I love my car.
Not as much as La Belle Fille, who is always sparklingly funny, especially when she talks in her sleep, but quite a lot.
However... it is an Alfa Romeo.
The car looks good.
It sounds good.
It drives well.
But it spends a lot of time broken down.
I don't object to this as much as the fact that there are never any fucking parts. Ever.
Share with me my current car flail.
Had the bastard serviced on the second, when they told me there was a problem with the power steering, and some sort of new tubing was required. It was, unsurprisingly, not in stock, but would be by the following Tuesday.
On Monday afternoon, the expected phone call came; the parts weren't available, much to the dealers's surprise. I opined that this was just what i had expected. Never fear, I was told, they had put me on a 'VIP' list, and the parts would be in situ within 48 hours. I suggested to the dealer, that I was sceptical about this, and was prepared to have a little wager with him, to the effect that the parts would take weeks, if not months, rather than days to come in.
48 hours later, I called back. Much to my surprise, no word had come from Alfa as to the availability, or location of the parts.
I'm still waiting. It'll be 2 weeks on Thursday.
For those of you thinking I deserve the pain for owning an un-necessarily expensive, showy, penis-extension of a car... you're probably right, but you've also probably owned an Alfa
2 comments:
the dentist who did my root canal work was one of the chiefs of the owners club, he told me many good stories over the many long hours i spent in his chair
he was a great guy, recommended by another dentist who was honest enough to say it was too technical a job for him - not many people prepared to be honest about their own limitations these days
great job and its still there many years later
but me myself i buy toyota/suzuki/similar and dont have the hassle
although we got swmbo a fiat and thats currently in the garage with a burnt out turbo (its a diesel) which fortunatley is getting done for free since its new
etc etc
http://notdrrant.blogspot.com/
Way back when, in another life, I used to be a locksmith. One customer (almost wrote "patient" there, gotta be careful) brought us a Spider-Veloce to have a new ignition lock put in.
Now the first rule of changing ignition locks on any Italian car is to disconnect the battery, because there are two pins on the lock; one retains the cylinder, and the other holds the back of the switch on, and if you pull the wrong pin out, four springs will shoot out in different directions, after which the starter begins to crank and you can't stop it without cutting all the wires off the switch. So we go to disconnect the battery... surprise, we can't find the damn thing.
I looked under the hood, I looked in the trunk, I looked under the seats, I looked in the glove compartment, I even looked in the owners manual. Nowhere. I finally bit the bullet and called the guy. "Uh, Mr. R., we need to disconnect the battery in your car, and we don't know where it is..."
He said, "You know, it's funny, the same thing happened to me last week. I had to jump-start the car and I couldn't find it either. I had to call the dealer and ask them -- I felt like such a schmuck." "So where is it?" "It's in the trunk, under the carpet, forward of the right wheel well." Go know that's where they put it.
So I'm not surprised that repairs on the car are ... interesting.
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