July 18th 2008

People are funny! In the peculiar definition of the word, not the hilarious one.
Because some of them are definitely not hilarious.

They will call us and make an appointment and the appointment sheet says "full inspection, car making peculiar noises".
On the prescribed date, the car shows up, usually a half hour too late and in due course it goes into the shop.
In most of these cases, the car is quite old and is into a garage for the first time in a coons' age.

Needless to say, the resultant inspection report is not too optimistic. There's this and there's that and the estimate is a
large number.

Now comes the the reaction we've been waiting for. How long will it take to fix it, because I have a doctors' appointment,
(or a dentists' appointment, or the kids are waiting to be picked up).

This tight scheduling when taking your car for repair, is the most frustrating aspect of our business.

You might think its' the "No thanks, that's too expensive, I can't afford those repairs right now" reaction, but we don't regard
that reaction as anything but an honest one, on the part of someone who is in the corner between a car that is getting very, very
decrepit and the the depleted bank account.

That situation we fully understand, but to schedule other appointments, knowing full well that the repairs may be more
extensive and time consuming that was first thought can drive us absolutely bananas.

Oft times, we're able to overcome the situation with one of our loaner cars, but then we run into the child seat problem and
the fact that the client has agreed to pick up thousands of kids from a baseball game, which means our loaner cars are not suitable.

The end result of this unrealistic scheduling of car repairs is tantamount to going to a hospital waiting room and expecting to get
instant service. It just doesn't happen that way.

The consequence of this type of client encounter is that the car owner drives away with a dangerous or unreliable (or both) vehicle
that may continue on until it fails. At which point it comes back on a tow truck and now we're not so sympathetic to the idea of
instant repairs and the car has to wait in our lot until someone cancels, or we get a lot more work done than we expected and
can take the fugitive in more quickly than we first thought.

But even then the every half hour phone calls continue: "Is my car ready yet?"

In our shop we have a sign that says it all: "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency for us".  
The sign it replaced said "The impossible we can do right now, miracles might take a little longer".  

The other type of car owner we find frustrating to deal with is the one that has had all his or her work done elsewhere and is
now deeply dissatisfied with the outcome and wants us to instantly take the vehicle in and analyse what's going on so he or
she can go back and raise hell with the other garage.

What on earth makes these people think that they have a ghost of a chance of getting through our front door?

The last but not the least of our frustrations is the phone call that asks "What's your hourly rate?".
Well our rate is a lot less than the dealers and a lot more than the red triangle.

When we answer the question (depending on the day, we may not answer at all) we then get berated for being too
expensive and how Joe Blow at the corner gas station is much cheaper.

So why'd you call us and does Joe Blow even have a scanner or other expensive electronic equipment?
Of course he doesn't.

So please, the next time you need your car serviced, give the garage time to do a proper job and reckon that the
repair MIGHT run into more than 2 hours. How about 3 days?