Wow, after that series of replies, you can bet I'm not going into
politics!
TVRVixen writes:
> Paul Amaranth <amaranth@vela.acs.oakland.edu> complains about the service he
> got getting his wheel repaired. He says he got an estimate of $75 for the
> repair ( I assume over the phone without actually seeing the wheel) and they
> charged him $10 more than that. Oh my god!!!! It is interesting that at the
> end of his note he exaggerates how much he spent on the repair by $15,
> telling us he spent "nearly $100" when he really spent $85.
With all shipping and COD charges the total was $110. If you just want
to count what I had to pay the UPS guy to see that the wheel was chipped,
it was $97. That seems pretty close to $100 to me. If you want to include
wheel dismount, remount and balancing, I'm up to $127 for the total repair
bill. I'm well aware that a phone estimate is just a ball park figure
and normally the ten bucks wouldn't have bothered me (I did say it was a
nit), although I never did get an explanation for the increase.
[Warning: cheap shot ahead!] Say, since ten bucks doesn't mean a lot to
you, why don't you take a ten out of your wallet and send it on to me?
You clearly won't miss it and it might cause me to say good things
about aol'ers :-)
> He also complains about a chip he now sees on the wheel. A chip he did not
> see before and which he did not pay to have repaired, he did not want to pay
> the $40 extra for "cosmetic repair". But he wants to complain about the cosmet
> ics.
You bet. I had to clean up the wheel before sending it out, which got me
pretty familiar with the specifics. The wheel has clearly seen action,
but there were no major cosmetic problems with it. I suppose the next
time someone keys your LBC, or a mechanic drops a hammer on the boot,
it won't matter to you because it's just an old car and you expect some
paint chips, right?
> So to summarize:
>
> 1. He admits they did a good job of fixing the dent he paid to have fixed.
Yup, no problem there.
> 2. He is angry about spending an extra $10, even though they gave him an
> estimate without seeing the dent.
You're reading in a little to much. Mild annoyance because their level
of customer service did not match my expectations. If they had polished
up the other side where the corosion was (which the shop that remounted
the tire did for free anyway), returned it unchipped or sent it back packed
as well as I had shipped it out (ok, make it two out of the three), it
wouldn't have bothered me a bit. Anytime somebody sends out a thinly
padded package through UPS with the words "Do Not Drop" on it, you have
to wonder who they're kidding. Even my UPS guy was amazed at that one.
And it's not like these guys were the low bidder, either. If they're
not competing on price, they'd better be competing on service.
> 3. He is angry about the fact that they didn't clean up the corrosion and a
> chip in the paint, even though he didn't want to pay extra for the "cosmetic
> repair".
The cosmetic repair was complete stripping, repainting and clearcoating,
which wouldn't have touched the corrosion anyway. If I got it repainted,
the other three wheels were not going to match. Why have the work
done when it looked OK when I sent it out?
> And people wonder why it is so hard to find mechanics to work on their British
> cars.
OK, you have two shops. One place happens to notice that you have a
bad spark plug wire and they happen to have a replacement lying around.
Since you're already having a couple of hudred dollars of work done,
they throw it in for free. Second shop also notices. They replace all
of your wires, charge your $40 for the set plus $35 for the labor
involved in replacing the wires. Both shops fixed your car on time.
Who has the higher level of customer service? Who's going to get
your repeat business?
If I have a problem with work that was done, and I bring it to the
attention of the merchant, I want them to agree that there is a problem
and seek some adjustment, not tell me that I'm wrong and there is
nothing they can do about it. In this case, if they had said, "well,
you're right, we're awful sorry about that, what can we do for you?", I
would most likely have thanked them and done nothing about it, since I
want to drive the car this week. On second thought, that's not true; I
probably would have posted about the wonderful job they did and their
great customer service.
I said it was probably nitpicking, but since other people may be in a
similar situation, I thought my experience would be useful. As they
say, your mileage may vary. I find anecdotal accounts useful and I
file them away, not that I always pay attention to them.
--
Paul Amaranth Manager User Services - office: (810) 370 4541 (also voicemail)
(e-mail) amaranth@vela.acs.oakland.edu
Mosaic page: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/links/amaranth/amaranth.html
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