Wedding Woes

winner winner chicken dinner.

So, this spring has been....a lot of adjectives that aren't positive.  Not all aspects, just, enough to be annoying.  

And the Mr's car's breaks were going.  So...we took it to our mechanic (I have a trustworthy mechanic  at least!).

So...the breaks, plus rotors were spendy.  And needed new tires.  And the control arms were broken, as was part of the E break system.

When we bought this car, a year? ago, we bought the after market warranty (GWC or whatever their name is)  through the dealer.  We debated it, (I said 'nah', he said 'yeah', and, eh, his car and neither of us knew the answer), we bought it.

So...we called *before* we took the car in to clarify part of what was covered--the worn things 9like tires and breaks) weren't, but the broken things should be--makes sense, matches what we thought.  And we can use 'our' mechanic (something we checked when we bought the warranty).

EXCEPT, in the eyes of the warranty company, since NAPA auto parts sells a 'rebuild kit' for the control arm, that means it's a fixable.  if it's fixable, it's not a part they'll pay to replace.  And if it's a fixable part, then it's 'worn' not 'broken'--and they don't pay for wear-related repairs.

So...$1500 later, I was livid.  the Mr. called the dealership and left a message last week.  No answer, so on Monday, I put (terse, but polite) Facebook messages about returning phone calls on the dealership's page.
There was some back and forth, and the dealer, basically said they'd try to talk to the company--since their repair people agreed that it was *NOT* a worn part, but a broken one, and you do NOT rebuild them 99.9999% of the time, even if NAPA sells a kit, and Chrysler says NOT to rebuild them.

And the dealership won, and we'll be getting at least $500 more back--full amt TBD.  HUZZAH!
(AND, we won this without me having to clamp onto it.  It's really REALLY hard for Mr. Anxiety in my house to not obsess over things.  Because of that, when he has those rare moments of 'this sucks, but, we wrote the check, lets move on', it's not really a good thing to force him back into battle...but this was enough money that I was pushing for that a bit.  My stance was that the dealer gets a kickback for selling/pushing this warranty--if they didn't win w/ the dealership, we were going to cancel the warranty and get it pro-rated, but I also thought Snethkamp should refund us the amount of their kickback, since they pushed the product and should have known it was shady as hell.  Which was going to be a hard battle, probably)



TL;DR version, Car warranty said "to bad, so sad, we won't pay this $1500 bill", dealership got involved and it's more like "fine, you only owe $1000ish.

Re: winner winner chicken dinner.

  • I'm so glad they're covering the $500.  Go GBCK.

    Car things are the worst.  I am like a 1950's housewife with cars, so that's DH's ball of wax.  He'll tell me what's being done or needs to be done, and I'm all
    image 
  • Heffalump said:


    I am like a 1950's housewife with cars, so that's DH's ball of wax.  

    Yep. Totally.  Luckily, DH is pretty handy with car stuff...so minor repairs/maintenance can be done by him.  The kiddo is old enough to provide a helping hand, so I just stay far away.  

    YAY for getting it covered, GBCK.  :) 
  • GBCKGBCK member
    Knottie Warrior 5000 Comments 500 Love Its Name Dropper
    Yeah, I'm reasonably car saavy, but I get tired of fighting the "I am not an idiot, quit playing games" fight sometimes, so I tag out when I can.

    I play 'bad cop' on these things--the irate wife who you don't want to deal with.

    The dealership actually, other than losing the first phone call/voice mail, handled it pretty well, so they're in my good graces.
    The warranty company is probably still o my shit list, even though they eventually made it right.
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