Missed the Target

The plan we had for yesterday never happened. I drove Josie to work at 7 AM and I planned to call the Ford dealer around 10 AM to make sure everything was a "go" with the truck. I called right on schedule and was told that the truck will be ready by around 2:30, following some final checks and a test drive. I thought I would get there a little early (1:30) in case they happened to finish up early, and I also wanted to turn in the rental car.

I drove away from the dealership at 6 PM - without the truck. They kept telling me it would be ready in about 30 minutes - about six or seven times. It turns out that during the last test drive, a problem was discovered with the emergency brake - the spring wasn't operating that releases the brake. Now, that was working fine when I arrived with the truck last Friday, so they owned up to the problem and will fix it this morning. According to the service consultant, it is a $250 part (sure) that he said they would "eat". That's a joke too, as they will probably pad the bill to the warranty company, somehow, so they won't have to pay for the spring casing. I mentioned to Josie several days ago that with the drastic steps they had to take to fix the fuel system problem, our truck will probably never be the same. I'm sure of it now.

As a result of the extra day required to fix the "new" problem, I kept the rental car for another day. When I go in to settle everything today (hopefully) I will insist that they pick up 100% of the car rental. I found out from the rental driver that was taking me to get the key back for the car that these rentals are actually "loaners" that the dealer has the Hertz office rent out to customers. That seals the fact that I'm not paying for any rental. It should be an interesting afternoon at the dealership.

The rest of the day didn't go according to plan either. Josie was expecting to leave early in the day to enjoy some of Valentine's Day, but the shop got slammed and she ended up working until 6 PM - and didn't even take time for lunch. It was 7 PM by the time we both got home and that was the extent of our Valentine's Day. I hope yours was better...