the repair conundrum

i am a woman who doesn't know how to fix a car or repair various appliances around my house. nor does my husband. therefore, we must rely on other people whom we've never met to repair the things that get us to work and make life livable.

allow me to describe to you the frustration in dealing with said people.

1) the car
we have 2002 Mazda Protege 5. we purchased it at Schaumburg Honda, which i can safely say i will never ever go back to. when we were looking at cars, it was between this car and a 2005(?) ford focus hatchback at CarMax. they couldn't find my current car loan in their system and suggested we come back on Monday, which neither of us could do, so we bought the fucking Mazda at Schaumburg Honday. it drove nicely. it was in our price range. it was supposed to be a good car, according to Consumer Reports, the non-impulse buyers Bible. so we buy the damn car. we get the extended warranty. 'cause we're idiots.

anyway, about a week later, as i'm driving the treacherous chicago roads, i notice a crunching noise in the front end. great. neither of us noticed it when we took the 5 minute test drive. so i call the dealer. he tells me to bring it in. i bring it in. i told them we bought it with this damage to it and they should fix it for free. they say that it's normal wear and tear and that the car was fine when they sold it to me. i must have called that asshole salesman 100 times to no avail. oh, and did i mention that schaumburg is oh, so convenient a trip from chicago? finally, they fixed it and i paid $275. sigh. TAKEN.

that front end has never been the same. no one can figure it out, either. it's like Schaumburg Honda put in extra parts and no one else can figure out that they don't belong there.

about a year later, i take it to CarX in my old 'hood, Lincoln Park. i took my Golf there a lot, they know me there. i tell the guy what's been going on and they say, no problem, we'll fix it. i also got the brakes done. i can't remember how much it was, but i'm sure it was over $300. i drive it off the lot.... same fucking noises as before. i go back and tell him. he says they can take another look, but it's the end of the day and i'd have to find a very inconvenient way to get back home. i just leave. i need the fucking car to get to work. TAKEN.

about 2 months ago, i get so fucking sick of that clunking noise, i take to a place in Glenview that i liked, John's Place. they fixed my power steering when it went out. oh, and my battery was dying, so i dropped it off there when i was at work and told them about the noise. they said they would take a look. i get a call about 30 minutes later saying that whomever had done the previous work had done a really shitty job and probably knew about the shitty job they were doing. that the parts clearly don't fit and that's what making the clunking noise. he said i should take it back to place where i had it fixed last time. i couldn't remember off the top of my head. i was just happy they had found what was making the damn noise. i tell them, fuck it, just fix it. $700. sigh. i guess there were other things wrong with the whosy-whatis, so they fix it. i drive it off the lot later that day, pull into a parking spot outside a strip mall and hear that ever-present clunking noise. enraged, i call up John's Place and demand to know just what the fuck they charged me $700 to fix since i'm still hearing that goddamn noise. he said he was sorry, that i should bring the car back and they would take another look at it. i never did because i don't trust them. TAKEN.

and now the front end is REALLY giving me an issue. so now what?? not to mention the other issues the car has because of all the accidents it's been in and that i've taken it to Richard's Auto Body on Lawrence. the back hatch cover is missing thanks to them. (oh, yes, i've been back about 4 times trying to get them to get me another one. they seem to think that i am the one who lost it. it's kind of hard to lose a 5 x 3 hatch cover in a 700 square foot apartment.) also, the back lift cover is also loose and creates this awesome rattling sound when i'm idling at stop lights. TAKEN!

2) the condo
yes, the place we live. it's what keeps us from being homeless and living in our broken-down car. as i'm sure you've read on this blog, we got TAKEN when we bought the place from the Crooks at Baird and Warner and Barbara O'Conner. they flat-out lied to us when they said the roof was new. they used sub-par materials and basically turned over the association to us nOObs before we could really know our rights. sigh. $30k to fix the roof. that doesn't include the parapet walls or any tuckpointing. then the catch basin in the back flooded, causing $12,000 worth of damage. various other people in the building had problems with their AC and heating units. one individual has had problems with all of her appliances because she was the model unit. we now have an issue with our 5-year-old furnace. we've also had some issue with our washer and the handle broke off of our microwave. i swear, those shifty motherfuckers just found an old warehouse full of crap that fell off the back of a truck and sold it to us for $175k. TAKEN.

now i'm being taken by sears. we need our furnace fixed and the first people i think of is sears. they usually do good work and their stuff is warrantied. several people in the building have used them for various repairs. this is the letter i had to write to them this morning: I requested a repair appointment for my broken furnace on Monday. The repair person was supposed to come out on Tuesday between 1 and 5pm. He was supposed to call my husband who was waiting at home, since he had to take a half day from work to be there for the repair. At 4pm, my husband called the repair center to find out where the repair person was. In return, the repair man called me (not my husband's number, as requested) and said that he had a service call 20 miles away and that he would see us when he was done. At 5:45pm, I received a call from the repair center (again, not at the number I requested them to call) and they said that the repair man had called, but no one had answered, so they had to reschedule.

There are several things wrong with this failed service call:

1) the repair man never called either number a second time to confirm. My husband and I were both home, waiting, even though he was 45 minutes late.
2) my husband had to take the day off of work and now he's going to have to take ANOTHER day off to accommodate this failure-to-show.
3) the young man at the repair call center made it out to be my fault and never once offered an apology to the botched scheduling. Even when I requested to a) be compensated in some way or b) to talk to his supervisor, he brushed me off with useless offers of free in-home consultations (which are useless to me) and then he just put me on hold for 5 minutes. Eventually, I had to call back.

I am incredibly upset by Sears' call center representatives. I never thought I'd say this, but your customer service was worse than Comcast, where at least they were willing to compensate me with credits to my bill. I wanted the $69 service fee waived and the representative said they couldn't do that. Then he said that they wouldn't charge me TWICE, once for the failed attempt and once for the rescheduling! Like the failed attempt was OUR FAULT! That's what made me really angry.

I am going to go through with this service call because it's cold outside and we already have an appointment. I will be voicing my displeasure at your customer service reps via social media and email to all of my friends, who regularly use Sears Repair. Screwing up the appointment on a 23 degree night and then blaming the customer is just poor practice. I just hope today's scheduled appointment goes without a hitch.

Sincerely,
Kim Richardson

the problem with all of this stuff is i only have so much time in my day to keep badgering these people. i would need to drive back to CarX, stop into Richard's everyday, call John's Place, harass Sears. why can't service people just do the job right the first time so we don't have to continually be inconvenienced?

and this is why i am terrified to call another service place for the furnace or to take my car somewhere else. even if you look someone up on Yelp or Angie's list, I will still get that one guy who's had a bad day. sigh.