12 posts tagged “cars”
Can't resist poking fun at an ex-competitor!
(From The Onion)
What a crappy day, again. dark, overcast and more frickin' rain. I know what I like and I like my sunshine!
I have my professional profile posted on web-based site, which is open to most anyone who wants to view it (like someone looking to hire!). So my career is there and occasionally like this morning, I got this inquiry asking for assistance.
Dear Mr. ,
I understand you are now self-employed, but previously dealt with safety issues at ++++++++. Perhaps you can help me.
I recently brought our almost new ++++++++ into the +++++++++ garage to have its manual – automatic gear shift checked. This was because on the day before in the traffic rush hour on Israel's major highway, the car suddenly lost power. The motor was fine and pressing on the gas increased the revolutions, but even though the gear shift handle could be moved in all directions, the gear was stuck in “neutral”. The road was incredibly active and I was lucky that no one plowed into our car from behind. Simply leaving the car on the driver’s side to put out the disabled sign was dangerous. In about one half hour a policeman came to my rescue and was able to engage the motor with the clutch.
When the auto was returned to us, the mechanic said this is known to occur and he said “of course when new technologies are introduced, such things happen”. If this is true then ++++++++++ is responsible for letting this be known to owners of the ++++++++ and to potential buyers.
How do I find someone in ++++++++++ to address my complaint.
Yours,
+++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++
Israel
Thought about it over some coffee and despite some bad personal feelings towards +++++++++ decided to act professionally and sent this back in reply.
Mr. +++++++++++,
Yes, as you have noted, I am no longer involved with ++++++++++ Corporation. I am sorry to hear you have a car issue- no one likes to have a car issue no matter who the manufacturer is.
From my knowledge of company operations, if you feel your concerns have not been adequately addressed by the dealer, and from your note, it is unclear whether you have already brought your issue to the attention of the dealer's customer relations rep., then your next step would be to contact the national customer service rep. for your country; Israel, I presume. Contact information for customer relations for your local ++++++++ distributor or the dealer from who you bought your vehicle should be on the internet.
Last, Mr. +++++++++, and I say this knowing only of what you have written, it is not clear what your demands are, i.e., if I were a customer relations rep., I am not sure what you want me to do for you. Having a clear idea of what you expect from the dealer will help you and the dealer resolve this issue quickly.
Again, sorry to hear of your problem and I hope this is of help.
Regards
Picked it up at Baltimore today and brought it down. Now its been a while since I've used a stick shift however things went smoothly. Until we exited The Capital l Beltway and were about to merge onto VA 236 west, I had to bring the car to a full stop due to traffic, then as I put the car in motion, releasing the clutch and applying the gas, the car stalled. No big deal that, but for reasons I am trying to figure out, I could not turn the ignition key and then the steering column locked- and here we are right where traffic from the Capitol Beltway merges onto VA 236; not the best place for a car to become disabled.
After several attempts to turn the key, told son to get out of the car and get behind the guardrail and there we both stood in the rain, waiting for AAA to come. In the meantime our next door neighbor of all people pulls up offers an umbrella and also offers to take son home- which he did. Then the State Police and AAA arrive at the same time 10 minutes later. I had to hold my breath in the interim as there was more than one driver hell bent on merging on to the road and failing to see the Passat until the last moment, and yes the flashers were on.
Anyhoo AAA towed the car back home where it now sits somewhat forlornly. The tow was under 3 miles so no towing charge, and son his bless his heart, saw how wet I was (really wet) and went and prepared me a hot cup of coffee and brought it out!
Now brother Pound Salt has opined that son is a bit immature and perhaps he is, but at 18 how many people can say there were 'mature'? Hell, there are some people, some living under this very roof who are much older and still not mature (ain't me!) And, according to Pound Salt, I am an enabler as I continue do things for son such as preparing him (insert disgusting, foul expletive here) breakfast on weekday mornings; that I need him to start becoming a man by making him (son) prepare his own (again, insert disgusting, foul expletive) breakfast. I guess preparing son's breakfast in the morning does have its dividends :-) :-)
Getting back to the Passat, I wonder if somehow I triggered an anti-theft device. When the weather clears, I will go back out, disconnect one of the battery cables to see if that unjams the system.
