New Car - Part Two

Early yesterday morning, after a night of not much sleep, I woke up and remembered I had purchased a new car the night before! While the previous day had been long, hot, and frustrating, there was a cute, silver, Ford Focus parked in my driveway. The adventure had been worth it!

My family had tickets to go to the Oquirrh Temple open house. I decided to meet them all in Mapleton, giving me a chance to drive the new car, and show my family.

We left at noon, right on time, and headed to the temple. About the time we hit the Provo Towne Center my sister said that it looked like my hood was going to pop open. I pulled off to the side of the road, pushed on it, and it seemed fine. We started on our way.

By the time we'd gotten to Center Street in Orem, the hood was jumping up and down. I got off the freeway, popped the hood, and looked inside. The contraption that holds the latch down had come unscrewed. Unfortunately I had tools in my old car, but not in this one. I tightened the screws with my fingers and headed to my house.

Lest anyone think that I was calm during this, you are wrong. I was far from it. I had an experience when I was in college where the hood popped up while I was driving. While it caused minimal damage (we were only going 30 MPH), it was incredibly scary. The idea that this would happen while I was on the freeway with a car full of people was almost panicy to me.

When I got home, I grabbed some tools and tried to tighten the screws. They were in a very precarious spot and I knew I couldn't tighten them all the way. I did my best, called my parents to let them know we were once again on our way, and started off, again.

Rather than going to the temple open house, we (all 8 of us in our church clothes) headed back to the dealership. One of the salesman from the night before recognized me and came right over. He asked if I was back to sign some papers and I told him the situation.

He came out with a wrench and did exactly what I had done. He asked questions like, "Are you sure you didn't accidently pull the hood release while you were dirving down the freeway?", or "Shouldn't you have had your husband tighten it for you?". I wanted to say, "Why yes, I did actually pull the hood release while I was driving 70 MPH down the feeway. I've always wanted to know what would happen if I did that". A friend suggested that my response to the husband comment should have been that I would have had him tighten the screws, but he doesn't have any hands.

By this point, my temper had risen almost to the same level as my anxiety. I somewhat calmly pointed out to the salesman that I had had the car less than 12 hours, it only had 7000 miles on it and already something was wrong. He pointed out that it was still under warranty and told me that if I took it to a Ford dealership they would be happy to fix it.

I told him I didn't want it fixed. I didn't want the car and wanted to know what my options were. He said I would have to speak to the manger and left to go inside. I mistakenly assumed that a manager would be out to speak with me. However, 15 minutes later, he came back out, alone.

He politely told me that his manager was "too busy" and all they could do was fix the car. "Too busy", I asked. "You've got to be kidding me!"

He responded by saying that it was, after all, a Saturday and they were busy with customers. I tried to calmly remind him that I was a customer, one who had spent several hours and plenty of money with them the night before.

My dad and I followed him into the smelly locker room where the very busy managers were sitting on their behinds doing absolutly NOTHING. Imagine how happy this made me. Their actions confirmed that I was of no importance to them. Once again I asked what my options were and was told the same thing - I was out of luck and my only option was to take it somewhere else and have it fixed. They basically washed their hands of me. I was not their problem.

I took the car across the street and had it fixed. Any excitement I'd felt about a new car was gone. I know it's not a big deal to any of them, but I will NEVER purchase another car from the Larry H. Miller Used Car Supermarket or even consider purchasing one from Riverton Chevrolet. Because of this experience, a friend who had planned to purchase a car this week from that same lot will go elsewhere.

Had anyone validated how I was feeling by saying that they understood how frustrating this was for me or that they were sorry this had happened, maybe I would feel differently now. But no one did. Not even once.