Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Cueter Dodge can bite me

During an hour long drive home at night in the rain our windsheild wipers stopped working. It was a pain getting home without wipers, but we figured it was probably a minor issue--blown fuse or something. We brought it into Cueter Dodge (Ypsilanti), assuming we were looking at $40 dollars labor, plus 50 cents for a new fuse. $450 later we had replaced some circuit boards and god knows what all. That sucked, but we figured the dealer knows what they're doing, and should be honest enough.

About a week later, the radio stops working. We again bring it in. Turns out a different circuit board had been the real cause of the original problem. The new one that had been installed was still under warrenty--so that was free--but the new board added another $500 dollars or so to our bill. So far around $1000 to fix the friggin windshield wipers.

Just to summarize the remaining experience: 3 more trips to Cueter Dodge, ever growing electrical problems, ultimately $2000 in expenses--for something that started with friggin windshield wipers. I know shit happens with cars, but the diagnosis approach Cueter took was to assume immediately that every symtom was the cause. It took 5 separate trips to the shop before they followed the full trail of symptoms back to the true cause (a bad wiring harness).

Oh, and our customer service rep (Esther) had to be reminded of my name and situation every one of the five times we came into the shop--over about a 5 week period. Each time we brought the car in, it was like we'd never been there before.

Cueter Dodge can eat me!!!