I am appalled, even more than I was when I first tried to do business with your service department at Premier Chrysler in Bremerton. I had my 1999 Chrysler 300M in for service (Job Order #25598) and factory recalls. They did a piss poor job the first time through…the recalls they said where done where not, the estimates given on certain jobs where 44% lower than the price billed, the vehicle was left dirty and greasy inside and out…fasteners were missing from the vehicle, etc., etc..The list went on!
I wrote the service manager, Craig, and brought in my list of complaints and concerns. He agreed that the job(s) were not done correctly and said that he would have them taken care of. Meanwhile, this is costing me yet another day off work.
Craig saw to it that the complaints I had were taken care of with no additional charge and sent me on my way.
It’s now June and my wife, her Mother, my 14 year old and my 2 ½ year old are heading out for a long trip down to Phoenix, Arizona to spend a couple of weeks with their family. At the last minute, they decide not to take the fastest route but instead, opt to take I-5 down to Los Angeles and cutover to Arizona from there so that they are on the main artery in case of any trouble. They left Tuesday, 6-27-06 @ 10:00am in the morning from Bremerton. At 2:00pm I received a call that they were broke down on the side of I-5, 90 degree weather, between Portland and Salem Oregon. They said the car had overheated. They called AAA and after two hours on the side of the road in the blistering heat, had the car towed to the Newburg Chrysler Dealer in Newburg, Oregon. They were able to get a room at the Travel Lodge across the street. My Father in-law and I left Bremerton when I got back to my house and we drove down to find the girls. After they explained to me the chain of events that happened throughout the day, I decided to go over and take a physical look at the car. Upon inspection, the coolant reservoir cap was missing so I began looking with a flashlight to see if it had possible fallen into a cubby hole. At that point, I couldn’t believe my eyes…I looked under the front top cowling of the car and saw that the connector to the fan, closest to the power steering reservoir, was unplugged. Talk about pissed!!! I’m thinking to myself, why would that be unplugged??? Nobody has worked under the hood of my car except Premier Chrysler of Bremerton. Then the light bulb went on in my head…the only time the car has been serviced was when the timing belt and water pump was replaced, back in February, 2006. They would have all of that disconnected to do the timing belt job. Now normally, especially in Bremerton, there isn’t much need to run an air conditioner for any length of time, it’s always been a better choice for me or my wife to roll the windows down and open the sunroof. I am appalled that your service department is so incompetent that they could not even remember something as simple as plugging the fans in while performing their job. Do they not feel that it is necessary to run both fans? Doesn’t it make sense that that would be of HIGH priority, especially if you are working on a job requiring the replacement of engine cooling components??? Talking to the dealer down in Oregon, who was by the way, very helpful and knowledgeable, he told me that when those connectors are connected together correctly, they are virtually indestructible, and will only become disconnected using the special tool for them. This, in itself, tells me that the connector in question was either plugged in but not secured, or not connected at all. That SUCKS!!! This set in motion a sequence of events that lead up to the car being disabled;
1) The car overheated so the girls pulled over and called AAA.
2) AAA came out and popped the hood and said he thought they could make it to the next town and left.
3) The girls tried to make it to the next town but the car overheated again.
4) They called AAA again and this time the driver looked under the hood and said that the reservoir cap was missing. He said he would tow them into the town with a Chrysler dealer instead of the next town that only had a Chevy dealership.
I think about what “might have been” if the girls had chosen to take the quicker route and possibly been stranded out if the boonies…what then??? I could forgive you guys for doing a crappy job the first time, I could forgive you guys for costing me a total of three extra days off work, which I can’t afford with a family of five, but what I CAN’T and refuse to forgive you for is putting my family in harms way. I think Kinder Care could come in and replace your existing service department and it would be an improvement…and that’s no joke. I will wait until my wife comes back to see how she would like me to proceed with this, but I just thought I would let you know MY feeling on it.
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