The product is okay, it's the people who are the problem? This narrative is true, as I personally observed it; you make the call!

I have three vehicles, a four-wheeler, a car and a SUV ( that's sport utility vehicle, for the abbreviation impared ). I won't get specific, as the bottom line was; the dealership compromised to my satisfaction ( but a compromise is after all, only a compromise ).

Everyone must have a horror story or two in dealing with automotive repair, and obviously I have had my share of them, also. Two very recent ones deserve dishonorable mention.

First, the car.

The limited slip differential broke and I dropped it off to be repaired under warranty. It was fixed, and I picked it up; but at dusk. I will never take posession of a repaired vehicle when it is dark, again. I drove the short distance home on surface streets, not thinking to examine the vehicle closely or take it for a test drive on the freeway. Well, I jump on the freeway in the morning, and the thing wants to make a right turn all by itself, when you let go of the steering wheel. I drive home and begin to examine the vehicle. There is black automotive grease on the passenger seat and both back seats. Both right side tires are heavily scuffed and one wheel has a very small scrape. Now here is the weird part, when I opened the trunk, there were dirty automotive suspension parts in there ( no, they were not mine, or fit any of my vehicles ).

I surmised that someone at the dealership had taken the car, with two or three other people in dirty clothes, on some errand and crashed it into the curb. They were stupid enough to leave those parts in the trunk. Obviously, the dealership denied everything, but later that day, the service manager called and asked for the auto parts from the trunk. It appeared that the mechanic working on my car, had used a test drive to take some of his personal parts someplace and forgot them in my trunk? They never admitted any more, but did: 1) Completely clean the interior of car, 2) Do a wheel alignment, and 3) Do my next major service for free ( a couple hundred bucks ). Was this their way of admitting guilt?

Now its the SUV's turn ( same dealership, what are you going to do if the next closest one is miles away ).

Transmission dies; won't shift out of first gear. The dealership fixes the transmission and releases the vehicle. The transmission is making noise and it goes back to the dealer in a couple of days. They release it again, and say that it is fine. Well, it dies again, same no shift problem ( but this time no speedometer or park ), and back to the dealership for third time. They blame a defective part and release the vehicle, yet again. Two days later, my lady is leaving in the SUV and I notice spots of red transmission fluid on the white concrete driveway. Actually a trail of these leading the direction she went. Luckily, she was only going a short distance and got back okay. I got down under the thing and looked closely at the very back of the transmission ( where the driveshaft goes in ) and saw where the fluid leak was coming from. It goes back to the dealership. Now is when it gets sick!

The dealership calls and says that the leak is not from their repairs, but a cassette tape got wrapped around the driveshaft and sucked into the transmission? Really, I am not kidding. I had to really restrain myself from getting mad, as I had just been looking right where they said the cassette tape was! They quoted some riduculous amount for repair, so I left for the dealership with camera and audio recorder. I pointed out to them that I had just been looking right where they said the tape was and had seen nothing. They admitted nothing and showed me a handful of dry tape pieces and a transmission tail housing with some tape pieces in the rubber dust shield. There was no tape on the inside. As the mechanic was trying to lie his way out of it, I took out the recorder and asked if he would say it on tape. At this point, the manager offered to fix it for free. They still never admitted anything, and maybe the tape got picked up on the way from the house to the dealer. They were originally trying to charge hundreds of dollars, on something still covered under the warranty!

The bottom line is, the dealership would have gladly accepted the money for repairs of damage that their failed repair attempts and joy rides of customer vehicles caused. I am out the time and aggravation, of having to deal with people unwilling to own up to their mistakes, and willing to lie and try to cover them up!

The four-wheeler... I fix it, myself.

- Bongo ( Lie and cover it up...sound familiar? )