Little shops of horror

Imagine being told by your doctor that you could only bring your children back to the same hospital where they were born every time they needed a check up or got sick, and any failure to do so would result in your child wallowing in unspeakable amounts of pain and suffering, and every last drop of responsibility for it would fall squarely on your shoulders. Ridiculous? Perhaps. But somehow, we’re expected to do it with our cars.

I’m talking about casas, which is the common term given to the dealer you bought your car from, and not a single week goes by where I don’t get a complaint from a reader or listener of my radio show about some really shoddy service. It mostly revolves around over pricing, incompetent workmanship, lack of service, or worse, being charged for work that has not actually been done, and let me tell you, consumers have had enough.

This problem is not exclusive to casas, of course, but the difference is that we hold them in higher regard than the local talyer and that they charge enough for their services plus they bind you to their services with the threat of losing your warranty if you don’t.

I’m certainly not suggesting that all casas are practicing this kind of deceit, but you would be surprised just how many unscrupulous dealers are still taking us for a ride. Literally.

You should have heard the long-winded explanation one time of why my car wouldn’t start after I paid my ten thousand-peso repair bill a few years ago. My God, NASA would have been stumped. And when it was already completely obvious that they had absolutely no idea what was wrong, they hid behind the we-will-place-it-under-observation-clause.

Another close friend brought his car into his casa in Alabang. Apart from the regular service, he asked them to rotate the tires. He had a feeling they weren’t being entirely honest so he marked the inside of each tire just to prove a point. As he went to pick up his car, he asked if they had rotated his tires. They said yes, charged him for it, and even gave him a written list of all the work that had been done and of course a list of everything that needs to be replaced. Guess what? They had not even touched them.

Let’s not go too far, our very own motoring editor, Dong Magsajo, recently brought his car into the casa because it was running extremely rough and getting a dismal 3 kilometers to the liter. No, this was not one of those artista-type converted American club wagons complete with toilet and bedroom, this was a garden variety 10-year old Japanese sedan. After a little poking and prodding, Dong was told point blank that he needed to replace his engine. He was naturally upset, so we did happy hour. After a couple of cold ones to drown out the pain, I advised him to go to Autoplus in Greenhills, and have it checked by my trusted friend Pacho Blanco. One faulty injector later, the car is running as good as new. So we did happy hour again to celebrate.

Recently, just before I decided to sell it, I brought my own car back and forth to the casa and to a specialist LPG shop to give it a thorough check and to solve this hard starting problem I had. They couldn’t seem to fix it. After six months of this nonsense, they were still baffled; the LPG place told me that there was nothing wrong with the car, and if there was, it had nothing to do with them, while the casa told me the same thing as they did Dong – the car needed a complete transplant. I brought it to Pacho. He replaced my fuel pump, cleaned the fuel filter and ended up buying the car from me. Meanwhile, the casa tried sending me a bill for the “diagnostic” work that cost much more than the actual problem, and used words so big that you could literally hurt yourself trying to pronounce them.

Why is it so hard to speak truthfully and normally? Probably because many service centers, like many hospitals and even airlines, survive solely on intimidation to insure their credibility and justify their exorbitant costs. They love to create this illusion of complexity because it gives them some kind of home court advantage.

To illustrate my point, try this: Tell someone to strip as they walk into your office. You would be lucky if you got away without a sexual harassment suit. Put on a uniform, however, and ask the same person to do it in a hospital or an airport and you can get them to whistle our national anthem, too. It’s intimidation by design.

A lot of casas (just like hospitals) work on this notion and act like we should just be grateful they know where to put their wrench and we don’t. (I know where I’d like to put it) After all, who are we to question? Let’s face it, a modern car’s engine can be as difficult to understand as a jealous lover, which is why most people take each written or spoken word as Gospel from anyone wearing the manufacturer’s logo on a uniform and holding a clipboard.

You want to impress us? Forget your multi bay, ISO 900-kwan certified, brightly painted service centers. Get it right the first time, instead of feeding us all this mechanical jargon that you learned in your last conference, just to tell us that our car has to come back because something else just happened to give way and now needs to be replaced. Then try charging us fairly instead of making a 1,000 percent mark up on branded parts only to spend on advertising posters that make us feel guilty for choosing the generic ones. And if things go wrong, just say sorry when it’s your fault. That’s impressive.

You may feel protected by the fact that its very difficult to quantify complaints because of all of the intangible complexities that go along with a modern day car, but that doesn’t mean you should shamefully capitalize on it. Please, Mr. Quota-driven-service-manager, impressive as your diagnostic machines may be, just because someone doesn’t share your understanding of how an engine works, or more importantly, why it just stopped, it doesn’t mean that they deserve to be raped and pillaged. It only means that we would appreciate the transparency and honesty even more, especially considering that we bought our precious vehicles from you.

