Service with a smile

Me: New Prius owner, used to being catered to (i.e. high maintenance), witty, perfectionist; You: knowledgable service representative, honest, willing to cater to my needs.

That's how the personal ad I would have written to find someone to service my car would have looked. Thankfully, I didn't need to write an ad, the dealership I got the car from seemed perfectly able to service the car; or so I thought.

I made an appointment to get my car serviced (the first - 5K miles - woohoo!) two weeks back, but because of our unexpected trip I wasn't going to be able to make it. I called to change it, and was told that I didn't actually need an appointment - "just show up, no appointment needed." Cool, I like that - just drop in..

So I took them up on their offer. I showed up on Saturday afternoon. Mistake, (hindsight being what it may) big mistake. The service rep, I'll call him "Mr Short on Patience and Detailed Knowledge", said "well, sure, you can just show up for your service, but we can't do the car today, do you mind leaving it?" I think not; we set up an appointment for Monday morning.

Fast-forward to Monday morning. It's 8:15AM and I roll in to the dealership. I get out of my car and stand beside it, a proud Prius owner, expecting someone to come over and "help" me (spoiled by the treatment from my last dealership I suspect). One guy comes by, "have you been helped?" he asks. "Nope, not yet." I respond. "Someone will be with you shortly." "Great, I'll just stand here looking bored." My car is important to them, please stand on the line...

Another 5 minutes pass; my "looking bored" is now "looking baffled" - so many people running around, and no one seems to actually want to help me. Is a Prius "not good enough" for these people?

Another 10 minutes pass; someone else comes by, "have you been helped?" he asks? "nope, not yet, unless asking 'have you been helped yet' constitutes being helped, I've had that discussion with several of your colleagues already" - the humor is lost on him.

He takes me to "his place" where he proceeds to collect all of the relevant information (oil change, smart key is dumb sometimes, tire pressure on dash indicator is lit), then notices I've set up an appointment with Mr SPDK already, so he completes the paperwork and then brings me to Mr SPDK (my mistake - I thought all of these guys were interchangable).

Mr. Short on Patience and Detailed Knowledge berates me for not coming to him first (is this a commission business? Ten minutes into my initial wait I became a free agent, sorry fella), and is unwilling to listen to my "well, I stood over there for 20 minutes, you could have certainly come to get me if you had wanted."

He goes over the information that his colleague has recorded, looks pleased, we discuss the items, he's happy, I'm happy. The first guy said it would all take "'bout an hour," so I ask Mr SPDK where the waiting room (they've got Wifi!) is; he points me the way, and off I go.

Around 10AM, I'm a bit bored (no laptop), so I go back over to Mr SPDK to see what's up.. He checks with the technicians to see what's going on. Apparently no one told them I was waiting for the car. Even so, you'd have thought the "promised: 9:30am" entered on the work order would have clued them in? Nope, not this time. Mr SPDK sends me back to the waiting room.

An hour later, he comes and gets me - my car is done; sort of. But before we can discuss what was and was not done, he needs to berate me once more for not going to him when I first arrived in the morning. You see, he didn't know I was waiting for the car, so it's my fault it took 2.5 hours instead of the promised 1 hour. I point out that I did ask him where the waiting room was - somehow, I thought that would have clued him in - why would I want to know where the waiting room was unless I was planning on waiting?. The logic was lost on him.

On to the work that was done.. Oil change, no problem. Smart key problem, big problem. Not surprisingly, an intermittent (ok, everyone with a computer that does something, sometimes raise their hands) problem isn't readily reproducible, but if I leave the car for a longer period of time maybe they'll find something.

Yeah, right, think about that - I told you it does it once a month, for like one day, then it's perfectly fine - I'm not leaving my car with you for a month, especially if you won't give me a loaner car.

Oh, and the tire pressure indicator light - "the right rear tire has a nail in it, and as I told you on Saturday, we don't repair tires, we only replace them." What? You didn't tell me that on Saturday, all you told me on Saturday was that the normal pressure was supposed to be 34 lb/sq in; which, incidentally is wrong, I surveyed your colleagues and the other three tires on my car and they think it should be 40 lb/sq in; and what kind of car repair place can't repair a tire?"

Fine, whatever. I get in my car to go find a tire repair place, start 'er up, and there it is, big as life, just like it was 3 hours earlier - the tire pressure light, all lit up, like a teeny tiny oddly shaped, yellow Christmas tree.

Back I go, to Mr. SPDK's desk. I ask "did they add air to the tire with the nail in it?" He says "you should have come to me when you got here, then you wouldn't have had to wait so long." I respond "right, we've been through this, everything is inevitably my fault, I'm sorry, it won't happen again, can we move on please?"

He says "yes, they topped off the tire." I ask "why is the light still on?" He says "because the sensor knows there's debris in the tire (the word "debris" always makes me think of the movie "Twister" - is there a cow flying around inside my tire?), until I get it repaired, the light will stay on. Intriguing - what sort of sensor would actually detect crap stuck in the tire?

The answer? None. All it has is a pressure sensor. He lied. Or, rather, he didn't know and didn't want to say "I don't know" (he's not Mr. SPDK for no reason!).

I went to a local tire place, where a nice young man took my information and keys, and 45 minutes later (as promised - how cool was that), repaired my tire, free of charge even.