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Imaginary car problems, negligence and nitpicking--stories? anecdotes?
I sell lawn tractors, mowers, and other high end equipment. I'd say roughly ten percent of the equipment returned has actual manufacturing defects. Roughly 9 out of ten returns though are due to owner negligence or improper maintenance. Examples: People hitting rocks with their lawn mowers and then complaining because they had to pay 200 dollars for a new crankshaft, or people who don't know how to make the right mixture for a two cycle engine and then try to return their weed wacker when it smokes and is hard to start because they put in the wrong mix. I must say, it's pretty frustrating to have people abuse their product or use it wrong and then blame me for selling them something defective.
Any dealers or service techs with similar stories? Obvious cases of improper or negligent maintenance, but the owner wanted to complain and blame manufacturer's defect anyway in hopes of getting free repairs?
Any dealers or service techs with similar stories? Obvious cases of improper or negligent maintenance, but the owner wanted to complain and blame manufacturer's defect anyway in hopes of getting free repairs?
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It's been a long time since I was a very young Division Manager for Sears but I doubt if things have changed.
I was usually successful in refusing an unreasonble claim but if the cuustomer went over my head I would ALWAYS get a phone call from the store manager telling me to write the check.
Sometimes the abuse was sickening. I could tell dozens of stories.
1. We really did screw something up...it happens
2. An honest customer really felt we did something that created a problem.
3. A dishonest, dirtbag customer who knew EXACTLY
how to get something for nothing.
I remember once doing a brake job on a Pontiac. I happened to be watching from my office when the customer came to pick the car up that evening.
He slowly walked around the car and finally got down and looked under it.
He came up to one of my Service Advisors and informed him that his car was leaking some kind of fluid.
We put it in the air and sure enough, the automatic transmission was leaking pretty badly. It was so bad that my brake guy had noted it on his repair order.
"IT NEVER LEAKED BEFORE..YOU MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO IT!!"
Any attempts on my part to convince him otherwise were in vain. His face was red and his veins were bulging. Now, I'm VERY good at defusing a hostile customer, but not this time.
My mechanic that worked on his car was an excellent mechanic with 20 years with Sears.
When the irate customer called my mechanic the worst possible thing that a black person could be called (to his face) I threw him out.
Next day, I was informed by upper management that I would fix the transmission leak at no charge.
I almost quit.
For those who know, the front seal was cracked and the convertor "o" ring came out in fifty pieces. Yeah...we did that by replacing his brakes!
Just one story of many.
Overheating is another sore spot: "When I saw the needle go into the red (or the warning light flash), I drove to the next exit (a mere 7 miles) and pulled over. The engine was ruined. What kind of lemon is this?"
"But you are supposed to STOP when a car overheats!"
"But I was on the freeway and it was too dangerous!"
"Well, fine, you made a decision in your best interest, but it isn't the manufacturer's or repair shop's responsibility that you were driving where you were and made the decision you made."
(This argument rarely works, so it gets ugly from here on in)
His wife had been driving their Buick (a six, but I don't know exactly what year or model), and the oil light had come on. She kept driving and the engine quickly turned into scrap.
He was quite upset with her, after she told him that. "Why the hot place did you keep driving after the red light came on?" he asked her.
Her reply - "I didn't think it was important - they come on every time I start the car"
When I was buying a clothes washer from a nice saleslady, after also buying a dishwasher from her 2 days before (the household appliances had a bad week) we were talking about the stuff you see on the re-sale table and how that came to be.
This was in September or October, not sure exactly. But we were having nice fall weather. She said, see that guy just leaving there? I said yep. She said he just returned a window air conditioner, said he didn't like it. Sears was crediting him or refunding money or whatever. She said he bought it at the start of the summer. Said they take several back each fall, and Sears management oks it.
Just go to Sears when it warms up in the spring, get the window A/C, return it for full credit in the fall.
Unbelievable!!!!!!!
For some reason, I thought that was one of the funniest things I've read on Edmunds. :-)
I took a drive with her and she directed me to the noise several times, but I couldn't hear it. I lost some hearing in the Air Force, so I asked the QC guy to drive with her.
Kent went out for 45 minutes, drove on every kind of road imaginable, then pulled up to the dealership. He shut the car off, the windows were up - he asked, "do your hear the noise now"? She said "Yes, now more than ever". He explained the power to the car was off, the cooling fans weren't running and there wasn't anything else that could be making a noise.
