I hate car dealerships. I hate buying cars. And I really hate getting cars serviced at dealerships. Hate is a strong word, I know, but it’s not strong enough to convey my feelings about car dealerships. I’ll put it this way – I get allergy shots every week. The doctor sticks a needle in both arms and the rest of the day it feels like someone hit me as hard as they could in both arms. I don’t mind getting my allergy shots. I hate going to car dealerships.
Why do I bring this up? Well, yesterday I blew $300 and nearly 4 hours of my day at Saab of Troy. My 9-3 hit 50k and, according to the manual, it was time for service. So, being the saavy Saab owner that I am, I called the dealership and set up the appointment a week in advance.
Things started off well…I arrived at my scheduled time of 7:30am, pulled in the garage, turned over the key and met with the service guy. He pulled up my info and told me it wouldn’t be too long. Then I mentioned the engine warning light. This light started going off about a month ago. He said, “Oh…well, we’ll have to charge $150 to look at it. If we don’t find anything, we’ll still charge $150. If we do find something, we’ll apply that to the cost of fixing the problem.” I was taken aback by the $150 charge, but went with it anyway.
I plopped down in the lounge, picked up the paper and waited. And I waited. And waited. Luckily they had some snacks in a bowl so I ate some. Then I waited some more. People that arrived after me came and went. I took a walk. About 2 miles, I guess. There were no beverages next to the snacks in the lounge and I was thirsty so I went out. Came back and the car’s still not ready. So I read the USA Today. Then I took another walk. Same route. Came back and still no car. Finally the service guy comes out and tells me he’s sorry it’s not ready yet but it will be soon. He leaves and I wander around some more. Now one of the actual service guys waves at me and tells me to come in the garage. He shows me how this little cable has worn and is causing my light to go off. But, to fix it, they would have to replace the whole harness. Total cost estimate – about $500. No thanks, I said.
I spent over 4 hours and $300 there and nothing was changed except I have new oil in the car, the tires were rotated and I know I have a cable with a hole in it. I didn’t even get my car washed (the perk of going to the dealership) because it would have taken an extra half hour to do.
How could my experience have been better? Easy. Give me a damn loaner car for the day while the service department screws around with my car. Why is this a good idea?
- I don’t have to sit and stew at the dealership, getting upset, and decide to post this article
- I might actually like the loaner car and think to mysef, “Hey! These are nice…maybe I should trade up to one of these.” Instead, I spent time thinking of what my next car would be, other than a Saab.
- Because I don’t do #1 and #2, I think to myself, “Saab of Troy is fantastic. I’ll definitely come here when my 60k servicing needs to be done. Even though it’s $750, it’ll be worth it.”
Instead, I won’t go back to Saab of Troy for either servicing or a new car. I should be able to find a way to get all of the servicing done by others for, I’m guessing, 1/3 of what the dealer will charge.
To be fair, they did offer me shuttle service, but they wouldn’t pick me up, so it wasn’t an option. Other people took advantage of it, though.
[4] | 
posted 10/06/2005 02:44 PM
Ahhh…all is right with the world again after Michigan’s 34-31 OT win over Michigan State today. It was a pretty good game with tons of offense in the first half and lots of mistakes in the second. For a while it looked like Michigan was in control, then State, then Michigan, then State, etc. I didn’t have a good feeling heading into overtime after the chip shot field goal was missed by Rivas, but UM ended up with the victory.
Hats off to the UM defense. Sure, 31 points is a lot to give up, but 7 of those came on MSU’s fumble recovery for a touchdown. Holding Stanton to one touchdown pass and 24 points in a big home game is an accomplishment in my book.
Also, what a game by Mike Hart! It’s painful to think of what a difference he might have made in the ND and Wisconsin games. 
He rushed for 222 yards and a TD in his first game back after missing the last two with a hamstring injury. For the 1000th time, the winner of the game was the team with the highest rushing total (223-177).