Stop trying to insulate yourselves with your mechanical engineering diplomas and tech talk, thinking that by doing so, we will go weak at the knees and feel completely out of our depth, therefore justifying your painful lack of a simple, straightforward answer and upfront price.

Times are changing, and so are your customers. People have wised up. In Australia, large independent repair chains have been doing scheduled, handbook servicing for new cars at half the price of their respective casas without voiding the manufacturer’s warranty. Obviously many manufacturers tried to fight this, but they lost in court because it was ruled that for as long as the work is carried out according to the vehicle’s handbook, by a licensed and trained mechanic, there is no legal or justifiable reason to annul any new car warranty. And any attempt to blackmail a consumer into using an in-house service constitutes “third line forcing”, which is against the law.

Not all casas are like this, of course, and the honest and efficient ones have nothing to worry about; I address myself to the repeat offenders. You know who you are. It’s time to shape up or ship out. It’s only a matter of time before some enterprising businessman comes and sets up shop here. Imagine a fully independent repair chain that could do the same work for much less and still maintain warranty?

It may seem far-fetched, I know, and the numbers may favor you now, but it is a hollow victory; there is no honor in winning over a customer’s patronage after you have robbed them of the power of choice. Don’t wait for someone else to cut your hair while you are sleeping, Samson. Ask yourselves this: If fair competition was to come in tomorrow, and you could not blackmail an owner anymore by voiding their warranty by choosing to go to them, would he go? Or would he stay?

Think about it. Then think about why. And start doing something about it. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Try starting today.

The frustration over how Metro Manila’s traffic woes have been addressed seems to be mounting by the day, even as support for the MMDA’s programs seems to be dwindling. Here are some of your reactions to Manny de los Reyes’ “A hero only in name?”

Can’t somebody from transport organizations or other civic groups take the initiative to file a proper complaint in court to stop this nonsense that’s supposed to be solution for traffic flows but that instead creates hazards to the health and life of the passing motorists? This solution is a big joke since it was first implemented. “U-turns” occupy almost half of the supposed “Fast Lane” and are not logical anyway you look at it – never mind the international standards. Speaking of standards, U-turns should be made by curving the center island of a wide road to give way and accommodate the U-turning vehicles and not simply block the straight path. Worst is, there aren’t even proper warning signs before the approach to inform the unsuspecting motorists not familiar with the roads, hence most of the time the accident is fatal. So even if it solves partially the traffic congestion on the area where it is put up, still the danger it causes outweighs the benefits. CARS AND EQUIPMENT CAN BE REPAIRED, BUT NOT HUMAN LIVES!   – Tndoblitz

Your article failed to mention that the MMDA initiated the planting of trees along the sidewalks of EDSA, the cadena de amor along the route of MRT 3. For all these years living in the city, this is the first time that I see a cleaner EDSA with sidewalks. The past MMDA Chairmen failed to resolve this. While I may agree with you on the use of color pink, I highly support BF on the demolition of these squatters. The use of force is necessary since these informal settlers do not and will not follow the soft way – as they have been doing so, illegally occupying property that is not theirs. On the elevated U-turn, I saw this in Bangkok, and it was effective. Let’s just wait after the completion of Phase 2 of the project before we judge MMDA Chairman BF.        – grabpx

I would like to address the issue of the U-turn slot along Katipunan in front of Ateneo. Coming from White Plains or the Libis area, I used to turn left to the street between McDonald’s and Shakey’s to go home. Then the U-turn strategy was born and I had to go a little farther. Okay, I understand the reason behind this. Then it became farther and farther and farther. Now I have to make a U-turn so far that I meet more traffic thus using more time, energy, and gas while contributing more to the pollution by the 5-15 minutes (depending on traffic) added to my trip, whereas I would have been home by then. If the MMDA feels that this is a necessity during the rush hours, maybe they can be industrious enough to move the blockages during non-rush hours, at night, and on weekends. This is such a senseless idea! I’m sure the same is true in other areas. What a waste!       – gee-gfi

Speak out, be heard and keep those text messages coming in. To say your piece and become a “Backseat Driver”, text PHILSTAR<space>FB<space>MOTORING<space>YOUR MESSAGE and send to 2840 if you’re a Globe or Touch Mobile subscriber or 334 if you’re a Smart or Talk ’n Text subscriber or 2840 if you’re a Sun Cellular subscriber. Please keep your messages down to a manageable 160 characters. You may send a series of comments using the same parameters. Or you may log on to www.philstar.com and blog your comments.