When I lived in Queensland, I always got my car serviced by the same people. Mr Spanners at Sumner Park. They were lovely, they were brilliant, the only time my car ever broke down was when I let it run out of petrol (I think there were two other times things broke and needed repairing, but the car didn't actually stop).
When I moved to Melbourne one of the things I stressed about was finding a mechanic I could trust. So Matt being the responsible adult type looked up RACV's website and found an RACV approved place that said it did diesel services - USP. Not long after my service the car started to have trouble starting in the morning. The first day of my new job in O&G, it didn't start, and RACV came and started the motor for us. Then matt would get out of bed and start the car and drive it round the block every morning and hour before I had to leave home so that I could get to work on time. Then another day it didn't start, so we forked out the $155 for the new battery and went on our merry way (at this point it's important to say that I watched RACV put in the battery and they changed the wires at the point of the battery, not at the point of the engine). The car still had problems starting every morning, despite the new battery. So I said to Matt, I think it's the glow plugs, I think they must have blown. So we rang up USP and said we thought we had a problem with our glow plugs and they told us they didn't know enough about diesels to help (even though they'd been happy to take our money and service our diesel car earlier), and referred us to a diesel place.
The diesel place could only fit us in later that week, so I stressed out every morning worrying if the car would start. Then last Friday I drove to Rankin Diesel and they popped my hood and had a look. Then they called me down and said "someone's connected the wire from the battery straight to the earth on the engine instead of to the glow plugs... all your glow plugs have blown, and a fuse has blown. It's sheer idiocy." (I think they said something about it being lucky nothing caught fire as well). Then I sat up in their little room drinking their tea and doing the crosswords in their very old magazines, cursing the fact that I forgot the novel I was reading, for the rest of my "afternoon off". It was very kind of them to even fix it for me then as they were very very busy and it put them behind, but they were very nice (and bemused at what had been done to my car), and it cost me $270. I then had to drive home in peak hour traffic, and I was mad, very mad at USP.
Today, I went to USP and very politely (as Matt had given me a talk about not getting angry and being calm, more flies with honey then vinegar blah blah blah earlier) told them what had happened. They denied that they had touched the wire and said something about it falling.. I said it was screwed into the earth, and that it seemed fairly unlikely to me that it had unscrewed itself and screwed itself into the wrong thing. They said, it could have been moved anytime and that they didn't do it. I explained that the car worked, they serviced it, then it stopped working, and that the only person who'd popped the hood recently besides them was RACV and that I had watched what they did, and they didn't unscrew it from the engine. They said they couldn't explain how it happened, but that I couldn't prove they did it, that anyone could have done it, and they weren't taking resposibility. Eventually I was dragged away (kind of still yelling) by Matt who didn't seem to think I was getting anywhere.
ANGRY BEC. VERY ANGRY BEC. SOOOOOOOO ANGRY. HOW BLOODY ELSE COULD THE WIRE HAVE BEEN MOVED FROM THE GLOW PLUG SPOT TO THE EARTH FOR THE ENGINE?
So I'm lodging a complaint with consumer affairs. But they can't force a service provider to do anything, and considering the man's stance, I'd say it will go to the small claims tribunal or something. I have also informed RACV that USP really shouldn't be listed as diesel servicers as they seem quite ignorant of diesel vehicles. And I rang my car service people in Brisbane, Mr Spanners and had a chat to Ian (the main guy and the one I know) about what happens when other people service my car that aren't him.
Now what do people think, should I also be making stickers for people's car that say "USP: The New Face of Evil" with a subtitle "why it's better not to service your car at all than to get a service done by them"? If people have better suggestions for stickers for cars, please let me know, all input welcome.
NB - I originally had the name of the business in the story as part of my work to protect the community from evil businesses, but was censored by Matt as he kept mumbling stuff about libel and the different rules for big businesses/politicians and little businesses. (my original argument was that people always say bush is evil and they don't get in trouble).
