Well, looks like I joined this club today! My car had been sitting in the sun for the last couple of days (I was using a different car for a few days).. went out today to load up the hatch, it opened, but didn't raise... hmm, I thought, that's strange. I opened it manually, loaded some stuff in, closed it, and the latching just sounded strange. I tried to open it again, and now it's stuck closed, but registers as open and the car won't lock (now I read about locking it manually from inside).
But the problem is I'm away from home visiting my mother who is in the hospital. I log on to the app and make a service appointment for Milford, CT but nothing is available until October 1st (not terrible, but not great either).
But just by sheer luck, there's a service center ONE MILE from my parent's house here in Cherry Hill. I take the car over there, fully expecting them to be fully booked up and not really taking walk-ins for service. I was prepared to drive home on one charge and just wait for my October 1st Milford service visit.
I go to a service manager (Brandon) who listens to me and says sure, bring it around and we'll take a look. Confirms it's the cinch motor and they have four in stock and can likely do it today!! SCORE! But then I also have a faulty passenger door handle, and ask since I'm on the ESA with a $200 per visit deductible, is there any way they can do that too? I tell them even if it goes into tomorrow, that's fine, as I'm time flexible. And sure enough, the confirm the parts and are pretty sure they can get it done by the end of today! I'm just floored at how fantastic and professional and accommodating the crew over there is.
BTW, just fixing the hatch motor is a $160 repair, so it would actually be cheaper to just pay that than go through the ESA... but adding in my broken door handle makes it a worthwhile visit and now I don't have to fix the handle myself.