<VV> Warranties : Was "Don't knock those Chrysler products"

[Jim Becker]

Because they had a service bulletin or whatever that told them there had 
been a problem with the hood latches.  Any time a Volare came in the shop, 
they were to check for a blue dot on the latch.  If it wasn't there they 
were to do some prescribed adjustment or whatever and paint a blue dot on 
the latch.  They did exactly that without telling us that they had done it. 
It was nowhere on any work order that I was given.  I discovered the blue 
dot at some later date and puzzled over it.  I couldn't convince myself that 
it had always been there but had no idea where it could have come from. 
Some time later, I was back in response to a letter we got about a 
carburetor campaign.  That time they changed a part in the carburetor and 
put a white dot on the air cleaner.  The service writer explained that dot 
to me, I suppose because I was there only for that campaign.  That was the 
point I decided the blue dot was for some fix they never told me about. 
That is also when I adopted the practice of inspecting under the hood 
whenever I picked up a car after service.  Several years later, I read 
something (probably a newspaper article on lemons) that specifically 
mentioned the hood latch problem and the blue paint dot.  Suspicion 
confirmed.

By the way, they never did fix the stalling problem.  I figured out a 
work-around we could live with.  The final fix was when somebody ran a red 
light and T-boned another car, knocking it into the Volare which was stopped 
at the opposite side of the intersection.  The wrecking yard gave us $175, 
which I thought was generous.

Jim Becker

-----Original Message----- 
From: Charlie
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2015 1:05 AM
To: 'Jim Becker'
Cc: 'Virtual Vairs'
Subject: Warranties : Was "Don't knock those Chrysler products"

. . .

To Jim Becker:
Why were they "dinking" with the hood latch when you took it in for
stalling?

And why were you looking under the hood for new paint dots when you went to
pick it up?

I guess they would "fix other campaign issues" because they can bill
Chrysler for anything they can find, and get paid for it, so that makes
sense.

Charlie