New location for the battle with Saturn

To date, I have been blogging about my fight with Saturn (and by extension General Motors Corp.) on relantel.net. Over the next few nights, I will transfer the bulk of those posts over here, and expand the timeline back to day 1, Tuesday, April 17, 2007. That is the date at which the timing chain failed while the vehicle was in operation on our 2001 Saturn L200, stranding me in Richmond, Va. at a mere 84,700 miles, destroying the engine in the process. 90,000 miles was the scheduled service where the timing chain is replaced, an implied warranty that it should last at least that long. Throw that on top of the design change in the middle of the 2001 model year, after manufacture of our vehicle but before we purchased it, something which Saturn knew about yet did not recall existing models to fix. Nor am I the only one this has happened to - a check of the complaints on NHTSA shows at least 24 others about the same issue, and two investigations into it, showing that there were an increased rate of failures among vehicles manufactured between November 2000 and February 2001.

Quick links to the non-moved posts:
May 30: http://relantel.blogspot.com/2007/05/day-43-awaiting-gms-answer.html
May 29: http://relantel.blogspot.com/2007/05/will-gm-corporate-respond.html
May 25: http://relantel.blogspot.com/2007/05/saturn-ignores-letter-to-corporate.html
May 24: http://relantel.blogspot.com/2007/05/fedex-delivery-confrimation-to-saturn.html
May 21: http://relantel.blogspot.com/2007/05/saturn-refuses-to-take-responsibility.html

The quick summary to date is that Saturn has accepted responsibility, but will not assume 100% of the cost - they only offer a paltry 15%. Saturn chose to respond to a written letter by Fedex by a phone call from someone other than the addressee. Copies of the same letter are in the hands of GM corporate execs this week, awaiting response. Those copies were sent certified, return receipt requested.