Tough loss for MSU. From listening to sports radio all week, the game was pretty much conceded to the Spartans beginning last Sunday morning. Many thought MSU would blow out the Wolverines hastening the end of the Lloyd Carr era. No such luck for the www.firelloydcarr.us gang.
| posted 10/01/2005 09:24 PM
Man…where was this when I was little? Lego has created the Lego Factory that lets you build your own creations on your computer. OK, that’s kind of neat, but stay with me. The really cool part is that you can actually turn your design into a real Lego kit that the company will send to you in its own box. So, say you design your dream house out of Legos using the system. If you want, Lego can get all of the necessary pieces together, put them in a box and ship them to you. Now you have your very own, unique Lego set. Even cooler is that Lego is turning some of the designs into real kits that can be purchased by anyone. Amazing.
[2] | posted 09/15/2005 12:22 PM
We have one of the original Tivo’s – a Sony SVR-2000. Lately it has been acting strangely. The biggest problem was that it would freeze and the only way to get it working again would be to unplug it and plug it back in. After doing some research, it sounded like the hard drive was the culprit.
I went to TigerDirect and ordered a new 160GB hard drive. After searching around, I found the Hinsdale How-To site and went to work. My friend Joe also recommended this site, but I found the other one to be more helpful.
The whole process wasn’t too bad, as long as you’re comfortable with taking apart both your Tivo and your computer. You need to understand how your hard/cd/dvd drives are hooked together in your system so that you can connect the new hard drive and the old Tivo drive. The process can be really quick if you don’t need to save the shows that are currently on your drive. I needed to save mine so I did a direct copy from the old disk to the new. It took around 2 1/2 hours for the copy to finish and about 15 to put everything back together and the Tivo back in place.
Once I finished the upgrade, my recording capacity went from 9 hours at high quality/30 hours at low to 45 hours at high, 150 at low. Now we can store an almost infinite amount of Elmo, Thomas, Clifford, General Hospital and whatever reality show my wife is into. I think I need my own Tivo…
[2] | posted 09/07/2005 03:29 PM
With the recent rise in gasoline prices, well intentioned people have forwarded me the following email a couple of times:
Subject: gas tooo high
IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.
AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.
THEREFORE SEPTEMBER 1ST HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED “STICK IT UP THEIR @$$ ” DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.
THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.
WAITING ON THIS ADMIINSTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED WEEKS AGO?
REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!
WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON’T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.
SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE SEPTEMBER 1ST A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES SAY “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU CAN!!!!
So, the theory goes, if you just don’t fill up your gas tank for one day, this will somehow cause such economic catastrophe for the oil companies that they will have no choice but to lower gas prices.
Right.
Unfortunately, this email completely ignores the laws of supply and demand, which isn’t surprising because if they did not ignore them, there would be no email to write. These types of emails appeal to those who believe everyone else is to blame for the high cost of gasoline except for themselves. Take a look – oil companies, “Arab Nations” and “this administration” are all blamed.
The funny thing about this email, however, is that indirectly it is correct. If you “stick it to the man” and don’t fill up your tank for a day, and another day, and another day, the price of gasoline will decrease. Why? Simple supply and demand! If no one demands a commodity, the price will continue to fall until it finds a matching demand level. How do you do this? Well, it’s pretty simple – don’t drive! Try using a carpool, take the bus, get out and walk, don’t purhcase gas-guzzling vehicles, don’t live an hour’s drive from work, etc.
Ahhh…but you don’t like those options, eh? Well, in that case, you’ll need to find a way to increase supply. So, start drilling for oil in Alaska, the oceans, the Great Lakes, your backyard, etc. While you’re at it, don’t be opposed to the creation of new oil refineries in your neighborhood, either. According to MSNBC, no new refineries have been built in the US since 1976. Why? Well, nobody wants an oil refinery in their backyard. So instead, the remaining refineries we do have are running at capacity which has restricted supply despite a huge increase in demand.
And don’t get me started on price controls, either. I’ll let this article, and this one, or this one take care of that nonsense.
