If someone gives you the option to go to Jack Ellis' glendale dodge or to gouge out an eye with a spoon, for the love of god, just reach for the spoon. While on the phone with Chrysler, a rep from Chrysler said himself that he suggest that I never again go to that dealership. Want to know why, keep reading...
I brought my viper in to fix a check engine light that kept coming up. The problem turned out to be an evap hose which is a 9 dollar part and is under warranty. Now I'm not talking about the regular warranty, or even the extended bumper to bumper warranty I dropped something like 3k on. No, they would cover it but even if they were to have run out, the EPA states that evap hoses are covered under an emission warranty for any OBD equipped car for 8 years or 80,000 miles. I got a bill for almost 700 bucks for this fantastic nine dollar part. When I said that the hose should be under warranty, I was told that I didn't understand my warranty. Only "hard parts" are covered. "Soft parts" are not covered and are considered regular maintenance items. Funny, I never have seen regular maintenance intervals in my owner's manual for evap hoses. Also, I was told I needed a new drive shaft, which for some reason, even though it is a hard part, ended up in part on my bill. When I got to the dealership to pick up my car, I bent over and handed my credit card over for the repairs. I drove the car home and it sat for about a week. The next time I drove it, I had to get it inspected for registration. During testing, I was told that the car "might not pass emissions" but I lucked out. Had I driven it one more time, "most likely, it would trip a check engine light." Sure enough, next time I drove it, the check engine light popped on.
Feeling a little ripped off, I looked through my warranty to see what was covered and what was not. The parts replaced were covered, which I suspected. I called up the Chrysler Service Contracts Center and told them the story. They called the dealership and confirmed that all of my work should have been covered under warranty. They next course of action, I was told, was to have the dealership call Chrysler to set everything straight, then have my money refunded. I suppose that it is rather convenient that my car was throwing check engine lights again (with the same code) so I had to go back by the dealership. I alerted the "Director of Fixed Operations" that Chrysler had said my service should have been covered. He assured me that I was wrong, but was nice enough to cover "fixing" another evap hose that had gone bad for free (10 miles after I was in the shop last for a bad evap hose?!?!?!) He also assured me that he would call Chrysler and get to the bottom of their confusion. When he called back, he said that he really fought to have my work covered but could not convince chrysler to cover my work. LOL, the work that they had told me that was covered. He did say that he would cut me some wicked deals in the future though as he wanted me, a "top tier customer", to be happy, refer friends, and buy more vipers.
When I called back Chrysler to see what was going on, the rep put me on hold for a few minutes. When he returned, very apologetically, said that Chrysler would directly pay me for the work performed and said that he suggested that I "never return to the dealership as there are reputable dealerships in the area" It turns out that my good friend, the Director of Fixed Operations had called Chrysler after I told him that they said I should not have to pay for the work performed, and changed all the the work orders to parts not covered under warranty. Wow. If you find yourself nearing Jack Ellis' Glendale dodge in california, reach for the spoon my friends, reach for the spoon.
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