Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Inflation's a bitch

I was all set to go play some softball last Thursday and was driving up I-95 on the way to D.C. I hit a bump on the way, felt a jolt forward and suddenly, the gas pedal didn't work. I kept pushing it, but the car continued to slow down.

Long story short (hopefully): Car gets towed and goes into the shop. (Yeah, that was pretty short.)

I get a call yesterday from the dealer. I do the normal small talk in the first few seconds on the phone. Not really caring, I ask how he is.

"Well, I was good until a few minutes ago," he tells me. What could it be? Death in the family? Bad day? Something else?

Nope. Turns out my gas line is steel, not a flex cable as they'd hoped. As a result, they have to move the transmission around. And oh, by the way, that's going to be another $220.

You know what? Cut the bullshit. I'm fairly certain that the singular outcome of your day has nothing to do with how my gas line is constructed. In the end, it doesn't matter a damn to you because if I want my ride back, I'm gonna have to pay for it. I'm already getting bent over, there's no reason to patronize me on top of it.

One of the service guys called back today to tell me that the car was done and ready for pickup.

Hooray.

Right?

Wrong.

And, by the way, your total is going to be $721 and change.

So I finally get there and pick up the receipt. Out of my chunk of change, I spent a grand total of $66 on parts.

How could fixing a coupling on a gas line be worth more than $650 in labor? Damned if I know.

I intend to find out, however.

4 comments:

Stormy said...

I can't wait to hear the response.

I'm sorry to hear that pal.

A few weeks ago, I too drained my savings account on my car. I needed a new timing belt, tuneup, alignment, keys, & a keyless remote among other things. $1200 later (money borrowed from the g/f & Dad to help) I got my car back.

Yesterday, I took the day off to take Payton to see Cars. I pick her up at day care & the car won't start. I need a new battery. Another $120 down the drain.

Kick some ass man...

Anonymous said...

That's the thing....they follow a book that has the estimated time that it should take to fix your car. Say that the estimated time to fix your car is 3 hours. If it takes them and hour and a half to fix your car you still pay for the 3 hours that was estimated. Yes, its bull sh**! Hubby used to work for a repair shop, this is how I know this. Whattyaknow, I do listen to him once in awhile. ;-)

P.J. said...

This is one reason I decided to lease. I got some extra miles on my lease and was willing to risk it, if not just for the warranty. I know for the three years I own this car, they fix it if something goes wrong!

But man, I can't figure where the labor would be that much for such a low-priced part. That's nuts. I've taken it before on repairs -- but damn, that's nuts. I'll be interested to see the follow up.

Anonymous said...

This on top of the $220 we had spent to "fix" the air conditioning in my car. I put the fix in quotation marks, because they never really found out what was wrong with it. So, $220 later I have new fluid in my air conditioning with some kind of dye that will show them where some supposed leak is the next time it breaks.

My Grandfather owned a dealership for years, that is now run by my Uncle. Even coming from a family in the car business, I don't understand this craziness.