Keeping up an old car...
The 9-5 will become celebrate its 6th anniversary with us next month on 11/18. That means that the 6 year, 100k mile extended bumper-to-bumper warranty we purchased with the car will expire. A truly chilling thought.
In any case, Ani recently noticed that the passenger seat heater wasn't working, so we decided to take the car in to Scanwest Autosport to have that looked at. WE also asked them to look into the sunroof wind deflector, which occasionally doesn't pop up, and occasionally doesn't retract, causing the sunroof to jam while closing. Yikes.
I had just had the 9-5 in to Scanwest the previous week for an oil change. This time I knew it would take all day, so I left them the 9-5 and drove away in an almost-as-cool 1990 900 base-automatic sedan, which was also black, though with cushy velour upholstery.
In any case, after a couple of hours I got a call from Scanwest telling me that the seat heater's plug had been dislodged by moving the seat over an obstruction, probably Luisa's junk under the seat. One half hour of labor, not covered by the warranty because it was mis-use. The sunroof deflector is a known problem, and the fix-kit with labor to install is about $500. The warranty paid $502, leaving us with the seat repair labor plus all of the sales tax, so about $140.
Sadly, in a month the warranty will expire. A few expensive future failures remain, namely the air-blend door failure (about $800) and the security system ECU failure (about $400). I can probably fix the SS-ECU for about $30 plus 2 hours of time, but the air blend door not so much. Oh well.
It's about time to plunge into the unknown world of owning the 9-5 off warranty. THe warranty has certainly paid for itself over the past 2 years since expiration of the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty, with replacement of an A/C compressor, a wheel bearing, and this sunroof deflector. Time will tell how expensive it becomes. However, one would imagine it will be somewhat less expensive than buying a new 9-5 at a cost of over $30,000. At least I hope so.
In any case, Ani recently noticed that the passenger seat heater wasn't working, so we decided to take the car in to Scanwest Autosport to have that looked at. WE also asked them to look into the sunroof wind deflector, which occasionally doesn't pop up, and occasionally doesn't retract, causing the sunroof to jam while closing. Yikes.
I had just had the 9-5 in to Scanwest the previous week for an oil change. This time I knew it would take all day, so I left them the 9-5 and drove away in an almost-as-cool 1990 900 base-automatic sedan, which was also black, though with cushy velour upholstery.
In any case, after a couple of hours I got a call from Scanwest telling me that the seat heater's plug had been dislodged by moving the seat over an obstruction, probably Luisa's junk under the seat. One half hour of labor, not covered by the warranty because it was mis-use. The sunroof deflector is a known problem, and the fix-kit with labor to install is about $500. The warranty paid $502, leaving us with the seat repair labor plus all of the sales tax, so about $140.
Sadly, in a month the warranty will expire. A few expensive future failures remain, namely the air-blend door failure (about $800) and the security system ECU failure (about $400). I can probably fix the SS-ECU for about $30 plus 2 hours of time, but the air blend door not so much. Oh well.
It's about time to plunge into the unknown world of owning the 9-5 off warranty. THe warranty has certainly paid for itself over the past 2 years since expiration of the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty, with replacement of an A/C compressor, a wheel bearing, and this sunroof deflector. Time will tell how expensive it becomes. However, one would imagine it will be somewhat less expensive than buying a new 9-5 at a cost of over $30,000. At least I hope so.
