First, I want to thank everyone for their info and support, at least I can count on you guys.

I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped. I wrote down the # for St. Charles Isuzu and took it to work with the intent of finding out just exactly what is the deal with parts, but I never got to it. Walking up the stairs into work, I hit my head on a new set of steel spiral stairs (that I installed! ) and had to go across the street to the hospital for stitches. So, my phone calls didn't get made.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
No, we don't have a squeaky wheel (that I know of), but at least we got "greased". When Vicky and I dropped off the car yesterday, let me just say that we were less than pleased. I drove it right up to the service manager's sliding glass office door and looked him in the eye, while it idled, sounding like death. I shut it off, walked in, dropped the key on his desk and said 'you can have it'. I'm resting on the couch about an hour ago and he calls and tells me that it's all done. He says the part was in transit last night and they busted their a$$es to get it done for us today because 'we had been inconvenienced enough'.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's fixed, although I haven't actually picked it up, yet. But, it seems a little odd that as soon as we voice our dismay, the parts miraculously appear. Maybe it didn't happen that way and I'm just being pessimistic, but I hope this doesn't set a precedent for the future. I don't want to have to go throught this everytime we need something fixed.

Thanks again for everyone's input.
Brian

BTW, I have retired the VX from offroading for at least the near future. I have my eye on a $400 K5 Blazer just to beat on. This will also give us a vehicle to use in place of a rental, should the need arise.