She left, she called the BBB, said we were rude, told the dealership's owner, etc.
We spent three days trying to find a noise that wasn't there while the service department put her in a rental.
She said, "I don't like that Toyota Camry you got me from Enterprise. It makes the same noise as my Malibu!"
I then washed up and pulled the car straight back out of the bay, and took off the plastic seat wrap and floor mat. We usually parked the cars completely into a parking spot, but not now. I showed them the pony's were still lined up, and said if you want to keep em like that, don't turn.... EVER. As their wheels started to turn in their heads, I turned around, walked in, and turned in their ticket. We were cracking up on that story for a while at Firestone.
The 19.95 customer was usually the guy with the beater that needed the entire exhaust system replaced.
I once had a customer come in to have his "lifetime" muffer replaced under warranty.
He had no receipt. As a courtesy I agreed to go ahead and replace the Sears muffler for free anyway.
However...it wasn't a Sears muffler. It was the original that came with the car.
When I brought that fact up to him, he turned red and became irate.
I calmly walked him out to the muffler shop where his Chevy was up in the air.
I showed him that it was a welded assembly from the factory and even showed him the GM stamping on the blown out muffler.
This didn't work. He told me that we must have bought the muffler from Chevrolet...yeah, right!
I'll make a long story short...after I politely let him know I wouldn't be replacing the muffler for free, he stormed over to the main store.
I got a call shortly afterwards from the Store Manager's secretary letting me know that Mr. Olson, the store manager would like to see me...
The jerk was sitting in Olson's office with a satistied smirk on his face.
I was instructed to please take care of Mr. Bryant's muffler.
To make matters worse, Mr. Bryant was the father-in-law of a friend of mine.
Years later at a family picnic I ran into him. I said nothing, but he knew EXACTLY what my opinion of him was.
I just don't understand...WHY you would let a customer breathe down you neck. We kept the stalls roped off and kept the customers at a safe distance. Machanics HATE IT when a customer watches them!
I had a tech in Oregon, an older guy that had been a mechanic for thirty-some years, who would walk over to his chair, sit down and smoke his pipe when the customer would either get too close or ask him questions. I'd get a laugh when the person would ask me "why isn't he working on my car?". I'd tell them, "he gets that way with me, too, when I look over his shoulder or bug him".
Well, after a little while, the manager comes to me and tells me there's no way that the 225's will fit in there. I tell him I've had that size on before without any problem, and he has me come out to the service bay to look at the car. Well, remember in the old days, how most cars had very low-cut openings over the rear wheels? You had to jack up the car by the frame, and let the rear axle hang down, so you could get enough clearance to get the tire off. These guys jacked it up by the axle, which, obviously, did not hang down as a result. I.e.; "we can't get your tire off."
I finally quit going to them when the latest manager in their rapid turnover said to me "LOOK, we don't have the time to memorize the oil requirements of EVERY car out there!"
My apologies to you guys who have worked at reputable Firestone locations, but the ones around here have proven to be a joke! As is the story with most places though, it all depends on the manager and employees.
Customer - this *&^$$ piece of #%^&^% junk. I was just driving along and both airbags blew!!!!
Tech, after a walkaround - Uhh, Sir, why's the left front tire moved back so far it's touching the back of the inner fender?
I dunno, I was just driving along and both airbags blew.
Now with the car hoisted - Sir, any idea how both front stabilizer bar support brackets got torn off the subframe, and these wrinkle marks got into the left rail of the subframe, which is now about 4" shorter than the right side?
I dunno, I was just driving along......
Uhh, Sir, didn't you previously mention that you work at XYZ steel mill with 550 employees coming off shift at the same time, 1 exit from the parking lot, everyone trying to get there first, and all those railway tracks which crisscross the lot?
I dunno, I was just......
How about you were going about Mach 3 trying to beat traffic, launched the car over the first set of tracks, nose dived it into the next set, and bottomed the suspension?
Well, then there must be something wrong with the steel in the subframe. Yeah, that's it. I wanna see the metallurgical reports on the subframe.
The damage was subsequently repaired under a collision insurance claim. But he was just driving along.....
You did EXACTLY the right thing!