5 months ago I pulled our van into our driveway and funny enough shared a loving thought about the van to myself. I thought "this van was a really great buy for us".
then I parked the van.
and less then an hour later Darren came home and saw fluid leaking from the "really great buy" van.
It didn't suck all at once. It has taken its sweet time to turn into a piece of poo in our mouths.
Darren broke down the day he tried to drive the van out to the place we bought it from. Short story version, the coolant lines burst and had sprayed all over the engine thus causing it to seize.
Engine no more.
For the last 5 months we have gone back and forth with the shop. Our main contact is actually a friend which at times helps but has lately become a hard sharp corner to get around. We don't exactly want to burn that bridge along with our kicking a$$ rampage at the shop.
Our main back and forth points have been
-Who is responsible for paying the work costs?
- Could we cash out our extended warranty to cover the rest?
They agreed to split the bill of $4000 in half, 2k a piece, which I now believe is totally jacked up so they are really still not paying anything and we're covering the whole cost. We have asked Darren's Mom to lend us half the 2k, leaving us with 1k. We went back and forth on cashing out our warranty and have been told if we cashed it out it would need to be applied to the principal of the loan and not used towards the repair costs.
After asking what other options there were, Darren was told :
"don't worry about the other 1k"
We were left to ponder that for a bit.
My chain snapped on Monday when I got the latest email or rather a disconnected update that contained information that I believe the sender thought would make us happy. It informed us that a replacement engine (one I had requested the mileage on before it was placed into our van) had been put into our van already and that our van was being driven around, most likely being "tuned" up by the service department. The sender wanted to see if I thought us paying the additional 1k by means of small installments sounded fair.
Yes...exact words used here were:
Does this sound fair to you?
I don't know who thinks information like that or dumb questions like that above are supposed to make a customer jump for joy or feel like they are being treated correctly because if that's what he thought was gonna happen
boy was he wrong!
It took everything I had in me to wait out the week and not send a hateful, filled with naughty words, email response back.
I carefully let my anger boil and then reduced the heat.
And this was the outcome: (names and places changed to protect my own a$$)
McFriend,
While this is great news I have to admit I was very disappointed and angered to hear that 1.) you believe the van has it's new engine and 2.) that you've seen it being driven around. I asked you last week to notify me of the miles on the replacement engine. I never heard back so I assumed that it had not arrived yet. I am a bit surprised that the engine was received and already put into the van without us even being advised of such things. We should have been advised about where the engine came from, how it came to be (accident, flood, etc.) as well as the miles on it. I don't understand how us being notified of these things was overlooked. Do we not have final say on what engine goes into our vehicle?
I am beyond frustrated at this point. I understand there is only so much you can do but to be honest with you I am beginning to think negatively toward Stinky Joes. This upsets me because up to this point, myself, my parents as well as friends have all had great experiences there.
Another week has gone by, and this entire ordeal is now just a few weeks shy of 5 months!
If there is nothing else that Stinky Joes can do for us in regards to the final 1k that needs to be paid and the only solution you can find is that WE have to pay little by little over a certain time frame then I guess we just have to be ok with that. The bottom line is that this has dragged on long enough. We have continued to pay the monthly payment on a van that has been in the shop for 5 months! I have paid $944 towards a vehicle that we haven't driven since September. We want our vehicle back. Our vehicle, a vehicle that was sold to us by Stinky Joes with a pre-existing corrosion problem. A vehicle that had already been serviced because of the pre-existing corrosion problem. A vehicle that was not entirely checked over by your service department upon being sold to us. Perhaps the truth was rather withheld from us? Our vehicle is now a vehicle with a replacement engine in it that we have no information on. And you ask if this sounds fair? Does this sound fair to you?
After 5 months of an ongoing issue with customers that have been nothing but patient and somewhat naive about the situation at hand I would hope that Buttface, the owner, would be slightly embarrassed. I would hope that he'd be more then willing to just write this last 1k off as a loss rather then lose a customer that was happy up to this point.
But.
If our only option is to agree to some sort of payment agreement for the last 1k then please proceed, get it done, and get our van back to us.
I think we have done nothing but be patient and I am now entirely done with this entire situation. 5 months is a ridiculous amount of time.
With that said McFriend, we do appreciate the effort you have put forth for us. Thank you.
Please get back to me with the final outcome.
Sincerely,
While this is great news I have to admit I was very disappointed and angered to hear that 1.) you believe the van has it's new engine and 2.) that you've seen it being driven around. I asked you last week to notify me of the miles on the replacement engine. I never heard back so I assumed that it had not arrived yet. I am a bit surprised that the engine was received and already put into the van without us even being advised of such things. We should have been advised about where the engine came from, how it came to be (accident, flood, etc.) as well as the miles on it. I don't understand how us being notified of these things was overlooked. Do we not have final say on what engine goes into our vehicle?
I am beyond frustrated at this point. I understand there is only so much you can do but to be honest with you I am beginning to think negatively toward Stinky Joes. This upsets me because up to this point, myself, my parents as well as friends have all had great experiences there.
Another week has gone by, and this entire ordeal is now just a few weeks shy of 5 months!
If there is nothing else that Stinky Joes can do for us in regards to the final 1k that needs to be paid and the only solution you can find is that WE have to pay little by little over a certain time frame then I guess we just have to be ok with that. The bottom line is that this has dragged on long enough. We have continued to pay the monthly payment on a van that has been in the shop for 5 months! I have paid $944 towards a vehicle that we haven't driven since September. We want our vehicle back. Our vehicle, a vehicle that was sold to us by Stinky Joes with a pre-existing corrosion problem. A vehicle that had already been serviced because of the pre-existing corrosion problem. A vehicle that was not entirely checked over by your service department upon being sold to us. Perhaps the truth was rather withheld from us? Our vehicle is now a vehicle with a replacement engine in it that we have no information on. And you ask if this sounds fair? Does this sound fair to you?
After 5 months of an ongoing issue with customers that have been nothing but patient and somewhat naive about the situation at hand I would hope that Buttface, the owner, would be slightly embarrassed. I would hope that he'd be more then willing to just write this last 1k off as a loss rather then lose a customer that was happy up to this point.
But.
If our only option is to agree to some sort of payment agreement for the last 1k then please proceed, get it done, and get our van back to us.
I think we have done nothing but be patient and I am now entirely done with this entire situation. 5 months is a ridiculous amount of time.
With that said McFriend, we do appreciate the effort you have put forth for us. Thank you.
Please get back to me with the final outcome.
Sincerely,
1 comment:
A really big thorn from 2009 that needs plucking before it completely spoils 2010...
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