Rant-o-rama

So we take Mrs. Evil's car in for service. Specifically to have the coolant flushed and, this is the important part, to have the driver side door handle fixed. We also ask them to check the clutch as it is slipping. Two days after we take the vehicle in (on an appointment) we get a call saying that it needs a new clutch. Mrs. Evil tells them to not do the clutch at the moment, but finish everything else. So the next day we get a call saying the vehicle was finished. So we go to the dealership and go up to the window where they hand us the invoice and take our money. At no point did they mention what they did or didn't do to the vehicle. To our surprise, the driver side door handle was not fixed. So we go back to the service window and inquire about that. The answer we got was that they didn't have the part in stock so they couldn't fix it. Fair enough, though it would have been nice for them to tell us that. It gets better though, when I asked when the part would be in the reply was "Oh, we didn't order one". So ok, let me get this straight, I bring a car in, explicitly tell them to fix the door handle, they don't have the part so they just send us on our way without a) telling us they didn't have the part and b) not even bothering to order the part. Now the excuse given was since we had to pay for the part, they weren't going to order it since they didn't want a stock of them. That I could buy if I hadn't asked them to fix the handle in the first place. It's assumed that they will have to order a part to fix something that I asked them to fix. They've claimed that they would now order the part but I'm not going to hold my breath. You see, gentle reader, we have a problem with the interior door handle as well as it sometimes doesn't open the door. We took it in two years ago to get it fixed where they then said they'd call us when the part came in. We never got a call. So I asked what the status of that part was and they couldn't find anything that suggests that it was ever ordered. All I can say is once they fix the part, we won't be using the service department of the dealership anymore.

The other thing that's been bugging me this week is more of a long term thing. I've often noted that the larger the pickup truck, the smaller the brain of the driver. Now for those of you who don't live here in Cowtown, there is a large proportion of pickups to other cars on the road. The proportion of moron jerk drivers who own pickups seems to be greater to the number of pickups than in the general driving population. Two cases in point this week. On my way to work one morning, a pickup screams by me (I was doing the speed limit) like I'm standing still only to have to break hard so he doesn't slam into the car in the lane beside me. The moron in the pickup then proceeds to ride the bumper of the car in front of them, leaving only about 1m of space (in traffic moving at 80km/h). He tailgates the car for about another minute until he has space to cut me off wherein he does as he cuts across three lanes of rush hour traffic. The second happened last night when on my way to my cadet unit. Traffic was running slow, as it often does in rush hour and I ended up partly blocking a lane while turning onto an exit that was full. This caused cars behind me to have to move over slightly to get by. Now most cars did this with no problem or hassle. However each and every pickup driver just had to honk their horn as they went by. All this reinforces my belief in that the larger the pickup, the smaller the brain of the driver. Now I'm not sure about the cause-effect here, either jerks are drawn to pickups or once you buy a pickup you become a jerk.

Thus finishes my rants.... you may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing