Back in August, we went to a local CarMax to look at their used vehicles. Started with a 2000 Chevy Venture, checked out a couple of sedans like an Impala, tried a Neon and discovered being so low was uncomfortable. We bought the Venture.
Fast forward 6 months. All of a sudden, it develops starting problems–meaning sometimes it wouldn’t start at all. We take it to our usual garage and they go over the vehicle for a few days but they can’t find the problem. They tell us to go to a dealer.
So, we go to the service department at CarMax and they decide it’s the fuel sender so they replace that. This takes another few days. We get the van back, it’s fine for a week, then it becomes increasingly difficult to start until it gets to a point where it will not start at all.
We have it towed to CarMax. They check out the fuel line and discover that no fuel is getting to the engine, so they decide it’s a clogged fuel filter and replace that. This took a week. We get the van back and it’s good for a couple hours, at which point it repeats the same routine from the week before. Back it goes.
We just got it back again today–it was actually ready yesterday but we couldn’t get out to Dulles to pick it up. They said that the fuel pump they put in a couple weeks had failed. They also removed the gas tank and cleaned it out; it had a bunch of junk in it. They didn’t tell us what the junk was or where it might have come from but I suspect whatever it was, someone put it there.
We picked up a locking gas cap on the way home. Hopefully, this will put an end to all the back & forth.
Actually, it works in our favor. The Commonwealth of Virginia has lemon laws. Any car, truck, or motorcycle that has to be repaired–or spends more than 30 days–at the dealer for the same problem within 18 months of purchase is covered under this law.
Virginia doesn’t make any such distinction that I could find. We should be covered as long as the vehicle in question was sold by an authorized dealer within the past 18 months, which it was.
The problem is with the Venture. Those things are absolute crap. My parents bought a new Venture around 2000 and it would take pages to list all the things that have gone wrong with it.
It’s entirely possible that the previous owners had used a bad gasoline. If the underground gas tank had rust or sediment in it, and someone filled your van right after the station had filled their tanks, the that sediment would have been stirred up and pumped into your tank. That would explain the clogged fuel pump and fuel filter.
That’s why I never fill my car when I see the tanker at the gas station.
The real issue here is why it took a week for CarMax to replace the pump and filter. That’s a three to four hour job - max.
They had to order the filter and it took a couple of days to arrive. Everything else only took four days, at most. Service at that location has been very busy; it took two weeks just to get an appointment with them! Though when we had to get the tows they looked at within 24 hours and the whole fiasco only cost me fifty bucks.
Sure, it could have been sediment from a gas station’s reservoir but the failures to start only happened after it had been parked at home for a long time and our complex has been having a small problem with vandalism so that’s what I thought of.
My apologies for posting so much in a row but I forgot to mention that I had thought of the vandalism before we ever heard anything about “junk” in the tank. The vandalism angle occurred to me the night before we had to get it towed again.
Welp, it’s back to not starting again! Time to call CarMax and ask them to either refund the $2500 that we’ve paid so far or exchange it for a similar vehicle. If they don’t play ball, we’ll take the case up with Richmond.
We finally managed to get it started and drove out to CarMax. They’re going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, try to fix it one last time and see if it’ll stay fixed. If not, they’ll discuss options. We have a loaner van for the time being, a 2000 Grand Caravan with 73K.
