32,985 mile service

new coupon, new dealership.

what starts as a routine oil change ends very oddly.

i'm supposed to get an oil change and an air filter (not that i need it, but that's what the coupon's for). which is fine and that's what i get.

but their inspection turns up, get this: failure of the fuel injection system, dirty power steering fluid and dirty automatic transmission fluid. at 33,000 miles? this sounds highly suspicious.

i tell them "no thanks" to the $814 worth of service they've suggested and pull out my owner's manual ...

... because if i'm responsible for standard and required maintenance, what's required when?

there's no reference to the power steering fluid change, but transmission fluid is expected, get this, at 60k miles if i'm a taxi, a police car or a delivery truck.

i call my brother and he's immediately suspicious of all their findings. he knows i've been taking care of the vehicle. he also knows how vehicles of this type behave over time. essentially he believes their claims are ludicrous. and because he believes that, so do i.

or more precisely, if those things are in fact, wrong, they should be covered by warranty because they fall into the realm of defective.

and i don't know what it means to have a black mark on my record like this. if they say it's at fault, and i don't fix it because it's not standard maintenance, are they going to filch when i bring it in for warranty repair on failure? (yeah, that's what i think too.)

it all leaves a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

i need to talk to the service contract people.

chapman chrysler jeep, i officially don't trust you.

$22

i told you so ...

got a letter in the mail from chrysler.

the short version of seven paragraphs:

* chrysler is filing bankruptcy and merging with fiat
(a wrinkle in what my bother and i talked about a year and a half ago)

* "the new company will seamlessly honor all warranty claims and service contracts."
(both what i had predicted and what i'd been told by the service people)

which means the continual car concept lives on.

(this written 12/10/09 as i found the letter in a stack of old stuff.  pre-dated to match the date of the letter "may 2009.")