I believe - based on what I’ve seen in 24 years of this - that some manufacturers have call centers that disregard 99% of all incoming calls. Do they possibly look for patterns and do something about widespread or numerous complaints of the same thing? Maybe. But I believe that the large bulk of calls going into those… Read more

Of course. I am referring to the useless 800# in the owner’s manual.
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Titles are limited in scope. If I had titled the article with the contents of the article itself it 1) would have been too long and 2) Jalopnik editors would have shortened it.
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Totally different: I am talking about the 800# in the back of the warranty booklet. Which is worthless.
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Oh, complaining to a zone rep or equivalent can help. I’m talking about calling the useless 800# in the back of the owner’s manual.
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Depends on the MFR. Some require a confidentiality agreement and some don’t. Not sure how that impacts anything I wrote, however.
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Well, my point was that calling the customer service 800# specifically was a waste of time. But I guess my point wasn’t clear enough since several people have chimed in saying they got Facebook results - proving me wrong.
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That is a major part of the problem - but the manufacturers go too far the other way. They assume that most of the calls have no merit.
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All manufacturers do this? Obviously, I don’t believe that. I doubt you do either.
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That is never the info in the owner’s manual though.
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But the complaint wasn’t to the # in the manual - it was to an individual at the company. That can have unpredicatble results. (I’ve met Lutz and find the story believable.)
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You know that Service Bulletins are issued by manufacturers when they discover widespread problems - not because they got one email, right?
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So you complained and you got what you were entitled to? I guess if you call that a win, you are right.
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Since they all do it though, they can get away with it. All it takes is someone to come along and start a car company that tries to do things right . . .
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Same methods, yes.
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That’s a great result - and a one in a million. Cherish it.
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Yes, try another dealer. And then when you hit the threshold, pursue the lemon law.
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Several companies had that problem, with the paint pealing off in sheets. Ah, good times.
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I know of a few like that I wish I could block. The second they respond to anything I write, I dismiss them. No one can see their comments but them. A few of them I have told I am doing that to them - and they don’t care. One guy (whose name I recognize instantly) often writes diatribes that are longer than my… Read more

Yes, the ones through actual banks and credit unions are fine. The fly-by-night people are the ones to avoid. Read more