. that's all I have to say.

 

Oh they've already ordered the new motor for it alright, but I told them where they can stick it. I called Detroit and told them I want them to replace this crappy broken one with a new 06. They are going to see what can be done.

Being the first model and first year of these cars, I know the techs at that dealership have yet to do an install of a crate motor in an SS. Since there are very sensitive components that could easliy be messed up I don't feel like driving Midway's first guenni pig. I could just imagine the horror of having to go to the dealership for more service work once or twice a month for the rest of my life because of this. Plus this all goes on the car's history, it looks bad when I go to sell.

 

yeah i know what you mean , and i dont blame ya


i wish you the best at dealing with them

 

Sorry to hear about all that man.. that sucks
Although I have also heard a lot of complaints about midway... I would be chewing somebodies ass up !
I dunno man... I work on cars for a living so maybe my view is a little scewed but to running a brand new car with out coolant seems ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS ! I mean WTF ?

Hopefully everything works out for you though... Luckily when my girlfriend wrecked her cavie it was sent to midway but ended up getting totalled so we didnt have to deal with them for long... I will mention though that in the short time that we did deal with them they were complete dicks...

 

97 cavi.....where u live, man? I'm on 19th ave and Thunderbird. MAybe I've seen your car around. You gotta live like literally within 5 miles of me.

 

a couple weeks ago we had our tuesday meet at the macaio's on t-bird and 19th

my car pool ride lived in the apts on t-bird just west of the macaio's , and 3 other of our j-body group right accross the street

here is a link to a boost on the j-body board- http://www.j-body.org/forums/read.ph...=84003&t=84003


sorry for the hi-jack

 

Hey, do you know anyone that has a black cavy with "2.2L ecotec" stickers on it? I think it has red stripes on it too. there are two cavies in my apt complex that have loud exhaust that i hear together sometimes. i live rightacross the street from Macayo's

 

yeah , the black 1 is reina's , and the blue 1 is steve's , they are hubbie and wife

there is a silver 05 s/f in the same complex that is 1 of our group


we try to talk her out of the graphics from time to time , lol

 

haha, those morons. They couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. That's too bad man, you should go kick some booty down at the shop for being a re-tard

 

I'm going to push for a new 06 w/ the g85 for all the hassle. We'll see what they are going to be willing to do for a very pissed off customer.

 

its difinitly worth trying !!!

 

If I ever get do drive a friggin SS/SC again I'd like to meet up with some of the local guys here in Phx metro. I remember seeing a planned gathering at the pavilions a few weeks ago, but it fell through because of the monsoons. Would you guys be willing to set this up again?