unusual revenge

[cellio]

Some people fantasize about things like this, but few actually do it.

Seen in front of my house tonight:

I don't, off hand, know how expensive a repair replacing a head gasket is. Nor do I know how much damage the owner of this car is actually doing to the dealership. But wow, that's dedication.

(For the occasion, I'm dusting off an icon as commentary on one of my previous cars.)

Comments

[stitchwhich]

Head gaskets are super expensive and usually mean "don't bother, just junk it".

[minoanmiss]

Wow, yeah.

[gingicat]

Also, that’s a Saturn Relay, which means it’s 11-13 years old. Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep the exterior nice and probably hide a lot more than a head gasket. Per kbb.com, a high-end 2007 Relay in good condition runs about $4500 from a dealer. I hope this guy is doing small-claims court as well.

[bikergeek]

So, minoanmiss directed me over here.

This is a Saturn from what is probably a local minimum in GM's build quality. Saturns started out good in the early '90s, and then as GM brought the Saturn brand "back into the GM fold", quality declined. I'm wholly unsurprised that a mid 2000s Saturn (the Saturn Relay was made from '04-'07) turned out to be a lemon. My own SL2, which I bought new and sold in '04, was a '98 and I feel like I got one of the last good ones. My mom bought an '03 Ion, which I inherited when she died. It was a nearly new car and it had nothing but problems. I took somewhat of a beating when I sold it a year later.

Mechanically, the engine in these cars is called the "High Value V6". There were several variants of that engine made. The Saturn Relay got either a 3.5L or a 3.9L, depending on what the buyer opted for. Doing some searching on "high value v6 head gasket" and similar reveals that head gaskets on these engines are a known problem. (Ironically this engine derived from the 60° angle V6 that GM used in damnneareverything in the '70s through early '00s, and which was a very reliable engine.)

As you correctly guessed, replacing a head gasket (on a V-configuration engine, there are, of course, two) is a rather expensive operation. It's not the hardest or most expensive job, but it is pretty involved. I've done it. Easier on some cars than on others. A GM car with a V6 shouldn't be *too* horrible, especially for someone who does a lot of them.

Should the dealer have known about it? Maybe. Sometimes a blown head gasket can be asymptomatic to casual inspection. Some symptoms:

• Coolant is not a nice clear green, orange, blue, pink, or purple color¹; it looks more like a chocolate milkshake.
• Oil isn't a uniform brown color; it looks like a milkshake and/or has blobs of water suspended in it. Sometimes you'll find "mayonnaise" inside the oil filler cap; this is NOT necessarily a sign of a problem, especially if the car is driven short distances in cold weather a lot and doesn't get a chance to boil off any condensation that accumulates in the oil.
• Large clouds of white smoke coming out the tail pipe. That's visible steam from coolant getting into the combustion chamber.
• If a leak of coolant into the combustion chamber is suspected, one "shade-tree" confirming test is to get an old glass pickle or mayonnaise jar, and put it over the tailpipe, and collect the condensate with the engine running. Look at the condensate; if it's the same color as the coolant, you've got a serious problem.

All of these can mean either a blown head gasket, or, less often a cracked or warped head, or a cracked block. Of those, the head gasket is the cheap option. :-/ The absence of any of these doesn't mean you don't have a blown head gasket. The only way to know for sure is a compression test, and most car dealers don't do those as a matter of routine on cars that come onto the lot unless they suspect something's wrong.

I've seen this kind of "lemon-shaming" before. Although usually it's a tactic reserved for new or nearly-new cars, rather than used cars that are 11 years old. The car is no newer than 2007 model year, so I don't exactly know what the guy expects. Shouldn't've bought a car of that age without getting it checked out by a mechanic first. Used car sales are caveat emptor in most states, so unless the guy can conclusively prove in court that the seller knew there was a serious defect with the vehicle, or there was some kind of warranty included with the sale, legally speaking, he's probably very short on options.

Oh and as far as the place he bought it, there's a "Mike's Auto Body" on Meadow Street in Pittsburgh. I don't know if that's it, but it's an auto body shop and not a car dealer. They seem to have quite a few positive reviews on Yelp, though. Are they selling used cars in addition to doing auto body work? Who knows. Also, if this is them, they're body-shop guys, not mechanics. Different skill set entirely.

Honestly, I think this guy's best move is to have the blown head gasket fixed, and then he'll have a decent car for a while.

¹Used to be just green, but different manufacturers have different requirements nowadays.

[magid]

Total tangent on the real topic, but I was totally amused by the first photo, since every automobile I see in my daily life could be described as CAR (in) MA :-)