I really do try to keep my grumbling to a minimum on this blog, but this one is just begging me to share.  You see, I just saw a commercial on television from one of the Big Three trying to convince me that we all need to pull together and keep the company alive. They were promoting the message that they are turning things around and they are going to come  back better than ever, making me a happy customer once again. “They” happen to be the same company I purchased most of my cars from and the one that I return to for service. How nice that they want to do right by me and make me a happy customer. How sad that their service department didn’t get that memo.

BTW, I got the photo from the internet. I Googled the name of the service department this post is about and that image came up on the first page. See, the story really is begging me to share it!

On Sunday Recliner Man went outside to find a big puddle of anti-freeze under my car. On Monday he climbed under it to try and figure out where the leak was coming from. It looked like a water pump leak and, of course, it looked like my car had been designed to make the removal of the water pump a major endeavor. It was already well into the afternoon so I thought we would wait until the next morning to drop the car off for repairs. Recliner Man thought it best to take it in then so that it would be first in line the next morning. We made the trip to the garage in a neighboring town and while dropping off the car Recliner Man told them to also fix the $800 oil leak the discovered the last time it was in.

Even though it was my car I asked Recliner Man to be the one to drop it off because I was still burning from my last encounter with their service writers. The car had an electrical problem that had latches and locks popping on and off while I was driving for no good reasons. The service man actually told me that it “could be anything and looking for it could be a waste of my time and your money.” I gave him my best “if looks could kill” look and told him it was my money and I wouldn’t have  brought my car in if I wasn’t ready to spend it. Long story short, they found a bad connection and I was more than happy to hand over $70 to know that the car wouldn’t blow up while I was driving on the freeway.

So back to my current rant… Recliner Man sat around in his pajamas all morning because he didn’t want to be in the shower and miss the estimate call. They won’t start any work until you have approved the estimate. Finally at 11:30 Nagging Wife asked how long he was going to wait. He called and the service writer told him that he would have to call him back because his “service guy” was on the phone with his “warranty guy” right then. Huh? Warranty has nothing to do with our car so this was a bunch of code talk to say that they hadn’t looked at the car yet. At 12:30 Nagging Wife asked if Recliner Man was going to call them back or wait for their call. She also told them if it was her business dealing she would call them and when they told her the service writer was out to lunch she would demand to have her say with the manager.

Recliner Man decided it was better not to let Nagging Wife anywhere near the phone and made the call himself. The service writer had to stall for time because the estimate wasn’t finished yet but RM stayed on the line until the $2600 total was announced and he was told that the car wouldn’t be ready until Thursday. A day that he would be working late and wouldn’t be able to pick it up. (The garage is far enough away that we can’t really ask a neighbor to drive us up there so that we could drive it back.) And then my normally passive and wonderful Recliner Man did something that amazed and inpressed me. He TOLD the service writer that we were spending an awful lot of money and he needed to provide and rental car for us and pay for it.

And then I saw the commercial telling me how hard they are working to regain our confidence. Sigh.