Sunday, August 22, 2010

I took my car in for regular service, 120,000 miles, early Thursday morning. A few hours later I was in Pt. Pleasant playing rooftop golf with Ella. The shop called to say the car's transmission fluid is black. I nearly fainted. How does this happen, especially when I'm so faithful about maintaining the car? But the line is always the same, I really can't let you drive this car out of here when it's like this ... Very suspicious. They've used that line with tires and brakes. I'd like to believe them.

I was assured that all the needed parts were in stock and the car would be ready later that day. Then when I was about to leave to pick it up, the shop called to say the car would be ready early Friday. Not everything was in stock. Inventory showed more than the parts people could locate on the shelves. I thought to myself that if a repair shop is going to push superfluous repairs, at least have the parts available.

The next day I went to pick up the car. And as I walked into the garage area, I overheard the guy, Andy, who handled my car, on the phone explaining to another customer that their transmission fluid is black. Oh, sounds like a special on black transmission fluid this week.

Jeff's told me I gotta find another place to take the car. I don't think he'd buy me another of the same brand if I can't get it serviced reliably. And I want to call the Better Business Bureau about these guys. When I dropped off the car, I remember now, Andy was expressing concern to a co-worker about still having a job and the service shop still being in business. He sounded desperate but shady deals aren't the solution.

3 comments:

kkollwitz said...

My car advice is that if the gas mileage and driveability are fine, and tires look ok, then your car does not need fixing. This has served me well over the last 30 years or so.

kkollwitz said...

"I spend very little time watching television"

Here ya go:

http://platytera.blogspot.com/2009/03/tv-and-lent.html

Moonshadow said...

You could mean anything by "driveability" but if you mean "handling," well, I'll just say that one recent June morning, I set out to take my son to school and didn't even make it to town before the car overheated: leak in the coolant container. Complete surprise. There were no warning signs.

Your family doesn't watch TV? I watched a movie with the kids last night and afterwards had a headache and pain in both eyes. The pain is still there tonight. That's probably why I don't watch TV: it doesn't work for me. I prefer shows that I can listen to w/o watching.