Sivan Segev | 
12 10th, 2008| 
You know how it goes, you go for an oil change - they run some tests - suggest some services - and gullible you don’t bother to take a quote and then shop around for a better price. It’s almost the story here, almost though.
First, I’d like to apologize to my 3 readers for the site’s downtime. Blogvis upgraded their services, and my blog was under a coma. It is still in the process of being recovered and all my blogrolling links are still missing. That should be up in a few days.
Now for the story:
I own a minivan that I bought a couple of years ago at a high millage. Since purchase, we added very little millage but it always had it’s clunks. If you watched the movie “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you would remember that the space ship had a personality - and every time a door opened a sigh of pleasure would emerge. For our minivan though, every time we turned the steering wheel a bit - the car would cry as if it would burst into tears soon. I believe the minivan wanted us to feel guilty for turning…
The car always had a will of it’s own. It was working non the less.
I was told at several repair shops before that it’s not an issue. Other places have changed oil and each came up with something different that is urgently in need of repair. A week before driving from Michigan to DC in the summer, a repair shop notified me that the brakes would have to be replaced. I rolled my eyes and asked if I could schedule it done after the road trip. The nice man smiled at me as if I had mental problems. I had it done the next day. To be accurate here, I did ask for rigorous testing and mentioned specifically that the car would go on the road. Despite spotting the breaks, nothing was said about the steering.
This time, I had my oil changed at a dealer’s shop with a coupon. And either they needed the money (automakers/dealers crisis), or they saw a sucker walking in - they came back with a list of “what’s wrong” that tallied to a number above a 1000$.
I am a sucker - and I know it. But to tell the truth, I wanted it fixed and running - especially with a newborn being driven. That’s a silly statement - because you would like to be safe in your car at all times, and not just because you have a new baby in the house.
After handed the list of repairs I looked back at the chubby repairs managers at the dealer’s office and said:
You know, I know I told you to do the carburetor flush already - but I’ve done these kind of services before, and have done it for much cheaper. If I’m going to have the rest of the services done - I’d expect to see some discounts. Let me know - and I’ll make some calls to decide what to do.
I was bluffing, not about the carburetor flush being a broad day light mugging (it was), but about shopping around. I didn’t. I just wanted my trusty old clunker to be fixed and wanted to trust the dealer’s repairman.
He came back with a 10% discount, and a 2 day replacement car rental from one of the used ones on the lot. I agreed, and 2 days later my clunker’s whiny personality had been subdued.
Should I be happy with the price? I don’t know - I could have probably gotten a better deal if I had shopped around. But I’m content. It’s not the first time I have to dig into the emergency fund to fix something way out of budget, but that’s what it’s for. Unfortunately - that would probably not be the last time I would have to dig there (ominous signs from the outdoors piping system this early morning)…
What would you have done?
Cheers!
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