Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Everything Falls Apart

There was this song by Dog's Eye View with the title above that I tend to think about often. Things aren't made for status quo nor are they meant to zip by at imperceptible speeds. But, somewhere in the middle is life as we know it. The scratch-proof glasses will scratch, the removable media won't move, refined sugar will have something else in it... etc. And then there are cars.

The Izusu Rodeo went into the dealership for the fourth and hopefully final time. At this point, I was entirely pissed as I stared into the service persons eyes and asked, "Is it normal for a car to come back to you 4 times in a 2 month period?" The headlights were finally fixxed during the third visit... yes, third. But after driving home and then deciding to pick up dinner... the car wasn't turning over immediately. It took 4 turns of the key the first time and finally got to the point on Tuesday where I was praying for it to turn over. I at first blamed the new ignition switch (they felt was a problem) needing to be broken in. Of course, it would wind up being the starter. So, that's $1,600 for the first visit, $0 for the dabbling with wires on the second visit, $1,000 for the third trip (which finally fixxed the original problem) and now another $550 on the fourth. This smelled like something out of one of those consumer reports where a perfectly new car would be dropped off and something would be found wrong with it and something else would be loosened or "adjusted" to need repair soon after. Anyhow, the reasoning for the alternator going out was... "It was just time for it to go." Way too coincidental. After all this frustration built up, I called my insurance company (who originally had the work done on the car after the accident) who actually seemed as weirded out by the whole thing as I was. The local adjuster said that the $1,000 that I paid to get it back to pre-accident form will be covered by them and that they'd even be willing to pay half on the alternator. Of course, the skies parted and clouds disappeared... I even think I saw rays of light hitting the ground and little daisies sprouting (ok, it's winter but bear with me.) So, with that weight off my shoulders and some hope with the car, I am now looking at an interesting list the dealership came up with of other items on the Rodeo that need "attention." Oh well, I guess everything will fall apart and all we can do is try to put them back together hoping to not be grabbing our ankles during the whole process.

2 comments:

Lily said...

It’s great that the insurance company is doing that. The folks at the dealership seem awfully shady though. You hate to think that they are deliberately doing things to the car but how many “coincidences’ can you have in such a short time and not think that way.

Have you checked online with the Better Business Bureau in regards to other people having similar complaints with the dealership?

Martin said...

I'm going to wait until I get my checks from the insurance hahaha. I figure that if that doesn't work out as good as expected that I'll have more fire in my belly when lodging a complaint. I'll definitely be asking them what their track record is though. B)