Unlucky/Lucky

[wolf]

There has been a lot going on this week ... Thursday and Friday, in particular.

I went out to my car on Thursday afternoon to a flat tire. I spent about 10 minutes cursing at it before my brain re-engaged I I recognized this was not especially difficult, just frustrating, as I had to be at work in a half-hour, so I borrowed my mom's car, intending to ignore the problem until Friday morning.

Friday morning I am up and ready early, I have coffee, established that my car dealer service dept. can take me, and I place the call for road service.

In exactly the amount of time estimated, a couple of Russian guys show up, put on the spare, and speed off into the daylight.

I drive up to the dealer, ask him to replace all of the tires as this was suggested at my last inspection ... and the guy said, "No, I won't put in an order to replace the tires until we look at them. Let's see." I don't think I've EVER had a dealer service tech say anything like that.

So ... I wait in the waiting room, enjoy some free coffee, make one trip out to the service bay to examine the dry rot I already knew was on my tires which is why they need replacing ... and then he says "These much more expensive tires are the ones that replace the ones on your car now, but these ones here are actually better and cost less."

What? That funny thing is happening again, where a car dealer service tech is saying words that they don't usually know.

Back to waiting.

Then the guy comes in. And he has his apology face on. "I have some good news and some bad news, which do to you want first?" All right, here we are, the universe is back in sync and he's going to tell me something expensive happened, like I drove on the rim and didn't know it and I have to replace the alloy wheel, or the axle broke or something like that ... "Gimme the bad news first."

"Well, Miss Wolf, we found out why your tire blew out. It did have a nail in it, but when we let your car down off the lift the brand new tire on that wheel blew right out. We put it back up and, we had missed seeing this, it's our fault for not checking, but there's these springs in your rear suspension, and it broke and the sharp end was poking right into the tire. It didn't flatten your spare because that's a smaller tire and it didn't touch it, but the full size tire just popped."

Ah-hah. Here it comes.

"So, since we've seen this happen a couple of times, well, we're going to replace that spring like it was under the warranty."

What? What did I just hear? $1000 worth of part and labor ... free. My warranty expired in either 2004 or 2005.

They gave me a ride to work, and I didn't expect to be able to pick up my car until this morning. I was telling my boss the story at work and he just up and said "If it isn't busy, have the ambulance run you over tonight before they close."

I have a hard time believing that this whole story is absolutely true.

[Elspode]

Holy shit. Where is this place located? I want to take my car there...all the way from Kansas City.

[Trilby]

#1) Was StaceyV's husband one of the Russians who helped you out?
#2) You said you "enjoyed" the free coffee at the dealership? ENJOYED?
#3) Perhaps the Car Dealer Service Tech knows that you, wolf, have super-natural powers and you can predict who is going to be murdered?

[wolf]

Fiore Lincoln-Mercury, Norristown, Pennsylvania. And the salesman didn't screw me over on the car, either.

#1) Not so far as I could tell.
#2) Yes. Individually prepared gourmet coffee packs.
#3) Maybe.

[lumberjim]

maybe, just maybe....and i know this flies in the face of science, conventional wisdom and all but.....maybe not EVERYONE in the car business is a criminal?!

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

maybe, just maybe....and i know this flies in the face of science, conventional wisdom and all but.....maybe not EVERYONE in the car business is a criminal?!

Hoooo boy, that's a good one Jim!

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by wolf

Fiore Lincoln-Mercury, Norristown, Pennsylvania.

They go on my list of people to talk to when my Saturn finally needs replacing. Are you sure there wasn't a safety recall that they overlooked notifying you of? "...we've seen this happen a couple of times..." sounds like a Service Bulletin at least.
Might explain as-yet-unexplained niceness.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They call them unpublished extended warranties They know there's a problematic part but not enough failures to trigger a recall, so they just tell the dealers to replace as necessary.

Buying the same tire that Ford chose for the car is usually expensive because the spec that Ford chooses seldom match a tire the manufacturer wants to market to the public. The tire company wants a compromise so they have to stock fewer model tires at their outlets.

The car company will want specific characteristics for each model depending on their marketing targets. Cushy models, they'll want a softer ride or quieter tread design and economy models might get a harder ride but better mileage through less rolling resistance plus longer tread life. Performance models want traction and predictable break-away when they're pushed too far.

Of course there is the possibility they didn't have the more expensive tires in stock but had the others on hand.

And no, not everyone in the car business is a criminal.... not by a long shot. Of course some of the non-criminals are assholes or idiots so that cuts the odds in your favor down a little, but that said, there are millions of great people working in the car business.

The problem with dealing with a larger company, like a dealership, is you usually have to deal with several people. If one is an idiot it leaves a bad taste for the whole organization.

Now 'fess up Wolf, you really didn't call the Russians till the next morning because it took that long to find the spare under all the crap in the trunk.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Now 'fess up Wolf, you really didn't call the Russians till the next morning because it took that long to find the spare under all the crap in the trunk.

That is absolutely true. And I promise to put less crap back in the trunk than I started with.