Bottom line – if you want lower gas prices, you need to either decrease the demand or increase the supply. A day off from the pump won’t do diddly.
Update
I’m not alone here…
Freakonomics agrees.
[5] | posted 08/31/2005 01:44 PM
I have a Sony DRU 540A DVD burner that suddenly decided it didn’t want to burn DVDs for me anymore. I had probably burned about 40-50 discs since January with nary a coaster but suddenly things changed. I called up Sony tech support after running their diagnostic tool and this is what they had me do:
- First they had me try and use different media. No dice. Same problem.
- Next, I called them back up and they had me do the following:
- Make the drive a master by itself
- Remove the Nero software I was using that was installed with the drive
- Use Nero’s “general clean tool” to do whatever it does…
- Re-boot!
- Reinstall the Nero Suite
- D/L and install the Nero updates (1 and 2) from their web-site. The interesting note on this one is that they had me install update #2 first, then #1.
I thought this was a bunch of bs and didn’t think it would work at all. I went home last night, did everything they said, and now it works. Go figure.
The only problem is that right now my Sony cd burner isn’t connected because I have the dvd burner running on its own. I’ll eventually get around to hooking it back up and seeing if they can play nicely together again. I have no idea why this suddenly happened, or which step from above fixed it, but it works.
So, hats off to Sony tech support and an apology for my lack of faith in their proposed solutions. Mmmmmm….crow.
[1] | posted 08/24/2005 11:07 AM
You have to be kidding me! This is news??? Didn’t Randy get pulled over in Minneapolis and found to be in possession of pot a couple years ago? Why is this news? I had the Cardinals/Diamondbacks on TV yesterday and every 28 minutes, John Buccigross would come on and announce to the world that Randy Moss admitted to smoking pot. Wow. Next thing you know they’ll be telling me that Jason Giambi took steroids.
| posted 08/19/2005 10:50 AM
Just a quick note to congratulate my good friend Joe and his wife Nicole on the birth of their son, Bradley Josef on Saturday morning. Joe was supposed to ride with me to our fantasy football draft that morning, but when the phone rang at 7am, we knew his plans had changed.
Vitals
Date: Saturday, August 13 at 6:17am
Weight: 6lbs 12oz
Length: 20 ½ inches
[1] | posted 08/15/2005 10:35 AM
I’ve discovered a few tools that I like and thought I’d share them with you. Most of these aren’t Earth shattering and are probably old news to most, but you never know…
NewsGator is a decent rss-aggregator (get it?). If you’re not familiar with what this is, an rss-aggreagtor goes out and collects snippets from whatever sites you want (provided they have a feed) and presents them all on one page. It’s a handy way to keep up with new content from various web sites without having to revist them multiple times a day. So, my page has feeds from espn, cnn, national review, freakonomics, signal vs. noise, cnet and others. I refresh the page and I can see what’s new in an instant.
del.icio.us is a neat tool that allows you to collect and organize bookmarks from around the web. How is this different than the bookmarks functionality in your browser? Well, del.icio.us is on-line, so you can access your bookmarks from anywhere. Also, it has a feature where you can assign keywords to your bookmarks to help organize them. Another thing is that it will add some buttons in your browser’s toolbar so that when you want to bookmark a particular page, you just push the button, enter some descriptive text, and you’re finished. If you run your own web site, you can send out your bookmarks as a rss feed (this is what I do with the links on my links page).
BlinkSale looks like a good way to deal with invoicing customers, if you’re into that type of thing. I run a very, very small web design business on the side and finding a good way to invoice customers is a challenge. Paypal has new invoicing functionality that is decent, but not very flexible. BlinkSale is much more flexible, but it can also cost more, depending on how many invoices you plan to send out per month. There is a free version that I’ll try out soon.
| posted 08/12/2005 04:59 PM
You see…this is why my wife made me stop playing video games years ago. I’ve never played Starcraft before, but it sounds deadly!
Here is the article.
[1] | posted 08/10/2005 01:37 PM
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