Project Insomnia

Project Insomnia is many things, but in this context it is simply a "braindump" of whatever I happen to be thinking/reading/watching/doing at the moment. Parental guidance suggested.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me is... fix my car for free

The time: early 2000s, probably mid 2001.



The place: Cerritos Pontiac, Cerritos, California.



We were on our way down to Disneyland for MouseAdventure, and a strange and troubling noise had started coming from my car, a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, as we went through Kettleman City. The mechanic at a local gas station said it was a transmission problem but they couldn't do anything unless I wanted to leave the car for a few days. In Kettleman City.




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We had (and have) AAA Plus service, so elected to keep going and hope we'd make it to Southern California, knowing that if the car failed we could get a tow pretty much all the way. We made it to Cerritos Pontiac, where I'd originally bought the car a few years before, an hour or so before the service department closed.



The service professionals there took a quick look and determined that the transmission was toast and needed to be replaced. The service coordinator, a woman named Solange (memorable name), looked over my warranty details and informed me that although I was still within the 36 month period, I'd gone just a bit over the 36,000 miles and therefore the repair wouldn't be covered.



And then she said, "But we'll cover it anyway, because clearly a three year old transmission shouldn't just fail like this."



We rented a car to drive home and I drove back down a week later to pick up my car, fully repaired and good as new.



I don't know if Solange is still at Cerritos Pontiac, and given GM's troubles I don't even know if they still sell Pontiacs, but this is definitely the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me and I wish her the best in whatever she's doing.

|| Andrew, 9:53 AM || ||

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