Yesterday was packet pick-up day at son's school. For the fourth straight year, the schedule wasn't not correct as the time period he was given for his Japanese IV class at the other school differed from the actual time slot. Amazing; the schools are but 3 or so miles apart and they can't talk to one another? Oh well, suppose there are F-ups in college scheduling as well
That aside, it was a bittersweet in a way since this is the last time he'll be doing this. Had a bit of sticker shock when told about the yearly parking fees at school- $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On the way back home, we are about to pull out of the parking space, when a late-model, but not new, dark blue BMW pulls out in front of us.
"WTF?!, I know that kid."
"And?"
"He's driving a nice car." (The visible green envy becomes more pronounced)
"Could be his parent's car, you know."
"But its a BMW."
"Yeah and its a 3 series, probably the lowest grade they make. If you want to talk about nice BMW's, you need to have an 8 Series."
"Its still better than this car [The Quaalude}."
"No, this car is probably better; its paid for."
[Silence]
With the drastic change in lifestyle, we were suddenly down to one vehicle, The Quaalude, which has served us well in shuttling people to and from work and to and from schools. Wife going full-time and son now wanting a job of his own, we will need another vehicle and will get one soon.
Youngest brother has 3 vehicles sitting at home, once of which a '96 Jetta, is rarely if ever used. So we are getting it gratis. But that doesn't mean free. Unlike the State of Maryland, which will allow transfer of vehicle title within a family for free, VA I am very sure will want its 3.3% vehicle titling tax, which is based on the vehicle's market value. And another nice wrinkle or act of sheer stupidity, here in Va., property taxes are levied yearly on motor vehicles (and boats), the amount again based on the vehicle's market value. Thus a new vehicle, such as one I leased from large international automobile manufacturer #2, was $1,800 -which the company covered as part of the lease. The Quaalude on the other hand, costs me $67 per year. It doesn't take a PhD candidate to realize that there is not much incentive to get rid of an older and in terms of fuel economy and emissions, a less efficient vehicle.
The vehicle is also a stick-shift vehicle; not a problem for me as I learned in Japan how to drive one, left handed shifting no less on my own when I owned a super-charged version of this.
But for the other 2 in this house its 'OMG, I'll never learn to drive this'. No, they can learn to drive it, its not that hard and less difficult than learning how to operate the old, steering column mounted manual transmission shift levers. Now that was something truly hateful. Its just they won't listen to me, so I plan to ask a guy in our neighborhood, a gearhead to show them how and I'll pay him for it.
(I've noticed an artifact of Vox, that the program won't accept additions to previous posts especially if they are a bit long, and instead, sends a prompt that script is causing the program to run slow, and 'wouldn't you rather bug out?' So, what I really wanted to tag onto yesterday's post is here)
At 4, the shop calls, the car is ready. Call a couple of neighbors for a lift, but no one's home. High-step it the 2+ miles to the shop (at least its mostly downhill) and make it, hot and sweat covered, but in time to pay for and pick up the car. Am told only one hose could be replaced given the time, and that I really need to get the other heater hose replaced without much delay
Call wife at work to tell her I am in the car and she doesn't have to ask the friend who drove her to work for a ride back home.
Arrive at Wegmans; slouch down on one of the couches to wait. Wife appears. Tells me of an opening at the store, so I want to speak to the HR person in charge. She doesn't want to cooperate, saying she doesn't want me working at the same job-site as her. Tell her the way things are going, 文句を言う場合じないぞう！
She then starts biatching about me calling her at work 'too soon' i.e., before she had arrived. Told her I had no frickin' way to know when she would arrive at work and called to tell her the way things were going at the time, she had better make arrangements for a ride back. Laying this on me is nothing more than ひきょう.
