June 28, 2004
Change Your Oil?
Sure. Give me about thirty hours, putz.
Dropped off the Velocisuv (that possession that sucks precious fossilized resources out of Gaia's honeyhole and farts the residue out the exhaust pipe at obscene consumption rates) at the mechanic yesterday morning for periodic maintenance, as I'm going to Key West in two weeks, and it was the wise and proper thing to do. (Faulkner sentence. Slow down, boy. - Ed.)
Why Sunday? Because I didn't need it Sunday. I needed it Monday. This was at 0900. This was a significant servicing, with oil change, tranny oil suckswap, coolant purge and binge, new serpentine belt, brake oil salesman flip, etc. Not that big a deal, though. At 1830 the manager calls me and says they sheared a brake caliper screw during the brake oil flip, and couldn't get a new caliper until Monday morning.
"Fuck," says I, but I understand these things happen. No big deal. Wrap it up Monday morning. Comes this morning I wait and wait for the call, get the hem-haw on the phone, and catch a lift down to the garage at noon. Seems my trusty local automotive friends didn't think I was of any great import, didn't send a truck to pick up the caliper at 0800 and have me jizzed up by nine. Hell, no. They ordered it from the westside supplier, who brought it on his milk run at 1130. To make matters worse, the guy brought a left caliper instead of a right caliper, so I had to wait until 1:30 for Senor Shitforbrains to bring a right side.
Guess what? Right! The new caliper is also in a box marked "Left", at which point Slow Leak checked that box and the first box and discovered both contained right-side calipers. They were just in left side boxes.
At this point my 'roids were fairly prairie dogging, but I kept my cool. NEVER lose your cool while the victim is still up on the rack. I left at 2:15.
Who were these cretins, you ask? I won't say, except to mention they own a few blimps that look like Mike Moore, only they don't stink as much. They've always done me a good job in the past, and I've eschewed their newer sister franchise two miles from my house and traveled 7 miles to Mandarin out of loyalty to Tony and his crew. (I also think dealerships are staffed by little fucking beelzebubs who cause more damage than good for churn purposes, by the way).
But Tony and his crew played Fuck the Homey today, and I didn't appreciate it. In Tony's defense he was off yesterday, and today, but he showed up as I was settling, and I explained the situation, and he was merely apologetic. I expressed my indignation (profanity-free) to no avail. You see, I wanted something. A discount, some free oil changes, something that said We're sorry we inconvenienced you so. Nothing doing. Shrug and a smile.
So I told Tony he was a fucking hammerhead (the victim was off the rack), and that the franchise up the street is my new one-stop. Six years of loyalty pissed away over a couple of free oil changes. Were my expectations aggressive? You're damned right. I'm the fucking Customer. Bend to my will, or Kiss my Ass.
Jag offs. Oh, yes: they charged me for the caliper they damaged. I'll tell you one thing: the next time I pay $697 to swap some fluids the "rack" is going to be a 44 double freaking D.