More fun at the Car Dealership

First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of updates. I didn't get a chance to leave a post about the fact that I was going to Florida for Spring Break with K.

Anyway, I'm back now. Miss me? Or did you even know I was gone?

Back to the story. I had planned on taking my car to Tampa which had a lot to do with the reasoning behind me getting the 30K service done while my dash was being replaced. I was off work last Friday for Good Friday, and while running normal errands I had turned on my Air Conditioner only to notice it wasn't working. Considering it worked perfectly prior to this whole fiasco, I was less pleased than I was previously.

I called the dealership and told them that they needed to get my car fixed immediately because I would not be driving a car to Florida that didn't have any A/C. They hummed and hawwed a bit and went on about having other cars ahead of me so they wouldn't be able to get to me in time. Finally after I threatened a few people and reminded them that I was actually in there for service before any of these people and they needed to finish the work on my car before going on to someone else did they finally give in and get me a Saturday AM appointment.

Fine, whatever.

So Saturday morning I get over there, and after about an hour they tell me they discovered the problem was a blown fuse. They said that when they replaced the fuse the A/C started working again. I was glad it was something fairly simple so I got in my car and started home. I turned on the A/C to make sure it was working properly.

It did. For about 15 seconds. Then it stopped again.

I hadn't even gotten out of the dealership parking lot yet before I had turned around and went back. Figuring it was going to take a while, I had K come pick me up and we planned to return later that morning to get my car. Well, by 4pm the service department wasn't finished yet. I was more than pissed off and insisted they get me something else to drive for the trip. They came back and said they didn't have any loaner cars left and Enterprise Rent-A-Car was closed. I asked to talk to the manager so he came into the service area to tell me there was nothing they could do since I hadn't bought my car at that dealership.

That was not going to fly with me.

I let him leave the service area, then followed him back into the showroom where I told him that he was going to find me a car to drive. I said I really didn't care where I bought my car, the reason it was broken was because his service techs screwed up. And I told him that if he didn't find me a car, I was going to have a scene in his showroom where all his potential customers were going to hear about how he runs things in his service department.

He agreed to get us a car.

It took a while and calls to quite a few rental places but they found us one.

I told them I would be out of town for about a week and they needed everything done and finished, including the Electronic Stability Control sensor switch they broke previously, by the time I got back. They promised it would be.

So to make a long story short, I get several calls over the week updating me on the status - including the fact that they are replacing the entire A/C compressor because they blew it out testing things. At this point I didn't care what they did, I just wanted everything back perfect by the time I returned this morning. They again promised me it would be.

Yet when I got there this morning, it wasn't.

So once I leave work for the day I need to stop by there yet again to find out if it's finished. I'm really considering asking for a full refund for all the other work they did for this inconvenience. The only reason I might not is because the car they gave me to take to Florida was a Mazda CX-7 SUV. And damn if that thing didn't get 32mpg for the trip. That's incredible for an SUV and it saved me a bunch of money in gas, not to mention the fact that I didn't have to put 2000 miles on my car in a week.

It still doesn't make things right, but it helps...