I am retired from the US Army after 24 years of active duty. I served in Vietnam in '68 '69, got out of the military and went into law enforcement. After taking an early medical retirement (injured hand) I re entered the Army and retired in 2003. I have recently served in Baghdad and Kuwait the past two years and am not home in Knoxville very often. My wife has done an excellent job of taking care of our kids and finances during this time.
Her daughter, barely 19 years of age had car trouble about two months ago. The vehicle, a 2000 Izuzu Rodeo was originally leased then we opted to buy it when the lease expired. It has been a good vehicle over the years and still has less than 70,000 actual miles on it. When it quit running, Carli's boyfriend called a friend of his to two the vehicle to Ted Russell Ford Izuzu in Knoxville, Tn. The agreement was that her boyfriend would pay the driver for the towing service.
My wife called me the next day in tears. She advised me that the service department had told her that it would cost nearly $2,000 to fix the vehicle. He had mentioned the transmission, oil change, towing bill, and a brake job. All of this for ONLY $2,000!! What a deal!!! Anyway, she authorized the service manager to do a machine test on the vehicle and that is when the bad news got worse.
He told her that the vehicle needed all kinds of repairs so she told him that we didn't have the funds to do all the repairs right then, that I was in Kuwait and would be home Christmas to fix the remaining problems with the vehicle. She then authorized him to change the oil and filter and that was it. She called me crying because this guy changed the oil and filter, put the vehicle on the machine for testing and added the two bill and we were billed for only $526.96.
Am I the only fool here or can someone else explain to me WHY an oil change and tow and machine test cost me over $500? I am in Kuwait where a quart of oil here is only about 50 cents which may explain why the oil change at Ted Russell's must've been around $60.00 a quart. That may be reasonable to some folks, but to me it was just a tid bit high.
Now, that leaves the tow and machine testing. Does another $200 sound right for that plus the labor charges? I think this is the bottom line to this entire "robbery" of my step daughter:
She is a young female with no father figure to help her out. Her mom is a woman, not a man so it's much easier to look at them as if they are all dumb about vehicles and say the words, " $526.96 and when you're ready for me to fix your brakes and transmission, just bring it back to me". (by the way lady, I just screwed you and your daughter good fashioned. AND it was good. I see a very big bonus at Christmas coming from the boss.
Now, does anyone else see anything wrong with the way Carli was treated? Do you have women in your life? If so, have they ever been taken advantage of?
I am sick and tired of women being cheated in just about every profession in the world and it just costs them much more because they are not as proficient in these matters as most men.
I am not a mechanic, but I did have the vehicle taken to a reputable mechanic that has worked on my vehicles for years. He fixed the brakes (all four), rotated the tires, adjusted the transmission and other small tasks and only charged me $270. You can bet that he will do the transmission work if and when it ever comes up again that it is a problem.
Thanks for listening complaint and please tell all the ladies out there that Ted Russell is not enjoying too much of a good reputation lately. I plan to help their advertising department when I get home with a couple of letters to the editor of the local newspapers. This may cost me some money, but it cost them ALL the customers I can reach through my anti Ted Russel Ford Izuzu mechanics program. Thanks for listening.
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