Chevy vs Ford: Service Experience Tale #2

As mentioned in my previous hub, Adventures in Heating and Air Conditioning, I had two separate service experiences today. The first was with a professional, knowledgeable, and just all around on the ball Heating and Air Conditioning Service. That was a positive experience. I am now about to tell you about my not so positive experience.

My husband has this older model Chevy pickup. It runs pretty well and, best of all, it's paid for. It serves it purposes. But, like many things that are getting up there in years, there are of, course, your general wear and tear items. The pickup has had a short in the ignition for a long time, and it's one of those things we just haven't gotten around to fixing. So today, my husband asked me if I would go down to the Chevy dealer, get a price on the part, and ask them what kind of tool would be required to install it. He even sent me a picture of the part to my cell phone, which I printed out on a full size sheet of paper and took with me.

So far, so good. I am the queen of the honey do's. My hubby was an over the road truck driver for the first 8 years of our marriage, so it was pretty essential that I be willing to help out whenever needed. I have grown pretty accustomed to it, and I imagine, so has he. I wasn't worried, even though I know absolutely NOTHING about cars. It used to really intimidate me to walk into a dealership and talk to the service or parts guys, because I always figured they would take advantage of a short girl with obviously no automotive knowledge. I have, over the years, however, found that for the most part, feigning confidence, and carefully applied cosmetics are usually adequate. In short, don't act like a dumb twit and you won't get treated like one. Nearly every vehicle we have ever owned in our ten year marriage has been a Ford. This hasn't necessarily been by choice, it's really just kind of the way it's worked out. So I have been to the local Ford dealership on a few occasions buying certain things. I have always been treated respectfully, courteously, and I have NEVER been given the wrong part or screwed on price. So, like I said, I wasn't worried.

Well,this was the first time I had been to the Chevy dealership, so I wasn't really sure where to park. I parked close to the Service Entrance, and waved back at the vulture....er I mean, car salesman, who was practically salivating at the sight of fresh meat. He realized I was headed to service, so he gave up and went back to puttering around on his Blackberry.

I walk into the service bay and see three technicians standing at computer stations. Two are talking to customers. I stand there politely waiting to be acknowledged. I know this isn't the parts counter but I don't know where that is, so I wait. At one end of the room, a jeep is pulled in half way under the garage door to be serviced. Another car is at the end of the room, and is getting ready to pull out. An older gentleman (the one standing at a computer not doing anything) finally notices me, so he heads my way. As he leaves the computer, he reaches up and pushes a button on the wall to let the car out. Well, he pushed the wrong button. I stand there in shock and amazement, I'm sure with my big mouth hanging to my clavicle, while another technician practically Superman leaps across the garage, hitting a button on the wall JUST above my head, about 4 seconds before the garage door lands right on top of the pretty, shiny, green jeep. It wasn't even my jeep and I seriously almost wet myself. The guy who saved the day glares at the older man, and says, "You hit the WRONG button Dude!" The old guy doesn't even look at him, keeps walking towards me and says, "Can I help you with somethin there young lady?" I blink my eyes a few times and ask him to direct me to the parts counter, which he does. Man, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall after I left.

So I get to the parts counter and there are about 5 or six people in line. I wait patiently, and notice that the guy behind the counter doesn't really seem all that helpful. He sends every one of the people in front of me away without having purchased anything. And they all seem kind of annoyed. So I get to the counter, tell him specifically what I need, being sure to add just enough "I know what I'm talking about don't give me any bullshit" into my voice. The man looks to be in his early to mid fifties, is clean cut, and has a nice demeanor. However, he looks totally petrified, like he either just shat himself or is about to. He types something into the computer and says, "Are you sure it's called an ignition relay? Cause there's no such thing as an ignition relay. Could it be a starter relay?" I know from previous experiences at parts counters that they have this really cool diagram on these computers that show pictures of all the parts and where they go, etc. I believe they call it a schematic but correct me if I'm wrong. So I say,"Well here is a picture of what it looks like. It's right underneath the steering wheel. It's entirely possible that it's called something else." I show him the picture and you would have thought I showed him an Xray of my uterus. He turned it around a couple times, and says, "So this is in the fuse box?" Now, again, I have NO automotive knowledge at all, but even I know what a fuse box looks like. I calmly say, "No.....it's directly under the steering wheel." I then show him the photo on my cell phone, as the one I printed is kind of streaky. You can tell by the look on his face that he has no idea. Now I am aware that the people who work at the parts counter are not mechanics. I know they cannot possibly know all of the bazillions of parts of hundreds of different makes and models. However, shouldn't they possess at least SOME automotive knowledge? It's obvious from the 5 people in front of me in line that I wasn't the first person who stumped him today. So he pulls up a couple of other parts that it MIGHT be, yet he doesn't know what any of them are or what they do. So I call my husband and relay the information. By this point, my hubby is getting seriously annoyed, and is kind of screaming obscenities into the phone. Not at me, but at the guy. So I'm trying to discreetly turn the volume on my handset down so this poor man doesn't hear my husband call him a no good mother hummer. So we sort of narrow it down to two parts. At this point, my husband is wanting me to just buy both and we'll just return the one we don't need. He'll know as soon as he opens the box which is correct. At that point, the guy pulls one of the parts up on that handy dandy little diagram and I say, "Wait, isn't that under the hood?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well then I know that's not it. This piece isn't under the hood, it's DIRECTLY under the steering wheel. Can we look and see where that other part is located on that diagram?" He looks at me like I just asked him if he would pay my way through Harvard Law School. He putters around a little more and says, "Well, I can't find it." So then my husband has me ask if we can return it if it's not right. It's a $9 part. He says, "Well, it's electrical, so as long as you don't plug it in, then yeah." I relay this info to my husband. I say, "Yeah you'll know as soon as you see it if it's right. If it's not we'll bring it back." The guy then gets this panicked look on his face and says, "NO! You can't return ANYTHING electrical, no matter what!"

OK.

So which is it? We can return it if we don't plug it in or we can't return it period? At this point, I can practically hear the vein in my hubby's head bulging through the phone so I wrap the conversation up, politely tell the man thank you, we'll do some investigating, we'll be back.

I walk out to my car shaking my head in amazement.

Well, that does it. If we are ever in a position to buy a new car and are having the whole Chevy Vs Ford debate......problem solved.

I will never willingly walk into a Chevy dealership again. I don't care if they did pay their Obama loan back in full five years early. Maybe they should have kept some of it to hire some employees and train them.