How To Irritate People - The Car Salesman

I've sure experienced the same thing taking a new vehicle back for warranty repairs.

My favorite was a truck with a tremendous squeak in the rear springs.
They wrote it up as "Not confirmed". I walked the service adviser over to the back of the truck and pushed down on the bumper with my hands.
It let out its annoying squeak-squeak.
"There" I said, "You just confirmed it".

Cal Worthington and his dog Spot weren't in it for a hobby. Everything the personnel did, every warranty claim, every sale, every repair was maximized for MAXIMUM PROFIT when I did a stint as a Line Mechanic in a dealership too many years ago. The owner was a man by the name of "Chuck Swift" with notoriety in Northern California.

The shysterism was outrageous. Service writeups were padded to the point of stupidity. I take the time and find out the living standard of the owners of large dealerships. Like Fletcher Jones Junior. They do not live like that because of angelic honesty.

I knew Chucks son Bob Swift.

Had a buddy who bought a new van back in the 70's when they first had the sliding side doors. The door had a rattle that was intermittent so of course it never would rattle for the dealer. After his 12 month warranty ran out he called me and asked if I had the tools to pull the inside trim off the door. I did, and he brought it over. Inside of the door was a lunch bag and three beer cans. We presented the dealer with these and the dealer reinstalled all the upholstery at no charge and changed his oil and filter so we wouldn't have the local paper come do a story about it.

That was good.. Thanks for the laugh.

and sadly... Far too close to what many of us have gone through.

NashTT wrote:
Had a buddy who bought a new van back in the 70's when they first had the sliding side doors. The door had a rattle that was intermittent so of course it never would rattle for the dealer. After his 12 month warranty ran out he called me and asked if I had the tools to pull the inside trim off the door. I did, and he brought it over. Inside of the door was a lunch bag and three beer cans. We presented the dealer with these and the dealer reinstalled all the upholstery at no charge and changed his oil and filter so we wouldn't have the local paper come do a story about it.

There was a real power struggle or something going on with the unions back then. (Not union bashing, just the fact)
I was a young guy at the Ford dealer and we got in a customer ordered 1969 Torino 428 Cobra Jet (Was a mining town, lottsa bucks.. :W )
The guy really did his best to break it in properly but it still blew up. Ford advised us that the line workers had purposely left crankcap main bolts loose "to make their point"
Over a the GM garage a buddy reported a case kinda like yours, a bad noise in rear door area. Found eventually that a full soda can left inside the rocker panel.. Every turn it rolled about an inch and clunked. This area boxed in and welded, had to cut car to remove. :S