2 legendary sc's a few days apart (long)

[queenbb]

i have pics but they did not turn out that well with my phone, so i will take my regular camera in and take them again because the pics really tell the stories.

customer #1 comes in earlier in the week extremly pissed off claiming that we sold her a defective tire. i relayed this story in another thread but really she deserves her own.

quote from the other thread so i do not need to retype the whole thing...

wow that sucks.

i had one like this come in the other day, only she started the complaining before she even got to our store.

she accused us of selling her a bad tire, which blew out on the freeway, of course she starts makeing all the calls from her cell the moment it happens wanting to speak to managers, she even called the head of our division.

she gets there and the blow out was caused by a nail that had fallen out of the tire, the hole clearly visible in what was left of the tread.

when we told her this and showed her the hole she still insisted we sold her a bad tire, the tow truck driver asked us what would cause the tire to get ahead of the car (apparently 30 yards or so) i said well if the blow out is quick, and the tread clears the rim with no problem, it would use the momentum of its roll to go where ever it wanted too. she, the tow truck driver was kind of miffed she had to chase the thing down for the girl (maybe 18-20) and seemed really happy to get out of there. she apparently got a huge tip out of the deal.

while the car (a newer bmw) was being taken off the tow truck i asked one of the mechanics why she was so angry cause of a blow out wanting to see the managers ect, he said that well sometimes you get mad cause you have a blow out. apparently she heard the whole thing and made more calls to complain. he wasnt even rude about it.

the whole sidewall was gone on the tire all that was left was the tread, and the beads which took us a while to get off the tire and ended up having to be cut off with a grinder. which the mechanic she complained about had to do and she got mad about that and started calling us all incompitent.

we have the tire saved just in case she tries some more issue with it since it was a road hazard that caused the whole thing. which i clearly marked (with my paint stick), the inside and out side where the hold occured.

the manager involved in this instance was looking at the tire today, and he says to me wow how fast was she going inorder to tear a hole in the tire like that (as i said the pics would explain this since the inside of the tire had a bit of rubber torn out of the tire.

customer #2 came in last night, with a bad battery. he claimed that the tech destroyed the brass terminal that screwed in to the battery (chevy type size 78 which you actually screw the posts in to the battery they do not lay on top like others) the vehicle in question is an 90's era chevy conversion van which it is pretty difficult to remove the battery properly, the tech accidently slipped his wrench and ended up arching a bit causing a bit of sparks. apparently the customer was not upset about this but swore that we needed to have rubber lined tools to work on batteries.

as the tech continued he installed the post in the new battery, which when tightened ended up to be stripped. this is when the customer turned in to instant suck. he starts going on about how we had to be the ones who stripped it since brass is softer than lead (http://bainite.wordpress.com/2007/05...ardness-scale/) claiming that he was an engineer so he would know about this kind of thing.

we had the operations manager up there who was a autocenter manager for almost 20 years, and he agreed that there was no way that we could have cross threaded this terminal,

we called for a replacement part to fix the terminal, but the parts place had stopped delivering and we told him that we could not pick it up due to man power shortages. the man says that he will send some one to get the part for us. about 30 mins goes by, him ranting and raving about the whole brass softer than lead buisness and his daughter and son in law come back but they dont have the part. they said they went to get another car. (im confused why did they need another car oh well)

so they decide again after yelling at us about not getting the part again, that they will go and get the part, but they needed this part. (which we had given back to the customer because he was going to get the part) they claimed we lost the part and then took off to the parts store. the parts store calls us to see if we wanted to put the part on our account (which we said no because we were not going to pay for a part that we did not brake) so we asked him if the customer had the part and he said yah he used it to match it up (customer out right lied about not having the part ah ha)

he comes back and we fix the part, and as we are checking him out he starts to get mad because we were not going to discount his battery, pay for the part, and remove the installation charge. again not for a part that we did not brake. we ended up giving him the part with no discount after a rather loud argument.

both the managers (one of them involved in each incodent) were comiserating over their respective sc's and decided that they needed to keep their trophies (busted tire and stripped battery terminal, one of them gave half the busted tire to the "rude mechanic"

[Dave1982]

This "brass is softer than lead" nonsense reminds me of some rich snobs who INSISTED to us (this was when i worked at the hobby shop) that titanium weights were superior to lead weights in pinewood derby cars. umm, HELLO! Titanium is lighter than lead, therefore they are vastly INFERIOR when the purpose is to make the car heavier. They are, however, more expensive, which to someone with money to burn is a clear indicator of quality.

[queenbb]

oh i really do hate it when people think that the price of somthing is the only indicator of quality.

[chainedbarista]

money doesn't equal intelligence; i see that every day, well off people tossing out their money on things that are way overpriced and of no better quality than cheaper goods available.

i guess it's the whole 'it's shinier' makes it better somehow.

[queenbb]

yah that also goes along with chrome makes everything faster and have more horsepower.

i took new pics, ill have them up sometime tonight or tomorrow.

[chops]

yah that also goes along with chrome makes everything faster and have more horsepower.

I thought it was giant Honda window decals and VTEC/Type S badges?

*ducks*

[queenbb]

I thought it was giant Honda window decals and VTEC/Type S badges?

*ducks*

lololol yah your right on that. or freaky gigantic wheels on some p.o.s car. who needs 20 in wheels on a corolla anyway (yah some guy did come in with this set up)

anyway here are the pics.

inside the tire


outside the tread


the part with the bead we had to cut (the other piece was over at the "rude mechanics" tool box i didnt feel like walking out there to take a pic of it


the whole tire or rather whats left of it

[Argabarga]

I feel bad whenever I'm out there hooking up to a broken down car, for any reason, and the owner is already ranting and raving about what they're going to do to the poor people working at whatever shop I'm taking it back to. Before even THEY know what's wrong with it.

Even worse if they're trying to obviously get me on thier side and agree that this is obviously the work of incompetent mechanics or cheap parts, etc.

Look sir/ma'm I just drive the tow truck, I'm not a mechanic, my only job is to load this vehicle and get it from here to wherever you want it, beyond that, you are on your own. Please leave me out of it.

[queenbb]

yah i think this driver was at that point when she was able to leave she was out of there real fast. we felt sorry for her to have to be in the same car with that crazy bitch for even a few seconds.

[JustADude]

oh i really do hate it when people think that the price of somthing is the only indicator of quality.

Well, ya know, it is good for a ball-park idea in many areas, especially the more complicated items, since quality materials and construction cost more than half-assing something together. OTOH, you still have to do your research to make sure you don't get overpriced crap, such as most (but not all) 'designer' clothing labels, or miss a top-grade product/brand that has found a way to undercut their competitors' prices significantly, such as Memorex usually does (waiting and learning from others' mistakes saves tons of R&D $$$).

That being said, yes, I agree, only an idiot would think titanium was better than lead for making things heavy.