Monthly Archives: December 2023

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Tales of Woe Part 2

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This is a follow-up on my recent post describing some questionable service from an Edmonton auto dealership.  I received a fair amount of feedback that I had been scammed.

Given the dealership contacted me, apologized and refunded the cost of the belly pan bolt replacement, I cannot say I was scammed but given my complaint was accepted so readily I do now wonder why I was charged in the first place.

Communication Breakdown

I had indicated my initial e-mail complaint was ignored .  I receive DMARC mail delivery status reports from all the major e-mail providers,  and I did receive one from outlook indicating my mail was accepted.

When the service manager contacted me she advised that e-mail address was no longer used. If an email address is no longer used it should not be publicly available.

Dealer Follow-up

The Rally Subaru service manager was responding to the review I had posted on rate a dealer.ca and she said if my email had been read they would have taken action.

It is commendable they acknowledged fault and made recompense but it does raise the question why I had to pay for the service in the first place and only when I complained was action taken.

Almost seems like they intended to take advantage of me if they could. Not really a scam but not really behaviour with integrity either.

They did offer me a free oil change for my next service, however, given this experience and my unanswered question why this happened, I am not sure if I will take them up on that offer.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Tales of Woe – Customer Service Conspiracy Theory

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I had an oil change at Rally Subaru in Edmonton on Monday this week.  Not only was I very disappointed with every aspect of  the service , also my email complaint afterwards was fully ignored.  My tale of woe follows.

First the Conspiracy Theory

 I had given a poor rating on google following my service 6 months ago and I wonder if they purposely provided even more egrigious service this time to rid themselves of a customer.
Or perhaps they are just that incompetent.

My Tale of Woe

On arrival for the appointment I was advised the service would take 1 hour and 15 minutes,  it took 3 hours.  This however, is not my complaint, I understand unavoidable circumstances can extend a service call. However,  in this case,  based on the facts as they were conveyed to me this was totally avoidable.
After 1 hour and 25 minutes I received a text advising the oil change was completed and an inspection report showing this was attached to the text but also the engine belly pan bolts were broken during removal and I was requested to authorize the additional work.
I was in the waiting area just steps from my service advisor but surprisingly she only sent me a text.
Before approving the additional work of about $200 with tax and service charges I asked the advisor why I was just being advised now of the broken bolts.  She said the there was an oil spill during the change, which although finished (removing the belly pan is not required to do the change)they decided to remove the belly pan to clean up so there would not be a smell of burning oil .  At this point my options seemed limited so I approved the service.  I suspect the belly pan has never been removed since I purchased the vehicle.
– I ask myself, why do I need to pay for a mistake made by the service technician (spilling oil)?
– Why were 2 bolts broken?  After the first could not penetrating oil have been used to remove the second.  Why was I not given the choice to have just the one broken bolt fixed
and live with a burning oil smell for a brief period?
I lost 1.5 hours of my own time together with about $200 extra cost, the explanation was poor and I had to seek out more details myself and obviously I still have questions.  I am really puzzled why I have to cover the cost of a technicians error.
I plan to seek a new service provider for maintenance although I have been a customer since 2009 this incident is really unacceptable to me.
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Happiness is ………

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The reasons for feeling good vary by individual but the overall are attributes are consistent. Our state of mind is overcome by positive emotions (joy, contentment, satisfaction ) resulting in an enduring sense of well being.

The root cause of happiness lies within.  That is while external factors influence us, at times apparently overwhelmingly so,  ultimately how we feel is our choice.

Or is it?

The brain is our engine driving our decisions both of feeling and logic.  The operation of the brain is basically chemical reactions which require among other things, chemicals like serotonin, epinephrine, adrenalin and so on.

The level of these substances contained within our body can affect our ability to decide we are happy.  To effectively create emotional well being the brain relies on these compounds to function optimally .

Personal Accountability

I am a strong believer each of us is responsible for our decisions a d determining our emotional state but there is strong evidence measuring and adjusting critical  components of our body chemistry does improve our ability to control our own happiness.

In a strange turn of events the levels of critical chemicals within our body can be diminished by traumatic events causing an imbalance resulting in sadness and depression largely out of control.

Help Yourself with Pills

In essence this means our ability to successfully combat  the impacts of traumatic events (e.g. death in the family) is complicated by managing the levels of brain chemicals, something largely outside of our conscious control.

There are ways of increasing  the levels of these chemicals and in cases where your ability to control brain function is diminished, these might be worth considering.

Stay happy out there.