I just had a helluva good time at the local dodge dealer. This past Thursday I brought in my '11 Ram 1500 in for inspection, tire rotation and oil change. 3 hours later I get "the call." Yeah, Mr. Griffin, all your lug nuts are swollen (ouch), we'll need to chisel them off (double ouch)and replace them. Really? I say. I've never had any problem with before. Yeah, he goes on, the emergency brake is locked up too . And your rack and pinion steering is shot. So it's failed inspection and i don't know what you want us to do. You're looking at $280 for new lug nuts and probably $1500 For rack and pinion steering. We won't know about the emergency brake until we get into it. Stop, I say, don't touch anything, I'm coming to get it. Next I call my local mechanic who runs a hole in the wall place, and is honest as the day is long. Dan, he says, you never take it to the dealer for an inspection! I know, i know, I was in a hurry and they're convenient (located right down the road from me). Bring it over, he says. I show up at the dealer and my truck is parked back across the street. Hmm, I think, I thought the emergency brake was locked up. I go in and the service advisor tells me they did the oil change, took off the inspection sticker, charged me $15 for the inspection, but they'll put a new sticker on when I bring it back and they can see the emergency brake is fixed and the steering. What about the brakes, I ask. He looks at his paperwork, brakes are fine. How did you check the brakes if you couldn't get the lug nuts off. Well, uh, hmm, I , um... The tech probably did a visual inspection. Hmm. NYS requires at least one tire be removed during an inspection. No answer.
I dropped the truck off with my guy, the next day (Friday) at 9 am I call him, he says we had all the tires off in 5 minutes, your lug nuts are fine. Your rack and pinion steering is fine. You've got a sway bar link that's a little worn that I can replace - do it, I say- and I'll adjust your parking brake, and take it around the corner and have the guy I know put an inspection sticker on it. $150 and I'm done.
I call the dealer and get the service manager back on the phone and I say to him, look, I don't know what you pull with other people, but you probably aren't betting on them to have a local guy that they're friends with that they can take it to like I do. The lug nuts were all fine, the rack and pinion steering was fine, it did need a sway bar link that your Tech didn't catch, so I just want you to know how unacceptable this is and I won't be back. Oh, no, no, no, that's not how we do business, I would never condone that kind of behavior at my shop, we're going to have a talk with that guy, believe me we don't do business this way, yada yada yada, (he's a fast talker,) on and on and on. About an hour later I get a call from the general manager at the dealership, leaving me a message hey if there's anything we can do to make it up to you, I'm sort of speechless, can't believe this would ever happen, on and on and on. They also called my local guy that did the work and caught them trying to fleece me, and he told them straight up I don't know what truck your Tech was looking at but none of that work needed to be done.
The dealer was scrambling because they knew I was going to get the survey, which I did. I wasn't even going to call the general manager back, but the next day, Saturday, my mother and sister were in town and we were going to take a day trip to visit my oldest daughter in college. Unfortunately there were six of us and all of my vehicles only hold 5. Well I thought, I wonder how serious he was about trying to make this up to me. So I went ahead and call the general manager, he answered, he sort of went on and on about how sorry he was we don't do business with this way yeah, I said well , you can't turn back the clock but you know we wanted to take a day trip but there's six of us and I don't have a vehicle that seats six he said no problem come on down I'll give you a loaner for the weekend. I then made a joke that it sure would be nice to drive a new Ram but I'm guessing you don't want me putting 300 miles on one of your new trucks. I showed up and, get this, he had a 2019 Ram 1500 Limited Edition all gassed up and ready to go. I open the door up- bucket seats- it only seats 5! I hung my head and said I don't even want to look at it anymore and he said Oh I didn't hear you say on the phone that you needed it to seat six. So in the end I ended up with a minivan! But the good news is at least they tried to make it up to me (although probably what they were hoping was after I drove that new RAM for the weekend I'd end up spending 60 grand on a new truck! LOL)