Son sends an e-mail asking if his uncle will be picking him up tomorrow from Ohio Northern U. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The program ends on Saturday, so I am wondering WTF is going on. Speak to son and find he is the one confused. Son says the group is going out for a karaoke party. I'll say one thing, the program seems to be doing its best to immerse the participants in Japanese culture (if karaoke can be called that).
At home, I go upstairs to lay down for a bit, wind up sleeping through the night.
With the wife's work schedule it is today, I made plans to drop her off then leave the Quaalude at a nearby parking garage, hop on Metro to see a special exhibition at the National Art Gallery.
On the way to work, the coolant temp needle starts quickly going up, up up towards 'High" (am soooo glad the Quaalude does not come with idiot lights), see steam coming out from under the hood. Wife is frantic to go on to work, but I duck into a nearby shopping center, pop the hood and hear/see coolant hissing out. F-ing great.
Tell wife she needs to immediately call work to tell them she is probably going to be late. She does not take my advice. She then gets on the cell phone to call a friend of hers to pick her up and take her to work. I then call AAA for a tow and while I am waiting to speak with someone, wife says she now wants to call work. Tell her to forget it, she should have done that when she had the chance, I am not about to lose my place 'in line' by hanging up.
Friend comes, picks up wife, I wait for AAA. About 40 minutes later, a tow truck comes; hitches the Quaalude up and off we go to the shop which put in a new radiator a month and a half ago. My AAA plan gives me free towing for 3 miles then $4 a mile. The trip was 3.5 but the driver lets it slide. I give him $3 and tell him use it to get coffee.
Call a neighbor and her son is still at home and able to pick me up and take me back home, saving me a 2+ mile, mostly uphill hike back home.
Call the shop later in the afternoon, find out its not their dime (they didn't goof up), but a heater hose which went bad. so at least it wasn't something major. And I got my annual VA vehcle safety inspection done as well.
Actually a sub-headline in a page one article in today's WaPo: For U.S. Autoworkers, Future Hinges on Adaptability.
Amen, Hosanna, right on etc. to that!
Yes management has made some colossal blunders, primarily not recognizing until very late in the game the nature of Japanese- now Asian, competition. But their union partners have their fair share of blame too.
I've been a union member, Retail Clerks way back in the day while working through college. First thing that struck me then as now is the 'us vs. them' mentally. Perhaps way, way back in the day, that may have been valid, but management & labor are symbiotically joined at the waist and have been for decades I would argue, and thus are co-dependent on one another. While a union member, from what I saw of the union's promotion of this mindset was more self-aggrandizement than rooted in reality. Second the inflexibility. Then as I am assuming now, job categories were fixed in stone, which creates much inefficiency. Unions have hard job categories, to protect jobs, but this has in fact cost their members jobs.
Last in the very nature of assembly line work, and I speak from personal experience too. At large international automobile producer #1, all new hires, including Moi, spend time on the final assembly line actually slapping cars together. It was called 工場自習( I think that is the correct kanji) , but we joked it was closer to boot camp.
It was one of the hardest experiences during my time there, but also one of the most educational too. One take away from my own experience is that while yes, its painfully boring, repetitious and not something I would want to spend my professional life doing, it is not skilled labor. The work does not justify the per hour rate union workers get for their time on the line. And in this day and age, I would even go so far to say that if there is a final assembly task still done by humans, its because a production engineer has not yet figured out a way to automate it or perhaps there is, but the technology is prohibitively expensive now to use it.
Insensitive one can say, but the UAW should have seen this coming long, long time ago.
A friend sent me the attached vid clip, its a commercial for Nissan, which I think really doesn't work, but it will get your attention. I've not seen this aired and Frankly am surprised this got aired at all.
Brother Pound Salt has offered to sell me the car one of his sons has owned for a while. He did warn me that the vehicle, with 140k on the odo, is not in pristine condition. Still when I looked over the photos he took and sent me, like this one;
Or this one
Or these,
Another vehicle would definitely help as my wife could then drive herself to and from work, greatly freeing up my time. And while the car will not win any awards for appearance, in fact it could be a good candidate for the "Pimp My Ride' show, not to mention it will need a new cat converter too, $600.00 isn't a bad price either.
