What's keeping me awake right now
Over Labor day weekend, i drove up to san fransisco. On my way up, my car started making this really loud noise, and after stopping briefly to make sure i could make it the whole way, finally got to san fransisco and took my car immediately to the Honda Dealer.
A little backstory: Last june, my car's A/C stopped working, because it was still under warranty, I took it to Carmax, where they replaced the compressor for relatively free.
So back to San Fransisco, I take my car to the Honda Dealer, and after a few hours, I'm told that my car's compressor, plus a Stador and a belt that runs from the alternator to the compressor needed to be replaced again. I was pretty pissed off that my honda, which is supposed to be a reliable car, had just cost me another 1300 bucks, not only that, but it would take nearly a week to fix. meaning I'd have to fly back to L.A. get driven the 1.5 hours to work every day, then fly back up to SF to pick up my car the next weekend.
A couple of days later, the guy from the Honda Dealer calls again and tells me that the reason i had to pay 1300 bucks was that the wrong compressor had been installed in my car. Long story short, it was the wrong size, and over the course of the year and few months, the stador had been knocking against the compressor, destroying what makes them work as a cohesive unit.
I have a reciept saying that the wrong compressor had been installed, I have the compressor and stador that were causing the trouble.
Naturally, i go to Carmax while i'm in raleigh to show them what they had done. I get a call back later saying that "we don't think we did anything wrong, and your car wouldn't have run for a year without the correct compressor"
So i called their corporate office. Who were very friendly, but needed to call the Raleigh store to see what they said about it. The Raleigh store tells them exactly what they told me, and corporate says, "sorry, they say they didn't do anything wrong so we can't do anything about it!"
So A) I'm out 1300 bucks because they installed the wrong part in my car. and B) Carmax in Raleigh has no one to check on them to make sure they aren't doing exactly what they are doing, i.e. screwing over the customer.
I've read other stuff online about the incompetency of the Carmax service dept. and i need help coming up with Extreme yet inexpensive ways of getting Carmax's attention, and hopefully getting a lot less people to go to carmax.
-Buy a google ad: Carmax hasn't bought an ad for their name yet, and i could relatively cheaply get the top spot.
-in conjunction with that: appeal to other car dealers. I believe that because my initial reaction was against honda, that other dealers would like to know that Carmax is giving their cars a bad name. I have no clue who I would contact to ask for donations, or even if they would donate to my cause in the first place. Maybe i could get enough money to run Newspaper ads or even a cheap Cable TV ad (seriously doubtful, but i can dream right?)
-Also in conjunction with that, try to contact everyone i've read bad reviews from carmax from (i.e. people who have had as bad, or worse issues than i have) and get them to pitch in some.
-Organize a national protest outside of CarMax locations.
-Sue (unfortunetly not as cheap as i would like)
-Write a letter to Carmax in Raleigh with all of my above intentions, and hope that the fear that i will do at least some of those things if they don't give me my money back is enough to give me my money back.
-Go to several dealers, get a written statement saying that the compressor and the stader are not the correct size for one another, Then send them to carmax/use them to sue.
So if you have any other suggestions that are creative and extreme and cheap. please let me know. and if you know other people who have had the same kind of issues i have, please let them know that I need their help.
p.s. appearently my road rage problems exist beyond being a driver and a pedestrian.
A little backstory: Last june, my car's A/C stopped working, because it was still under warranty, I took it to Carmax, where they replaced the compressor for relatively free.
So back to San Fransisco, I take my car to the Honda Dealer, and after a few hours, I'm told that my car's compressor, plus a Stador and a belt that runs from the alternator to the compressor needed to be replaced again. I was pretty pissed off that my honda, which is supposed to be a reliable car, had just cost me another 1300 bucks, not only that, but it would take nearly a week to fix. meaning I'd have to fly back to L.A. get driven the 1.5 hours to work every day, then fly back up to SF to pick up my car the next weekend.
A couple of days later, the guy from the Honda Dealer calls again and tells me that the reason i had to pay 1300 bucks was that the wrong compressor had been installed in my car. Long story short, it was the wrong size, and over the course of the year and few months, the stador had been knocking against the compressor, destroying what makes them work as a cohesive unit.
I have a reciept saying that the wrong compressor had been installed, I have the compressor and stador that were causing the trouble.
Naturally, i go to Carmax while i'm in raleigh to show them what they had done. I get a call back later saying that "we don't think we did anything wrong, and your car wouldn't have run for a year without the correct compressor"
So i called their corporate office. Who were very friendly, but needed to call the Raleigh store to see what they said about it. The Raleigh store tells them exactly what they told me, and corporate says, "sorry, they say they didn't do anything wrong so we can't do anything about it!"
So A) I'm out 1300 bucks because they installed the wrong part in my car. and B) Carmax in Raleigh has no one to check on them to make sure they aren't doing exactly what they are doing, i.e. screwing over the customer.
I've read other stuff online about the incompetency of the Carmax service dept. and i need help coming up with Extreme yet inexpensive ways of getting Carmax's attention, and hopefully getting a lot less people to go to carmax.
-Buy a google ad: Carmax hasn't bought an ad for their name yet, and i could relatively cheaply get the top spot.
-in conjunction with that: appeal to other car dealers. I believe that because my initial reaction was against honda, that other dealers would like to know that Carmax is giving their cars a bad name. I have no clue who I would contact to ask for donations, or even if they would donate to my cause in the first place. Maybe i could get enough money to run Newspaper ads or even a cheap Cable TV ad (seriously doubtful, but i can dream right?)
-Also in conjunction with that, try to contact everyone i've read bad reviews from carmax from (i.e. people who have had as bad, or worse issues than i have) and get them to pitch in some.
-Organize a national protest outside of CarMax locations.
-Sue (unfortunetly not as cheap as i would like)
-Write a letter to Carmax in Raleigh with all of my above intentions, and hope that the fear that i will do at least some of those things if they don't give me my money back is enough to give me my money back.
-Go to several dealers, get a written statement saying that the compressor and the stader are not the correct size for one another, Then send them to carmax/use them to sue.
So if you have any other suggestions that are creative and extreme and cheap. please let me know. and if you know other people who have had the same kind of issues i have, please let them know that I need their help.
p.s. appearently my road rage problems exist beyond being a driver and a pedestrian.