Went back last night to pick up the car. They pretty much confirmed that all they do is check what the car's computers are telling them. "These computers are so advanced - they tell you whether there's anything wrong with the car. We plug our equipment into the computer and if there's anything wrong the computer tells us, and it said the car's fine." Surely the computers can't pick up everything that's wrong with a car. Computers have errors too.
They also confirmed that their conclusion of this being 'normal' for the SV6 was based purely on their starting up of the other SV6 in the showroom. These cars were probably made in the same batch at the factory, but the possibility of them both having the same problem obviously didn't occur to them. I also doubt that the new one would have had the same level of shuddering as mine.
They then questioned the fuel I was putting in - which was a valid question, but they then claimed that the problems might be because I bought the premium fuel at United. "Stay away from United, they are really bad! Stick to Shell, BP and Mobil, stay away from Safeway too." When I informed them that the second tank was from Shell the guy we had been dealing with chimed in with "Yeah but that was just regular wasn't it." As if the car should run poorly on normal fuel. Looking for any bloody excuse it seems.
We spoke to the service manager and he was actually very helpful. He agreed that the car shouldn't have changed how it's running, and wants to look further into the problem. I'll take the car back on Saturday morning, he'll hold onto it for a couple of days so they can test it further and I'll get another car from them to drive in the meantime. I'm predicting they still won't find anything and I'll end up in the same place, but at least it was nice to get someone helpful as opposed to the 'nothing wrong with it' line.
