Oh Sweet Satisfaction!
I've been having car trouble. I've been having the worst kind of car trouble. Intermittent, random, unreproducible car trouble.
I've been having trouble with my breaks and with my curse control. The breaks randomly don't work and the curse control randomly turns itself on and accelerates the car. Luckily the two events have never occurred together, but once when I was inching along in 5 MPH traffic, bumper to bumper with every other commuter in northern Virgina, my car tried to accelerate into the bumper of the car in front of me.
So every time I have one of these events I take my car to the dealership, get my trusty rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap and sputter around town for a couple of days. Then the dealer calls me, tells me they rebooted the on-board computer system, and that the problem will never happen again. (Was that evil maniacal laughing I heard in the background?)
In fact, the last time I took it in they had me talk to the mechanic for almost hour so he could assure me and reassure me that the problems were all in my head. Really, the breaks don't give out. And how could the curse control turn it's self on? Really, let's be serious. Ha! We all know how this ends... a couple of days later I'm picking up another rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap.
And in fact, this week I've been driving around in my little tin can and wondering when my dealer was going to call to tell me they rebooted the on-board computer system. (By the way, as an IT QA person and former software developer; I know that rebooting the system doesn't really fix anything. It just cleans up any memory leaks and resets all the varibles and wipes out any other little sins until they can creep back in as the system is being used.) Today my phone rings and low and behold it's my handy-dandy service manager.
"Um, well, ah, I'm just calling to let you know we haven't forgotten about you."
"Really."
"Yeah, well, we've been driving your car around and, you know, we just couldn't make the problem happen."
"Really?" I could tell by the tone of his voice something was up.
"Well, see, last night the mechanic took your car home so he could drive it around some more."
"He did? Really?"
"Um, yeah, and well, this morning he almost didn't make it into work."
"Oh, what happened?"
"Well, there were no breaks. It wouldn't stop."
HA! There are very few moments in life when someone can feel the deep sense of satisfaction to which I was treated today. (Now if they could just fix the darned thing!)
I've been having trouble with my breaks and with my curse control. The breaks randomly don't work and the curse control randomly turns itself on and accelerates the car. Luckily the two events have never occurred together, but once when I was inching along in 5 MPH traffic, bumper to bumper with every other commuter in northern Virgina, my car tried to accelerate into the bumper of the car in front of me.
So every time I have one of these events I take my car to the dealership, get my trusty rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap and sputter around town for a couple of days. Then the dealer calls me, tells me they rebooted the on-board computer system, and that the problem will never happen again. (Was that evil maniacal laughing I heard in the background?)
In fact, the last time I took it in they had me talk to the mechanic for almost hour so he could assure me and reassure me that the problems were all in my head. Really, the breaks don't give out. And how could the curse control turn it's self on? Really, let's be serious. Ha! We all know how this ends... a couple of days later I'm picking up another rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap.
And in fact, this week I've been driving around in my little tin can and wondering when my dealer was going to call to tell me they rebooted the on-board computer system. (By the way, as an IT QA person and former software developer; I know that rebooting the system doesn't really fix anything. It just cleans up any memory leaks and resets all the varibles and wipes out any other little sins until they can creep back in as the system is being used.) Today my phone rings and low and behold it's my handy-dandy service manager.
"Um, well, ah, I'm just calling to let you know we haven't forgotten about you."
"Really."
"Yeah, well, we've been driving your car around and, you know, we just couldn't make the problem happen."
"Really?" I could tell by the tone of his voice something was up.
"Well, see, last night the mechanic took your car home so he could drive it around some more."
"He did? Really?"
"Um, yeah, and well, this morning he almost didn't make it into work."
"Oh, what happened?"
"Well, there were no breaks. It wouldn't stop."
HA! There are very few moments in life when someone can feel the deep sense of satisfaction to which I was treated today. (Now if they could just fix the darned thing!)
posted by Liz at 10:49 PM
2 Comments:
Waitaminute... Is this your NEW car? Your nice new little hybrid? Or am I out of date? ... How could it be going so wrong, so soon?
That stinks. :(
Have you made a complaint to NHTSA about it? There are currently 4 other complaints about brake failure in NHTSA's database for 2006 Ford Escapes (3 for hybrids, 1 for non-hybrid). In fact, for the HEV version, there are 4 complaints, three of which are about brake failure.
Just so you know, you can complain at www.nhtsa.dot.gov
Post a Comment
<< Home