Pollywogs!

I’m both very pleased to have it back and filled with body-shop rage. I may flesh it out more later (ie posting my ‘letter’), but here are the basics:

Got my car back Thursday afternoon…so, its only been what, a hair over seven weeks? Revised estimate was at $6999, I’ll have to scan it and post teh pics some day…

Car seems fine, they had problem after problem burping teh coolant apparently, as well as realizing teh throttle body was tweaked from teh impact after most of teh other work was done (or so they claim, they could tell me pigs were flying out of the tailpipe and I’d be none the wiser).

I’m not sure who’s fault it was, but this really was just a two week job. I’ll be writing a letter and CC’ing it to everyone I can think of from teh service manager to teh CEO of Toyota. There was a failure in teh system at some point, and they really owe it to themselves and their customers to get on teh ball.

Wish I had my camera in my pocket, when I enter teh body shop lobby they have this poster on teh wall:

—

• First line was a row of pics showing each step in teh process from estimate to ordering teh parts, ending with ‘update teh customer’.
• Second row was receiving teh parts to various bits of work, ends with ‘update teh customer’.
• Third row continued on teh same vein, ending with ‘update teh customer’.

—

What a fucking joke. Those bitches didn’t call me a single time. teh only reason I knew my car hadn’t dropped off teh face of teh earth was that I called them once a week (after what I figured was plenty of time to get it done at three weeks) for an update.

—

• Getting ready to drive away, wife’s walking around teh car and sees this mark. I thought it was dried wax someone forgot to buff off…nope, a really abraded palm size scratched area…that somehow with seven weeks someone managed to overlook. Luckily it buffed out pretty well when they pulled it back around to teh garage.
• Driving down teh highway, I hit teh windshield washer and it dribbles out like old, old man with weak stream.
• Get home, notice the scratched area they repainted looks like someone did it with a can of spray paint.
• Check the coolant, and there is none to be seen in the reservoir. Below the low minimum. WAY below…
• They wiped off the dash with a WET DIRTY RAG. Fucking thing was cleaner when I dropped it off!
• Used some greasy spray shit on some of the external trim and underhood plastic. THAT’S going to be a caked dusty mess in a month or two…
• Rubbing compound dust on everything inside the car. Not cleaned up of course.
• Stains on the drivers side door arm rest. Grody.
• They deflated all of my tires. I had them set to 42F/40R, and they dropped them all to 30 all around. I guess they should check things like this, but maybe asking me first, I dunno…
• My heater core plug is nowhere to be found. WTF?

UPDATE!!!!

• The front drivers parking light…NO GO!
• The drivers side door light…NO GO!!!

—

Not a brand new car with 1000 miles on it anymore. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck. What, they had seven weeks and STILL were rushed???

I took my Prius to teh Toyota dealership to avoid half-assed bullshit like this…hell, I could have just taken it to teh local mom & pop shop and gotten better service…she’s going back down, just not tomorrow. Monday afternoon, I made an appointment…

I don’t mean to bitch or anything, BUT THIS IS TOYOTA AND THE LARGEST FUCKING DEALERSHIP IN THE AREA, FOR FUCKS SAKE. Seriously.

I strongly suspect that the failure is the Fairfield Auto Group. I suspect that their body shop is backlogged to fucking hell, and those five guys are busting ass and dealing with irate customers day in and day out from their dozen or so auto dealerships. Fairfield is raking in hundreds of millions, and spending the absolute LEAST amount of money it can on the repair portion of their business (“hey, we’ve got a RAPACIOUS profit margin to maintain!”). And the guys on the front lines are the ones who have to end up dealing with the mess, run ragged, trying to get anything done before the customer unload on them, screaming, about how the two week job has taken almost two months (not that I was anything other than calm, collected and pleasant…no point in even complaining to someone who has no control over the situation, much less being irate or rude).

I read recently (in a forward to Fahrenheit 451 (you can read Fahrenheit 451 sans forward here in an amazing fashion) that Ray Bradbury likened writing to following footprints in the snow: your emotion ought to be well ahead of you so you simply record what you find rather than over-analyzing the situation and bogging down in minutiae. I enjoyed venting as it allowed me to separate myself from my emotions a bit, while still giving them room to be expressed. Necessary, perhaps, to maintain my pleasant state of mind.

A nice side effect: I believe that I write my best, being the massive narcissistic egomaniac that I am, when I’m well behind my intent, simply pounding the keys as fast as I can to stay in the zone, to keep up with the feelings and translate the thoughts behind them before the vein dries up and I’m left casting stones and gazing off into the distance, wondering what the heck I was getting on about…oh yes, I was trying to say that I enjoy both writing and reading my own rants…that’s what I was trying to say…I told you I was a narcissistic bastard…

UPDATE: Took it back down this afternoon and I believe they’ve corrected everything to my satisfaction (other than a tiddlying rattle in the passenger B pillar).  The body shop staff have been very willing to promptly correct any deficiencies I’ve noticed, and very pleasant to work with…shame it wasn’t done on time (correctly the first time).