A Morning Trip To The Cleaners

It was about time for my truck to be service. The $5 coupon for an oil and lube job from the Chevrolet dealer gave me an extra incentive. I am beginning to think that $5 coupon had a big 6” fishhook with an unbreakable line was attached to it.

I got to the dealer’s service department about 7:30am and found that they were already opened. The service representative that waited on me asked me did I want to $29.99 deal or the $57.99 deal. With the latter, they make sure your tires are ok with the proper psi and check all everything. I said I would take the $59.99 deal.

In the background I think a heard the whirling noise of a fishing reel spinning, like a big fish had just took the bait.

While we were talking a mechanic had the hood up and was checking the fluids. He gave it to the representative and there were two rows of various colors liquids. One row was clean fluid, which they should look like ideally and the other was what was drawn out of my car. He said the automatic transmission fluid was a contaminated color and really should be flushed out and new put in…. ok, ok.

I went to the waiting room.

One young lady in there looked to be college student was sitting and reading. Another representative came in with a clipboard and told her all with her car – it would cost about $500 he said. She said she didn’t but $400. He said she could probably do without this and that to bring the price down to about $350. She said ok.

He left and returned later and said her water pump was completely gone. It was shooting water out like a water faucet. How much? He said $400. They walked out of the waiting room talking. She didn’t come back.

Then another young lady came in and sat down. She had dark hair and a pleasant face. We nodded and smiled at each other.

Not long the representative that dealt with me came in with a clipboard. He said my front wheel brake pads were way down – need to be replaced. He also something was corroded so that needed replacing… the part itself wasn’t that expensive but it the time to put a part on… bla bla bla. Something else too needed adjusting while they had bla bla opened. In my head I calculated as he spoke and it totaled over $500.

I said ok, do what has to be done. He left.

I spoke to the lady with the dark hair. I told her my wife and I took a cruise to the Bahamas last week.

She smiled and said, “Yeah?”

I went on to say that our 4 night and 5 day cruise with all you can eat for two people cost less than this 2 hour car job.*

She almost laughed like she saw the irony in it and said, “Yeah!”

Hmmmmmm.

Shortly after that a representative came in with a clipboard and went directly her to and started talking. His whole dialog was Spanish. So was her dialog.

Evidently, they have a Spanish speaking on site to take care of the people who can’t speak English.

Yeah.

Speaking of the much needed Latino speaking employee, over three hours visit with the dealership over the loudspeaker three or four times, well spaced out announcements called Fernando to the used car department. I don’t know if Fernando is the same person who helped the lady “Yeah Lady” but I would almost bet he was.


*I was wrong. The cruise cost $30 more than my visit to the dealership’s service department. And when I said it I thought it was going to be 2 hours (what they told me) but it ended up 3 hours.