My '96 has been parked at the local Chevy dealer, in need of a new power steering pump, since a week ago Monday. They've been having trouble getting a new pump.

Does this happen a lot?  Related to the whole GM nationalized/bankruptcy/IPO thing?  Are they having trouble keeping up with the demand for parts?

Hoping to get my car back before the snow flies... >8[

Urb

I would think it has more to do with the age of the car than anything. GM dealers aren't stocking parts for cars more than 4-5 years old anymore. That's gonna make it hard to get one quickly...at least not a GM one, anyway.

Thanks, Joel -- that explains a lot.  I'm sure they're doing the best they can -- it's just frustrating that after finally getting this car transferred over to myself, renting a garage space (no small feat, in the city), and deciding that although I've always been more of a small-car guy, I really could get to like the Vette, it's sitting there parked at the dealer, while the clock ticks steadily toward winter (which will NOT, I hasten to add, mean taking the car off the road, just that there'll be fewer opportunities to drive it)....

Urb

Rockauto appears to have them in stock.  You could have one in your hands in a couple of days and take to them.

Thanks for the suggestion, ThinBlue -- but I hate to break the chain of responsibility like that.  My wife and I opened a small retail shop last year, and to save some money, bought some laminate flooring from a big store, then hired a local guy to install it.  Big mistake -- the floor was never really right from Day 1, and then when the weather changed and thermal expansion made the flooring start moving around, the guy who put it in could say, "I did the best I could, but this stuff you bought was defective; it doesn't slide back and forth the way it's supposed to."  Not his problem -- but it's not the store's problem, either, since they just sold us the stuff.  We probably should have opted not to buy it, when they told us they had no installer in our area.... So I think I'll just wait for the dealer on this one....

Urb

As it turned out, it took about 4 weeks -- I picked up the car yesterday.

Now, I still have to deal with the "SERVICE SOON" light coming on, for reasons the dealer was not able to ascertain. I decided to take it to my local mechanic (who has done a lot of work on my other car) and let him look at it.  The light comes on, they reset it, it stays off for awhile, then comes on again.  The dealer checked all the usual things they look at, but said they couldn't find anything wrong. I'm hoping the local guy will be able to find the problem.

The travails of putting a long-idled car back on the road....

Urb


|UPDATED|11/16/2011 7:12:59 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Just a note for future reference, I replaced my power steering pump with one from Turn-One. Course GM had a better idea when they did ours and decided it needed to run backwards from the rest of the world so I had to ship them my old one to steal a couple of parts. The new one is all aluminum and has AN fittings to connect braided hoses to the relocated reservoir. Turn-One are quick to shy away from GM High Tech magazine article that promises performance improvements but I believe it does feel better. There was nothing wrong with my original low mileage unit except I needed the AN connections so it's not that my pump was going bad either. Might be blue printed better though.