Car-ied away

(Carried away, in case you don't get the pun!)

(Car issues, too.)

A while back, Bill's/Otter's car had an issue with the Check Engine light coming on.  He took it to the auto parts store since they use the same equipment to check it that Chevy would - but Chevy charges and they don't.  It was a "minor" part that had to do with the oxygen sensor and it was easy for Bill to replace it.  A couple of weeks later, the light came back on and the auto parts store checked it again.  It showed as being ok but they suggested he clean it with a long skinny brush.  He did that but the light stayed on.  Last week when he took it to get tires, they told him that it needed some front end work and also an alignment.  Which was not a surprise, that was a common issue with that car in the past and it's still a potential issue.  We decided to get a 2nd opinion from Chevy, mostly to compare the price we were quoted at the tire place.  I picked the car up from Otter on Saturday, I was going to get it from her when she got back home after work but she recognized my car when she drove past the antique store I was at - there are not too many other silver Impalas in this area with Longhorn emblems on the back window!  She took my car from there and I took hers.  We only drove it to Church on Sunday and then I took it to Chevy yesterday morning.  They were beyond booked so I made an appointment to take it back this morning.  At 7:15.  I was there before 7:00 so there is no excuse for the garbage they pulled on me today.

(Yes, this is a rant!  About Chevy!  The specific dealership in Tulsa, actually.  They have the word "south" in their name.  And "point" is in their name also.  The service rep will be referred to as D because that's his first initial.)

Yesterday, I had to go to the post office and a couple of things on the way home.  As I was pulling into the driveway at home, another light came on: Service Engine Soon.  According to the guidebook, that usually means either a) the engine has damage that has to be dealt with soon ($$$) OR the trunk latch was bad.  Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!  So, I asked D about having that checked when they were looking at the front-end.

D told me that it would be a couple of hours at the most.  The first 30 minutes is free, after that they charge $85.00/hour for just looking around and plugging the equipment in.  Which is why Bill usually goes to the auto parts store for that!

At right before noon, I called D because they'd had the car 5 hours.  I had to leave a message and he called me back.  He said that they had just gotten through with the front-end check and he confirmed what the tire place told us - he didn't know that I had already gotten a specific quote or that I knew what he should have told me was needed.  Chevy's price was about $700 higher than the tire shop, by the way.  He was very pushy and tried to get me to ok them doing the work today.  NO.  I asked him about the check engine light, and he said that the car was still waiting on that to be checked but that it was "in line" and should be soon.  I asked him how soon that would be and he said it wouldn't be too long and that he'd call me.  At 2:15, I made the first of about 4 calls to him.  I left messages each time.  At 3:45, I called him again and he answered.  And immediately made a bunch of excuses about lots of calls being returned and I was the next person he was going to call.  Yeah, right.  Then he told me that the car was still waiting on the check engine light being checked - and the told me I should leave it overnight.  Guess what?  He met **RHTW!  And I don't think he liked Her. :)  Upshot is that I told him I was coming to get the car as soon as my husband picked me up and that yes, THEY WOULD HAVE IT READY FOR ME.  Bill got me and we went right there.  And I was met by the manager - the manager of the entire dealership!  Seems that Younger Boss called his friend who happened to be the sales department manager to complain on our behalf, and the sd manager called the dealership manager with the issue.  When Younger Boss called, he was asked if the service rep I'd dealt with was by any chanced named D, before he even had time to say who it was.  The dealership manager took our file over at that point.  He personally took the car over to get the check engine light situated, which is just the issue that we had with it earlier and it might be that the part itself is not good but it's working fine now and we don't have to worry unless it acts up again - and it's still a minor fix; he cleared the system to turn the light off and then he took the car to the car wash.  He was nice and apologized, but we will never use them again.

As soon as I left, I called the tire shop and made an appointment to get the front-end work done tomorrow.  I'll have it there when they open at 7:30, it will take about 45 minutes.  Otter is going to meet me there so I can get my car back from her, then they'll call me when the work is done and I can pay for it over the phone.  Otter will just have to walk across the parking lot from where she works to the tire store to get the car when she gets off work.

She will eventually actually own the car, for various reasons she wants to wait a little while longer.  But we were really afraid that the light I saw yesterday might mean that the engine itself was damaged.  In which case Bill was going to take the two front tires off and put them on my car, and we would not have done anything else as far as repair on the '02 Impala.  We would have then helped Otter find a car, because we didn't want to let her have the 02 if it was on the downhill slide.  But it's still got a lot of life left and we're glad to know for sure that the engine is ok.

**Believe me, you do NOT want to mess with Her.  She does not take prisoners.