Friday recap

My mother's car needed a quick trip to the dealer for a fix. Mom does not like to drive very far these days. Proof of that is that her car is over five years old and has slightly less than 40,000km on it.

I stayed overnight at her place. Then I got up early Friday morning to drive her car ninety minutes into Edmonton for its 9:00am appointment. Edmonton is the closest Kia dealer. You cannot drop your car off anymore, you have to be checked in. This seems to involve taking a tablet and taking a photo of your VIN, a photo of the mileage, and photos of the car. Then you sign some forms confirming what you already told them you wanted fixed. The key is handed off to someone who drives off with the car and you get relegated to a cramped waiting area.

I shortly got a text asking me to confirm, via text, that they could communicate with me by text, and show me a video confirming that the car was in the shop being worked on. I texted back "Just fix the car, not interested in the video". I contracted with you to perform a service and I really could not care about the fancy technology, just give me what I came for. If they were going to give me a wall job I think I could figure it out. By the way, a wall job is where they park your car by the wall, do nothing, make you wait an indeterminate amount of time, then give you a bill with some dirt stains on it to look like something was done.

What work they could do was done in a timely manner. Of course there is always that part that has to be ordered because they do not have it so you need to book a return appointment. I will have to pick up mom's car and repeat this process at a future date. I then drove her car back ninety minutes, this time in falling and blowing snow, then picked up my vehicle and drove myself another fifty-five minutes to where I live. Being the absolutely stellar son that I am I made sure to gift mom with a full tank of gas.

What gets me about car dealerships, or at least the ones I have recently visited, is that these days is you cannot tell the staff from the customers. A service adviser used to look like a service adviser. Now they seem to be young women, or hipster types, who I am not sure even have a driver's license. They dress like they are hanging out in a trendy coffee shop. I wandered through the showroom out of boredom. There was only one salesman who had a suit and remotely looked like he had some interest in his job. They rest needed to be showcased on that television show "What Not to Wear". I always leave hoping at least the mechanic knows what they is doing and that the car does not fall apart when I am on the highway.

To me impressions make a difference in how I view your business. I have kind of ranted about this before, I just had to revisit the subject again.