So, about the car

[cjsmith]

I dropped my car off late Friday night to be serviced Saturday morning. They kept it until today. Get this:

They. Don't. Know. What's. Wrong.

They recharged the A/C and couldn't find the leak. To be fair, I think they did try... but when this is the third time in a row I've brought this car to this place and had a repair either NOT DONE or NOT SUCCESSFUL, "try" becomes a poor choice.

Now there's dye in the system; when it fails again, as it is expected to do, they're hoping that will pinpoint the leak. Fine. My only question to myself is how many more times I'm going to be willing to go back to this place in the hopes that the repair will eventually materialize.

They did fix the headlight I asked them to fix. I could've done it, sure, but now that's one errand I won't have to do.

They didn't scrape the glaze off my brake rotors, as I asked. So they're one for three.

What makes this all especially annoying is that this place used to be good. It really did. I have a ten-year history with them. Only in the last year have they started to be such incompetent lazybutts. I'm thinking of sending a brief outline of my service history to the manager with an explanation of why I can't justify continuing to give them my business.

It's sad when a good place falls down.

Comments

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

Maybe it is time to see an A/C specialist.

It stinks when you lose a good mechanic. They are hard to find.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, could be about that time. I hate to write off the seven or eight hundred I paid these guys to fix it, though.

I have maybe maybe maybe a lead on a new one. I think I'll test 'em on the brake pad problem.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

odd... my coworker is having the exact same three-rounds-of-AC-repairs, too. and she's as frustrated as you! ya think you're using the same shop??

i know A/C isn't easy to work on ~ my brother grumbles about it a lot ~ but THREE TIMES?? that's just insane.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

This is only the second time for the A/C. The first was a wiring harness (well, ok, all the ignition wiring) which they found was bad and then gave the car back to me without replacing. I took it back and the tech obviously didn't believe me that the car was having the same symptoms again. I said sweetly "Would you mind pointing out where the new parts are? I looked briefly, but I didn't see them." He looked under the hood and his eyes got VERY big and he suddenly got VERY apologetic and respectful. Heh.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

In order...

Putting dye in the refrigerant is about the only way to isolate a leak if it's at a connection joint. Modern auto A/C systems don't have compression nuts that can be tightened, they have o-ring connectors so the assembly line robots can put them together. Very hard to identify leaks in these things, especially if they only leak when the car is in motion.

Concerning your brake rotors, did they even touch them? Sometimes a rotor will have worn enough that a trip to the deglazing lathe will make it too thin (as specified in law). If they measured the rotors, and they're just too thin to turn down again, then I could understand. If they just blew you off, that's different.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Agreed, leaks are indeed hard to find. On the other hand, two or three weeks ago I just paid these guys almost eight hundred dollars to fix what was then a much worse A/C problem, and they replaced just about every part in the system. So it's not like they can say it's old. And they did have the thing for nearly four days. They couldn't run it themselves with dye in it?

(I wonder if there is some kind of rule against them driving the car off their own property without me in it. But it's not like their property's small.)

The rotors were new last year, so I sure hope they're not too thin. The form had no statement about measuring them, anyways. This time I think they just blew me off.

One thing about this place is that you get a different "service representative" each time you go in. It's luck of the draw. Some of 'em are good and some... well... aren't. Wonder if I can be annoying enough to make sure I always get a good representative each time. That might solve all the problems right there.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I agree that somebody should have been able to find the problem with the A/C before this. It's possible that one of the new items has a manufacturing defect, which is the cause of your slow leak. It's also possible someone cut the edge of an o-ring when assembling things.

Sounds like they just blew it on the brake rotors.

Service reps are a chancy lot. During my six years as a dealership mechanic, they were the source of most of my headaches. You might try talking directly to the Service Manager, if there is such a person.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the value of service reps is supposed to be. I guess they free up the mechanics to spend more time with cars. Are they supposed to do anything else useful, like make sure the customer is happy, or double check some details, or something? I suppose around here they're useful for translating. My Spanish is just not up to snuff.

There is indeed a Service Manager. When I bring the car back with (hopefully) dye all over its innards I'll ask to talk to him, let him know the recent history, let him know politely that taking my car to them hasn't been great lately. I'm not big shakes for him, but if he's losing one customer he may be losing more.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Service reps are supposed to be a buffer between the customer and the line mechanic. It's an idea that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. While it's probably a smart thing to have somebody who is well spoken and literate for the customer to interact with, the assumption that the line mechanic is neither is, honestly, pretty annoying. When I was working in the Ford dealership I was also a university physics student, and probably the most adept communicator in the garage with the possible exception of the Service Manager.

If the Service Manager is worth a damn, he'll pay attention to you. You might want to write him a letter now, so he reads it before you come back. Offer a contact number in it, so he can call you if he wants to talk about the issues.

[firecat]

Ugh, I had that mysteriously leaky A/C problem with my '89 Honda a few years ago. Never did get it fixed.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, bummer. Did you just finally give up on it? Get a different car? Drive with "four-sixty" air conditioning?

[firecat]

Several other things went wrong with it right after that, including the brakes not working in hot weather and the automatic window system breaking (with the window open). And it was 10 years old. So I got another car.