2009-06-19

35,141 mile warranty service

might as well call this one "roll bar molding, part III"

i'm approaching the magic distance of 36,000 miles on the continual car. to be clear, this is the point where i drop away from the factory warranty (read: "free repairs") and go to the extended service contract (meaning "$100 deductible").

the continual car has had the roll bar trim come loose twice (it's a problem with the air turbulent rolling over it with the top down) and it's loose again, so i need to get it done now ... while i'm at it, i'm going to have them repair the lens on the roll bar interior light -- the fit and finish isn't quite right.

i roll into chapman with 35,141 miles. it takes them a full day to look over the car (i get a rental) and decide that: yes i was right; no, they don't have the parts.

no matter. it's not something that needs to be done right away, but it is something they need to be aware of before i cross the magic number ...

oh, and a mild kicker here is i won't be able to get the roll bar trim fixed in the future under my service contract because it would definitely qualify as soft trim.

no problem ... if it comes off in the future it'll definitely be "paging mr. glue, mr. super glue" ... but i'll take one more chance on chrysler, sure.

a minor catch here is i won't be in town when the parts do come in, but if i can get them to hold on to them long enough, i can get it done next time i'm in town ... maybe even with an oil change.

2009-06-02

a call to chrysler

i call the service contract people with a question that is this:

if you do an inspection on my vehicle and find something's wrong, like automatic transmission fluid is dirty, and i don't change it, and it fails, am i still covered?

you'd think this is a simple question. i certainly do.

but try asking this to a politically correct corporate spudnut that may be being recorded for quality assurance purposes. the guy hems and haws and spews wild different forms of gibberish that are all essentially non-answers.

during the conversation (which takes more than 20 minutes), i point out that the inspection isn't required, that i could have a vehicle serviced anywhere (which means i may or may not change the transmission fluid and they wouldn't know) and that if my car did have bad transmission fluid it would be so early that it should be covered by warranty repair.

after beating him like a rabid dog for an extended period of time he finally said something close to yes, i would be liable.

i'm not happy and this is far from over.

pre-emptive letters are going to go out to the heads of all the operations here. you'll see.