I was noticing a slight “klunk” in my car (an Alero), as I went around turns around 15 - 20 mph. So, yesterday I took I took it to an Oldsmobile dealership (Sewell) to have them take a look at it (especially since my car is still under warrantee).
I drove in to the Oldsmobile/Cadillac service area, handed over my keys, and waited in the customer lounge. Of course, the Oldsmobile brand is now defunt, so most of the other customers waiting in the lounge along with me were Cadillac owners.
It was as if I had stepped into Sunnyvale Retirement Home — the median age must have been 80 (well, ok, maybe 70). I sat and read some magazines alongside four or five old ladies with badly dyed hair and various degrees of hair loss (the old-age type of hair loss that affects some women).
Scary clientele aside, the waiting area was pleasant and clean. The floors were a shiny-grey tile with a persian-colored rug. There was also coffee, tea, and spiced apple-cider mix at a nearby counter. More over, they also had Krispy Kreme donuts at the counter, of which I had a couple through the course of the day.
As car repairs go, this wan’t too bad. I was there for about six hours, but it only felt like it was maybe four hours ;). All the same, I can’t help but wonder that Cadillac’s customer base may be getting older and older, only to die off over time.
i’m sure a game boy would of been the ideal time waster.
Actually, I didn’t mind some of the proverbial peace-and-quiet. I brought along about four or five recent magazines that I hadn’t yet had the time to read. So, I just found a soft corner of the couch and enjoyed reading them while sipping on the (supplied) tea and spiced apple cider [mix].
So the question remains….did they fix your clunk noise? I got mine fixed the other day, but I had to go and find the service bulletin before they could “duplicate” the problem.
Actually… they didn’t end up fixing it :(.
They replaced (I believe) the intermediate steering arm. And, after having done that, they told me that they found the noise to be much less than before (they told me this was while I was still in the waiting area, before having tried my car). However, there was still some remaining noise that they couldn’t track down “without pulling the steering column apart”.
They conjectured that the remaining noise may have been due to my car mods (rear sway bar, front & rear strut tower braces). According to the dealership-guy, the suspension mods might cause the car to creak in unexpected ways (yeah, whatever).
When I got back to my car, the noise was still there. And, just as I had originally heard it, it wasn’t a creaking noise at all, but more like a rolling noise followed by a “klunk” (and suspension-based car creaking wouldn’t result in a rolling-noise, that’s for sure).