A Curious Statistical Anomaly

First, it’s August and that means a new coffee cup. This month it’s a large cup with a bit of bamboo motif in light tans, and beige-green-yellowish. I like it a lot; used it yesterday as I was angsting over some very stressful news which follows….

Well, I made it to August. I’ve got a few things to get done to finish up July but that’s neither here nor there — which is where I am actually. Hyperion and I are heading out to Denver for Denvention 3 for the 66th World Science Fiction Convention. I’ve never been to Denver or Colorado before so I’m really looking forward to this visit. I have been to Worldcons before — we go just about every year because it’s our anniversary trip. We got married in August and spent our honeymoon at Worldcon in Boston and we go every year that we can as an anniversary trip. Last year, even though we worked on the Nippon 2007 website, we couldn’t manage a trip to Japan so we hope the Japanese will bid for the convention again some year in the future.

We’re all set to begin our trek to Denver on Monday. However, we ran into a slight snag. You see the car had been making a slight chuffing-shushing sound occasionally when shifting so we decided to have the next service level done and get it checked out before we leave. We took the car in on Friday (just after the zines went live Thursday night — so with not a lot of sleep and a very early start on Friday to get to the dealership by 7am).

The first surprise was that the full service level would be about $1,700 with the timing belt check/replacement included and from the sound of things we needed that because of the noise. Okay. You do what you have to do and just move on and we’re going on a long trip so this is reasonable for a car that’s over ten years old and still running great.

Then comes the first phone call. The transmission is slipping and we need a new one. Damage estimated at about #3,800 or so. Yikes! That’s a bit steep, but after conversation with the techies it turns out that it won’t go catastrophic, just get more and more sluggish over time so we’ve got a bit of a breather maybe — could go this week or in six months or longer…or today. Okay, we decide to get a second opinion and check into getting a rebuilt transmission elsewhere. But, we still need all the maintenance we’d signed up for. Fine.

Hours later just when we’re expecting a phone call to tell us the car is ready for pick up we get another phone call. They found a leak and needed to order a part and it will arrive on Saturday and they’ll have the car done by 5pm on Saturday. Well, that would be nice but we made an appointment at another garage to look at the transmission on Saturday at 9am. So, that’s off. After asking some questions, it turns out that IF we don’t get this part installed, we could ruin the entire engine and lose that. So, not a lot of choice here. After all, it’s only an additional $155 and they won’t charge us for the extra labor because the car is already all apart. I haggle and they’ll say they’ll try to get the car done by noon Saturday.

Today, it’s Saturday. About 9am, the dealership calls to let us know the overnighted parts have not arrived and they’ll probably get them on Monday, so therefore they’ll have the car done by 5pm. We’re leaving for Denver on Monday and we need the car, can you put a rush on it, we ask. After some haggling it is agreed a Manager will call us back. An hour later, we get a Manager and go through this again. We realize the part didn’t come in but:

This is the third time the parts didn’t get delivered on a Saturday. They don’t do full maintenance on Saturday and in the past when full maintenance is promised on a Saturday…well, the truck doesn’t get there with the parts so the work gets done on Monday.
Now, I fully understand having to order some parts because the place would have to be huge to hold everything they’d ever need for all the models they repair, so that’s understandable, but really, 3 out of 3 times the truck doesn’t deliver the overnighted parts would be a bit too much for me if I was a manager and I’m sure we’re not the only ones who don’t get the parts delivered after an overnight so, one has to ask — is this really a parts deliver problem or a we don’t do the full maintenance on Saturday but don’t want to admit it problem…. Inquiring minds wonder about things like this.

Anyway, the upshot is that we get to keep the loaner they gave us at no additional charge. They promise to put a rush on the car so it will get done as early as possible on Monday so we can hit the road before 7pm (We’re aiming for 1pm now.)

We rented a car to drive to Denver. The rental is supposed to get 35 mpg which is better than our 28 mpg so we’re hoping to make up the rental costs in the gas savings. But now we have the problem of returning the loaner, getting our car back, getting the rental car, getting it packed and hitting the road at a reasonable time to miss the DC rush hour traffic in the afternoon as we head west.

It also means that today and tomorrow, we have to run errands in a loaner that isn’t big enough to take the recycling to the center so we’re stuck with all that stuff in the basement until we get back from Denver after the convention. We still need to get a second opinion on the transmission set up when we get back because we can’t do it before we leave. And now, we’re thinking of getting a second car — a Smart Car for Two … if we like it when we see and test drive one. We could change our minds but that’s the plan and to keep the current car with a rebuilt transmission if that’s doable as a large backup auto when we need storage space for big loads.

All in all, I’m in the midst of writing lists and just looking so forward to getting on the road for our anniversary trip and spending some quality time with my husband.

Did I mention that we’re covering the convention for SFRevu? There will be coverage there and detailed daily coverage here in my blog. We’ll be putting photos up on the Flickr account, I’ll post a note here when that happens.