787 More Minivan Misery

I got a call from Chrysler service at 12:45 pm today saying that the van was finished and I could come and get it.

Whoop whoop!

I said that I wasn't sure when I could get there since I had to call a taxi. They said they'd come and get me, "just give me a minute to find out who's free."

At 2:55, I called and asked if they knew yet when someone would be coming? I'd been hesitant to leave the house, even to get the mail. So the guy came then. He drove my minivan, and it was nice to see it coming up the road.

We headed back to the Chrysler place, he still driving, and ....

I was back home by 3:35, without the van. It stalled on the way back to the shop, so they've still got it.

Well, at least the "check engine" light didn't go on.

At 4:30 I got another call, asking for permission for a technician to take it home with him tonight, so it'll get more miles of test drive. They'd tried driving it around, and they'd let it run, and they couldn't get it to stall again. It didn't hesitate before it stalled this afternoon, so I think the "mixture problem", if that's what it was, is fixed. In my humble opinion, it needs the fuel injection thingy and the fuel lines cleaned.

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A few people have scolded me for not taking it to the dealership in the first place. Well, I've had very bad experiences with dealer service in the past (Ford and Chevy). In his defense, Mr. T. is really very good. They have no idiots in their shop - it's a family business, and all the younger folk have grown up in it. Mr. T. worked under his father until he died a few years ago, and now his son is moving up in the business. In fact, the Chrysler guy today said "Oh, yes, They're good. We sometimes send work to them when we can't handle it." So I don't feel that I made any bad choices. Mr. T. also doesn't charge when he doesn't fix.

Before I started taking the Ford Taurus to Mr. T., I had taken it to the Ford dealership shop. I noticed something odd. Every time they fixed something, within a week or two something else major went. Every six months or so, I had to get two, three, or four things fixed one after another. Once I started taking it to Mr. T., when things got fixed, there were no further problems for a long time. I really don't think it was just coincidence, because several times when I wanted something done and Mr. T. couldn't fit me in the schedule, and I'd take it to the dealer, the same pattern happened again.

The Chevy dealer shop was just plain incompetent. Plus they never listened to symptoms, and never took them into consideration. They just replaced things in some kind of priority order until something worked. And charged me for everything, of course.

An example was when I had some kind of electrical problem with the Cavalier that occurred ONLY when water splashed up from underneath. No problem in ordinary rain, mind you, unless I went through a deep puddle, or if it was raining hard enough and I was going fast enough that road water splashed up. And even then, it took a good 20 minutes or 30 miles before it started happening. Never any problem on dry roads, and never any problem starting even in pouring rain. So I took it to the Chevy dealer and described it as specifically as possible.

They replaced the fuel pump. I freaked. "It CAN'T be the fuel pump!" They said they tested it, and it's fine now. "How did you test it?" We drove it to uptown and back and it was fine. "That's it? It hasn't rained in a week. Did you run it through water?" No, why would we want to do that? "Agggghhhhh..........!!!" I refused to pay for the fuel pump. So they replaced some other stuff, belts, seals, whatever. Nothing that made any sense whatsoever. And they always insisted it was fixed because it had no problem on sunny days. Three more replacements and a threat of lawsuit (because I refused to pay for replaced parts I had not approved), I took it to Mr. T.

He replaced the spark plug wires. He said they were carbon and have a history of shorting out when they get wet. Problem solved. (Partially. He had to replace them with exactly the same thing, so that fix lasted on average 10 months, and then had to be done again, so there was some basic design problem somewhere. You'd think that if Mr. T. knew about it, the Chevy dealer would too.)

So that's why I went with Mr. T. and resisted the dealership for so long.