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February 25, 2006
When things break
Yesterday was not a particularly good day in the Bleeding Edge cave. Matty, a senior mechanic from the garage that's been looking after our 14-year-old Mazda MX6 4WS sports coupe for several years, rang to inform us that the steering rack had failed. It wasn't the first time it had failed. Just two years ago, we'd forked out something like $1900 to have it replaced. The mechanic explained that the parts supplier guaranteed them for only 12 months, and we'd have to buy another one. They would throw in the labour.
We pointed out that we had no intention of buying a steering rack every two years, and that perhaps he needed to negotiate a little more forcefully with the supplier of this very expensive, but apparently ephemeral product. If he couldn't do that, we told him, we'd be quite happy to ring and put our case.
This was a situation that wouldn't have arisen had we dealt with a Mazda dealer. They have a whole of life warranty. They also have an extremely inflated view of the value of their services, and we long ago decided that someone on a journalist's income couldn't afford them.
Even at our more-reasonably-priced, efficient, and customer-friendly garage, the Mazda has proved to be a constant financial drain. We've spent thousands of dollars replacing pretty well every major component and, had we the money to buy a new car (we don't have the money to buy a new bicycle), we'd almost certainly be better off doing so.
We take the view that if the garage wants us to continue paying them to maintain our current vehicle, rather than have us buy a new one - which will cost them future income - they need to (a) source reliable parts and (b) be willing to negotiate with their suppliers somewhat more forcefully, so that their customers don't get nasty surprises, such as having to buy a new steering rack every two years. That's our position with any business which we pay to provide us with goods and/or services. We regard any resort to arguments that their suppliers are being unreasonable as an attempt to off-load their problems onto their customers. We don't give a fig about arbitrary limits on warranties. They're the last refuge of scoundrels. In these circumstances, we never react well.
We've since had a conversation with Sam, the owner of the garage, and it looks like he's going to fix the problem. Sam's conversations can, at times, be difficult to interpret. When we asked him if Matty had told him what he'd conveyed to us, he replied: "There's only one boss here. You can pick up the car on Tuesday, and bring your boxing gloves." We'll let you know if we've misunderstood his intentions, but we're pretty confident that Sam will be explaining the facts of life to his supplier, which is one of the reasons we keep going back to Sam, rather than hauling him off to consumer affairs tribunals.
On the rare occasions where someone hasn't accepted the reasonableness of our position, we've found it's better to have the matter arbitrated by an impartial referee at say, VCAT. We make it a practice to be extremely well-prepared for these encounters. Our most recent appearance there involved a firm of architects which made the mistake of regarding us as a captive source of unreasonable income. Their case survived for less than five minutes, when they revealed a letter which indicated they had been deliberately concealing the real cost of their work from us.
But in the case of that steering rack, had we meekly accepted the senior mechanic's verdict, we'd have been forking out a substantial sum of money to support the supplier of poor-quality merchandise. How do you deal with companies which try to play pass-the-parcel? Do you pay up, or fight back? Or perhaps you think we're being unreasonable?
Posted by cw at February 25, 2006 08:32 AM
Comments
I'm interested in how a steering rack fails? Did you notice the tendency for your car to refuse to go around corners? Did it start leaving little presents on the drive? Is said senior mechanic making it up?
Enlightenment please?
cheers, Paul
Posted by: Paul at February 25, 2006 10:02 AM
In our case, what happened was that a warning light alerted us to the fact that the steering fluid was low. When we checked, we discovered that it was, umm, VERY low. And when we poured in half a bottle of the stuff, it immediately gulped that up too.
Posted by: cw at February 25, 2006 10:14 AM
I had no end of trouble with a 1974 4WD Nissan Patrol, a real lemon right from new. After 4 years and no satisfaction from Nissan I sold the vehicle.
The Nissan Service department kept on using the excuse that it was an off-road vehicle therefore I should expect things to go wrong. The vehicle was only driven off-road during a four week holiday each year and was used in the city the remainder of the year.
We are stuck with a real dilemma when our only means of transport breaks down and the service departments know this and use it to their advantage. Most people will pay just about anything without too many questions asked just to get their car back on the road.
Posted by: Aubrey at February 25, 2006 11:15 AM
Well done Charles!
One of these days companies who deal with the public will realise that they have an obligation to supply goods and services that are fit for the purpose. Your mechanic would have gone down in flame at VCAT if you had had to resort to taking them there.
Posted by: syd at February 25, 2006 12:14 PM
I had the air con on our old Fairmont go belly up one very hot day. I called Ford, told them that the air-con should not fail (I was way out of warranty). After some discussion the folks at Ford came to the party and charged my $300 for the $2500 repair replacement.
I'd go straight to the parts manufacturer and push them on it.
Posted by: Anthony Caruana at February 25, 2006 03:34 PM
Being prepared to make a scene in public is usually quite helpful. It is never a good look for a company to have someone loudly complaining that they've been ripped off in front of potential customers.
Posted by: Alex at February 26, 2006 12:57 AM
What you want seems perfectly reasonable to me, but your interpretation of Sam's words looks optimistic. Why would *you* need boxing gloves if not for a brawl with the garage? Hope I'm wrong. Displays of anger can be useful in situations like yours. Good luck. David Horwood
Posted by: David Horwood at February 26, 2006 08:43 AM
I was summoned to a VCAT hearing when moving out of my rented apartment in South Melbourne.
During the move, the elevator door decided to shut without warning and crashed into my friend and the belongings he was carrying. After notifying the repair company and following their advice to stop the door "crunching" itself open and shut, I thought nothing more of it and completed my move, then dropped the keys to the real estate agent a week later.
Imagine my surprise when I received a call the next day to inform me that I was being charged for the expense. No, they didn't have a cost but they would tell me once they received the bill...two weeks later. By this time I was over the whole thing and relayed that I would not pay for the damage. My next communique was a letter of VCAT summons.
Thankfully I have a friend who took great offence at this perceived injustice. His productivity at work would have been low for the next week as we spent hours on the phone chasing the lift company, Body Corporate, Tenants Union, real estate agent, invoices and work orders, etc. I think the final straw was when we obtained a copy of the paging records that the lift company used to notify its technicians. That afternoon, two days before the hearing, my (ex)real estage agent left a message on voicemail informing me that the hearing had been dropped.
To this day, I am not sure whether we had unwittingly come close to uncovering something about my repair job, the maintenance of the building, or were just proving to be too big a pain in the rear for the agent to handle. Either way, I agree with CW that preparation is the key in these matters, whatever your position.
Posted by: Zac at February 27, 2006 11:43 AM
As I read your post I was thinking of Toad of Toad Hall with his car!
An interesting site is www.notgoodenough.org in its aim to help people resolve their problems with companies. This was set up by a Melbourne lady a few years ago when she got to her wits end with the airlines. A friend had some success with raising a problem about a franchisee and the franchisor coming to the party to resolve the problem.
This is away from your questions, but may be of interest. Part of my job is to look at issues facing leaders in my organisation and communication comes up as a big one. We often discuss with groups the concept of conversations with people around us and how we can improve the difficult ones. Usually this means conversations where the stakes are high. I can recommend some books on this topic - Fierce Conversations (Scott), Difficult Conversations (Stone et al), Crucial Conversations (Patterson et al), and Crucial Confrontations (Patterson et al).
Posted by: Iain at March 1, 2006 08:33 PM