(Lack of) Courtesy Ford (very long!)

[blkfocus]

I just had my car in for the clutch master cylinder recall. I thought I was safe, but I got a letter about it about a month ago. I called and got my appt. for Tuesday (3/27) of this week. They needed the car for a half day in order to fix the clutch and a seatbelt that I've been bitching about since 11/5/00.
As a side note, this is the center belt and where my daughter is supposed to be sitting in her car seat. But, since it wasn't working, I buckled her into the passenger side of the rear seat. This made me nervous because when I make left turns, this is the side that is exposed to oncoming traffic. God forbid I should miscalculate or someone else should misjudge. The results would be disastrous.

They finally got the parts for the belt and the clutch together and started work on my car. They told me it would be a half day and refused to provide me with a loaner. Luckily, my school is on spring break, so I didn't have to work. My mother-in-law (a really nice lady) came and picked me up from the dealership. Well, when i dropped the car off at 7:30 am, I figured that a half day meant 4-5 hours. Well, 2pm came and went and I got no call from the service advisor at Courtesy. When I called, at 2:30, Rick (the service manager) told me that they found 4 other recalls (FOR WHICH I RECEIVED NO LETTERS!) that needed to be performed. When I told him that I needed a lonaer car, he told me that they would give me a reduced rate on a rental. I hung up and called the guy who sold me my truck, my Focus,my wife's Focus, and three cars before that, and told him what happened. He told me he'd get me a loaner.

The upshot is that I got a loaded Windstar (AC, cruise, power everything, TV, VCR, etc.) to drive around while my car was in the shop. The service guy finally called me yesterday morning, wednesday the 28th, to tell me that my car was done. So the upshot is that the half day of work turned into a day and ahalf, and the onoy way I found out is that I called them. Luckily I have a good sales guy who helps me out with this stuff.