MerlintheMad
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This is not a Stinger story, drama, tragedy. It involves my daughter's little Nissan SUV, two years old, 70K miles, no issues, running perfectly. She likes the Magic Clean place I take my Stinger, and she drove several extra miles to go to it yesterday afternoon. She's recommended Magic Clean to at least three people since her previous experience with them.
So, her car's engine stops running inside the car wash, and at the far end they have to push it out. And trying to start it results in horrible, unhappy noises and no starting. On top of that, the burning smell from the starter motor is the next thing that she notices. "Is that smell MY CAR!?" she practically screamed. "I guess so," said the employee.
The owner came over to see what was up. "I think it's your alternator, or your battery," he offered. He checked the battery by trying the windows and other electrics; all worked fine. "Yep, alternator, then. Come over to my shop across the parking lot and we'll do a diagnostic."
"Can you honor my platinum warranty?" she asked.
"We don't do warranty work," he said. "But we can find out what happened. And go from there."
She was on the phone asking questions of various persons about it, forty-five minutes and counting. And the owner had places to go, people to see and other things to do. So my daughter had her car towed to a mechanic that her older sister trusts a lot: she takes all the Hertz cars that she's a saleswoman for, to that shop. So the younger sister got her car checked out, left over night with the delivered starter motor, and they put it in this morning.
I took my daughter there to collect her car. And I asked the mechanic how a starter motor could fail at the exact time a car was being pushed through a car wash. He was nonplussed, and offered that it would have to be engaged/keyed somehow from inside the car. That fit exactly with my daughter's suspicions that "they" had screwed up. She even suggested that the "high school kid" who started her car into the wash had either somehow put it in park after it got on the conveyor, or stayed inside the car mucking with the key, or SOMETHING.
I can't believe that a kid would scare up work for his dad's shop by wrecking a girl customer's starter motor. But my daughter believes either malice or incompetence. She doesn't care how it happened: THEY did it. Her car was perfect. Then it broke inside their car wash. End of story.
Does anybody here have a better theory on how this could have happened?
PS She has said that she's going to offer to keep coming to them, and recommending them, for years on years, if they pay her $121 deductible for the new starter motor. If they won't pay her expenses, she will say goodbye forever and let anyone know from now on to steer clear of Magic Clean. I, of course, am almost as upset by this as she is.
So, her car's engine stops running inside the car wash, and at the far end they have to push it out. And trying to start it results in horrible, unhappy noises and no starting. On top of that, the burning smell from the starter motor is the next thing that she notices. "Is that smell MY CAR!?" she practically screamed. "I guess so," said the employee.
The owner came over to see what was up. "I think it's your alternator, or your battery," he offered. He checked the battery by trying the windows and other electrics; all worked fine. "Yep, alternator, then. Come over to my shop across the parking lot and we'll do a diagnostic."
"Can you honor my platinum warranty?" she asked.
"We don't do warranty work," he said. "But we can find out what happened. And go from there."
She was on the phone asking questions of various persons about it, forty-five minutes and counting. And the owner had places to go, people to see and other things to do. So my daughter had her car towed to a mechanic that her older sister trusts a lot: she takes all the Hertz cars that she's a saleswoman for, to that shop. So the younger sister got her car checked out, left over night with the delivered starter motor, and they put it in this morning.
I took my daughter there to collect her car. And I asked the mechanic how a starter motor could fail at the exact time a car was being pushed through a car wash. He was nonplussed, and offered that it would have to be engaged/keyed somehow from inside the car. That fit exactly with my daughter's suspicions that "they" had screwed up. She even suggested that the "high school kid" who started her car into the wash had either somehow put it in park after it got on the conveyor, or stayed inside the car mucking with the key, or SOMETHING.
I can't believe that a kid would scare up work for his dad's shop by wrecking a girl customer's starter motor. But my daughter believes either malice or incompetence. She doesn't care how it happened: THEY did it. Her car was perfect. Then it broke inside their car wash. End of story.
Does anybody here have a better theory on how this could have happened?
PS She has said that she's going to offer to keep coming to them, and recommending them, for years on years, if they pay her $121 deductible for the new starter motor. If they won't pay her expenses, she will say goodbye forever and let anyone know from now on to steer clear of Magic Clean. I, of course, am almost as upset by this as she is.
I want that coincidence, naturally. But also, I simply want to know what happened and how. I guess that isn't really possible. But at least it appears that my daughter isn't going to press for them to pay for her deductible, which would be like admitting that they did something wrong. I told her that if she goes back to Magic Clean that nothing will likely ever happen again. It was a fluke of timing, etc. I just hate stuff like this. Who doesn't.
