> crash dumps would show up in /var/crash, is there anything in 
> that directory?

No, there is nothing in there

> there should be some line from a program called "savecore" in 
> /var/log/messages
> that say what's going on with the crash dumps.
> 

in my messages file the mentioned line always says (even at when a crash
occured):

savecore: no core dump


hmmm...