The odds seemed good enough. GM's reliability was on the upswing, and Consumer Reports gave the Equinox very good ratings. But in a letter, Donna Prelle reported "nothing but trouble" with the car, and offered a timeline and service records to prove it.
The records indeed show a history of engine complaints, starting with trouble codes that repeatedly triggered the check-engine light, and reports that the SUV idled roughly and sometimes stalled. They also show repeated efforts to address the problem by their dealer, Marlton's Elkins Chevrolet.
But one thing in particular stood out to the Prelles and also to Robert Silverman, a lawyer who specializes in lemon-law cases and who reviewed the documents at my request.
That was the Equinox's high level of oil consumption - and GM's insistence that it wasn't part of whatever problems they faced.
Not that service reps didn't mention the oil. The Prelles say the dealer recommended that they use high-quality synthetic oil and that they change it every 3,000 miles - even though the Equinox is equipped with a computerized indicator that's supposed to show more precisely when an oil change is required.
But it was the oil consumption that seemed like a red flag to the Prelles. So they were especially disturbed when the dealer offered a GM document defining "excessive oil consumption" as the use of one quart or more within 2,000 miles.
"If we knew that," Donna Prelle says, "we would have never, ever bought the Equinox."
But were the Prelles simply not noticing the vanishing evidence on the dipstick? That's not likely, since their records showed the vehicle down more than a quart in mid-May at 22,113 miles - fewer than 1,200 miles after the Equinox had last been serviced by the dealer.