The tires that I got are now the standard Sable tires. As folks may recall, Ford had a little problem with the Firestone company a few years ago.

No overlooked Safety Recalls. In fact, I usually get a nice explanatory letter from the dealer on recalls before I get the official two line note from Ford corporate.

[wolf]

I also have an unlucky that I haven't found the lucky for yet ...

When they were 10 days late the HR dept noticed that they hadn't gotten the quarterly payroll audit from the third party payroll company.

Usually all their stuff is delivered by courier.

Not this time.

An envelope boldly labelled CONFIDENTIAL!! TO BE OPENED ONLY BY PAYROLL MANAGER!! IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENTS ENCLOSED!!! was sent by UPS ground.

Our UPS ground delivery gets dropped by a stairwell.

Guess what's missing out of 10 other packages of pee cups and tounge depressors?

We got an explanatory memo and a nice booklet entitled "How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft."

I thought I knew how to do that. Not leaving a pile of papers that includes my social security number and other sensitive information laying on a doorstep was pretty high on my personal list.

Fuckers.

[lumberjim]

maybe someone will buy a bunch of stocks using your id, then die in a freak accident, leaving you millions in the distant future.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah Wolf, that sucks. We're having the same problem since some bastard from corporate in Chicago lost a laptop with all the info on 160,000 employees and retirees......including SS #s, bank account #s, pay/pension info, etc.... everything but the name of their first pet. Oh, unencrypted.

[Rock Steady]

Laptops are regularly stolen in Sunnyvale in the middle of the day at lunch spots. People break into cars at noon. Most biz people keep all the company's secrets, customer lists, biz plans, employee records on their laptops without even thinking about it.

In another vein, some employees just don't care. I needed a couple of database tables and this idiot emails me the whole database with thousands of peoples names, addys, and credit card info. I deleted the sensitive data immediately.

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

... we had missed seeing this, it's our fault for not checking, but there's these springs in your rear suspension, and it broke and the sharp end was poking right into the tire. It didn't flatten your spare because that's a smaller tire and it didn't touch it, but the full size tire just popped."

Ah-hah. Here it comes.

"So, since we've seen this happen a couple of times, well, we're going to replace that spring like it was under the warranty."

Nothing new in her story. Better automobile companies have identified design failures AND therefore warranty that part for vehicle life - if you are an original owner. Some companies now extend that warranty to second owners.

A Honda Accord about 9.5 years old with 98,000 miles on it when I noticed a rusty support bar. Asked dealer if that was a problem. It was a $400 part that attaches to front suspension, steering, and engine. They told me that should not have happened and that the part would be replaced for free. Free - and this was almost 20 years ago.

Meanwhile I also worked as a parts department manager. They told me to get out my warranty parts because GM was sending someone to negotiate. Negotiate? Yeph. We got about $0.20 to $0.25 for every dollar of warranty. I believe DeLorean discussed this in his book. GM decided that dealer profits were too high. Therefore GM dumped warranty costs on dealers. If you took a warranty problem to the dealer, then dealer must do everything possible to dump that warranty cost on you. This directly traceable to GM that too long has been run by bean counters.

Recently discussed this history with a parts department man. GM has started doing this 'dump warranty costs on dealer' again. After fixing problems on (not yet sold) cars, GM sent an inspector to verify those repairs. Two cars were found with tire pressures less than 2 pounds below minimum level. Therefore all warranty work on both cars would not be honored by GM.

Ask yourself why any car arrives at the dealer requiring rework. GM still has this serious problem.

Was the car designed by a car guy or by a bean counter? Bean counters view warranties as an expense. Car guys regard such problems as a corporate mistake - to be corrected by the company. Getting a warranty problem solved has little to do with the dealer and more with whether the manufacturer is product oriented.

Wolf cited a Ford. "Quality is Job #1" means the management is product oriented. GM executives come almost entirely from finance departments which is why such 'extended' warranties become difficult to learn about and to have honored. Wolf's story should be common today among most auto makers.

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

We got an explanatory memo and a nice booklet entitled "How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft."

I thought I knew how to do that. Not leaving a pile of papers that includes my social security number and other sensitive information laying on a doorstep was pretty high on my personal list.

Did you use a tax service to file your taxes? They are now permitted to sell your information (SS#, address, income, etc) to *responsible* companies. IOW total disregard for your identify is widespread due to total disregard by us. We don't demand systems to protect our identity.

For example, the only reason you ever heard of credit card numbers being stolen and being sold was due to the only state in the United States with a significant identity protection law. If any company learns of identity theft, then they must notify the public. Identify theft had long been considered secret. Your numbers could be stolen and nobody had to notify you.

One additional law (and I have not confirmed this) permits any victim of identify theft to get free credit reports from all credit bureaus. Normally a stripped down report can be provided free once a year upon request. It does not include a credit score and some information. But it does even include medical records. However if a police report identifies you as a possible victim of identity theft, then all credit bureaus must provide you with everything - including credit score - for free.

Even if not a victim of identity theft, the free credit report (without hidden costs attached to www.freecreditreport.com) can be obtained from http://www.annualcreditreport.com .