August 10th, 2006

stupid recall nonsense

Like most mothers, mine is paranoid… and it’s more so than normal, seeing as how a) I live far, far away, and b) I was sick this year.

In other words, I get called on a daily basis and it’s mainly just to see “what’s up.”

Last week she called and requested I urgently take my car to the dealership to get it checked out, as she had just heard of a recall and if I don’t get the part replaced the car might wreck and I might die.

I was sitting on the beach at the time, lazily debating having a cocktail for lunch. I murmured agreement to my mom, hung up and rolled over.

Not an hour later the phone rings again. Unhappily roused from my nap, I said, “Yes?”

“Are you at the dealership?”

“Um.. no. I’m still at the beach.”

“What? You have to take it in right away. You can’t drive with the problem… why didn’t you take it in? Didn’t you hear me? It has to do with the steering pin and what happens is the front end will drop onto the wheels and you’ll be COMPLETELY unable to drive the car and it will go off the road and you’ll probably be on the freeway!”

“‘Cause I’m at the beach?”

Much grumbling and grousing came over the line and I finally agreed to call the dealership and make an appointment.

Today was the first spot they had available.

“I have a Jeep and apparently there’s some sort of recall and my friend’s boyfriend [granted we had ALL been drinking and I was riding in a different vehicle while he drove mine home.. in the dark. on back roads that are old.] thinks something might be wrong with the alignment and that being said, the recall thing might be part of the problem…”

Yep, the car people love me.

“Well darlin’ [I love them too. Car places are the only ones that being chauvinist is not only acceptable, it’s kinda cute.] we’ll take a look at it, but we just heard about that recall and Chrysler won’t be sending the parts out until September.”

“……”

Forty-five minutes later darlin’ comes to get me in the waiting room.

“I drove your car and while it might drift a little, it’s hardly at all. Let me tell you about the recall…. blah, blah, blah.. only have enough parts for 40,000 cars and there are 2 million or so.. blah, blah, blah.. it’s just ball joints and it’s because they wear too soon and your car is relatively new and doesn’t have that many miles…. blah, blah, blah.. and why did you bring it in? ‘Cause you heard about the recall? They haven’t even mailed that stuff out yet sugar… blah, blah, blah. It looks good and you’re all set.. when you get the recall notice just bring it on in and we’ll change the ball joints.”

“… so this won’t kill me? And I probably won’t even have the problem?”

“Nah.. the problem is mainly with the older jeeps with lots of miles. The ball joints wear too soon.”

“So this was pointless?”

He laughs. “What, you don’t like getting up at 7AM to bring your car in? C’mon darlin’, you know you wanted to come and see us this morning.”

So thanks mom, for making me get up at the crackass of dawn to take my jeep to the dealership whereupon I got harassed my men who thought it was “cute” that I was worried.

Grrr.