Penny Kia Service Visit - End Result

For the background go to:  Disappointing Penny Kia Service Visit

So the next day after I send my email off to the Penny Kia sales manager.  I happened to be home lunch time when he called.  He couldn't apologise enough for what happened and offered me a free oil change next time, just let him know when I was coming in.  He was adamant that it wouldn't happen again and he spoke to the service manager about the incident.  This works out even better for me because my next service visit is the 2 year maintenance which costs almost $300.  I didn't mention that at the time but I will be emailing him to let him know when I am coming in February!

So if you think you received bad service the best thing to do is let someone know about it, most times they will want to make it right.

Penny Kia Service Visit

Last Wednesday I made an appointment for my 40,000 km service visit.  When I called on the previous Monday they tried to sell me a service #2 which was an oil change plus brake inspection which was $40 more than a regular oil change.  Not having any brake issues and knowing I would be sufficiently gauged for my 2 year check up in February I passed on the #2 and went for the #1 which is what the owners manual says I would need at this point.

When I called in I pointed out that my passenger side door sill light was not working, and that I had a problem with the drivers side door sill earlier this year which resulted in total car failure due to corroded wires under the door sill.  The service person listened intently, then I asked him if I could wait for my car and he said yes it should be 45 minutes to one hour maximum.  I asked since I had to have the door issue looked at would it take any longer than that and he assured me it would not.

So I showed up Wednesday morning and my service visit could not have gone any worse, I could describe it all but I think the email I sent to the service manager that night says it all, here it is verbatim.  See if you can figure out how it all ends before I post about how it turned out later this week:

I wanted to send you an email about my service visit today since I will probably getting a survey to fill out and it won't be entirely positive.  

On Monday I called in to set up a service appointment, explaining that I would be there around 8:30 and that I was having trouble with my passenger side sill plate not lighting up.  I told the guy that I had this problem before on the drivers side and it was caused by corrosion of the sill plate.  They ended up replacing the sill plate AFTER my car had broken down, I had it towed, the tow truck damaged my vehicle which was never covered.   I also explained that I would like to wait for my vehicle since I have to pick up kids at lunch time and whatnot.  After explaining my light problem I asked how long it would take to have the vehicle serviced and I was told 45 minutes to one hour.  I asked again if the problem would cause extra delay and there was no indication that it would.  Since I was told 45 minutes to one hour that is what I thought it would take.  The last time I was in it did only take about 45 minutes and I was very pleased with the service.

When I arrived the service person asked me what number I could be reached at but I explained that I needed it wait for my vehicle, and had made that clear when I set my appointment.  Again I told him that I had the sill plate problem before and that they had to replace it due to corrosion.   He told me it may be the bulb and that I would have to pay for a replacement bulb, I asked him if he was serious and he said yes.  Again I repeated that the problem before came from corrosion of the sill plate.  

I was killing time on the computers and enjoying a few timbits and coffee and after 1/2 hour noticed my vehicle still hadn't gone in for service.  I was sitting next to a nice lady in the lounge area who told me that two service technicians had called in sick today and that yesterday she showed up and the computer system was down so she had to go home and come back again today.  That poor lady was there almost as long as I was today and that was after coming yesterday and having to return.  If I had been told you guys were backed up from yesterday or short staffed I probably would have made a new appointment and saved myself 2 hours away from work.

So I waited and waited a bit more and then at about 10:20 the service person came over and I figured he would tell me my car was ready but said there was carbon build up in my intake and they were recommending I fix that and it would cost $65.... after I had waited almost 2 hours for an oil change and diagnosis of a minor problem.  It was difficult for me  not to act irritated but I politely declined the service since I had to get back to work.  Again I'm sure you understand my position and after waiting almost 2 hours the last thing I wanted to hear was that they wanted me to spend another $70.

When you saw me at about 10:30 I was totally at my wits end, I was there about 2 hours at that point, expecting to be 45 minutes to an hour and no one explained the delay to me.  When I finally finished up at 10:45 the service person told me a lot of the delay was diagnosing the sill plate problem.  This would in some cases be a reasonable explanation but I had told him 2 or 3 times about the problem I had with the drivers side sill plate earlier this year leading to its replacement, it rusted, the wires corroded, my car stopped working, I had it towed, the tow truck damaged it, etc etc....  It left a bad taste in my mouth.  Sure enough same issue with the passenger side, they have to order me in a new plate.  As an additional note, I don't find it comforting that after one winter I have had to replace both of these, one instance leading to total car failure and damage due to a tow truck.  I love my car but if this continues I will be unloading it before the warranty expires.

All in all this was not a good service experience.  As I said to both yourself and the service person, next time I need just an oil change I will be going to Jiffy Lube.  I understand the car business and I know you count on after sales service but I can't afford to give up over 2 hours to a simple oil change and diagnosis of a reoccurring problem.  I really think the service person was not listening to me at all and in the end I was correct in my diagnosis of the problem which I explained to him multiple times.   That is what I found most irritating, he just didn't listen to me.

On the upside, I bought some Weathertech mats today and found the parts person very helpful and especially nice to deal with today, the mats are great.  He would get 10 out of 10.

I have to say in my 20+ years of owning cars you are probably the best person I have ever dealt with and I think my Optima is a wonderful car, but today I was very disappointed in the service provided and will be reflecting this in the Kia survey I will be receiving.   I would be inclined to go elsewhere for any future simple oil changes but will may come in for more in depth servicing.  

As a family man and a busy person I hope you see the point here

Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax - Excellent Product

When I wrote my last blog post Rebadging I mentioned there was another story in the pictures.... it was my beautiful new wax job using Meguiar's Ultimate Paste Wax.  I bought this stuff when Crappy Tire had a sale for $9 off and the total cost was $25.99, so without the discount this stuff was $35, not a cheap wax by any means.

It comes with a sponge applicator and microfibre cloth for wax removal and buffing.  When I opened it up the first thing I noticed was the enticing aroma.... man this stuff smells good!  It really gives you the impression it is made from some good natural wax but it is actually a pure synthetic polymer so they must just add some nice coconut smell to the mix.

I read a lot of reviews about this product, all of them raving.  After a good car washing, I opened it up, applied some to the applicator pad and off I went.  This is really easy to apply and unlike the liquid wax I normally use, it is easier to see areas you have already covered.  I had my entire car done in about 20 minutes, being careful not to get any on the black plastic trim.  There are also stern warnings about keeping it off your skin so I used a pair of gloves which also made it easier to hold on to the relatively small applicator pad.

It only took a couple minutes for the wax to dry to a haze so I used the included microfibre towel to remove the wax fairly easily.  There were no signs of streaking at all left behind, which can sometimes happen with the liquid wax.

Overall I'd say this is a great product, from looking at the amount of wax I used I am estimating I can do about 10 cars with the entire container.  Highly recommended!

Kia Optima - Re-Badging Complete!

I realized after I put up my last post that I had previously posted about ordering the Kia re-badge kit so some of it was redundant.  I don't have an editor (or bother to reread my own posts) so things like that happen from time to time.  Anyway today was a nice day so being the impatient type off I went to apply my new re-badge kit.

The first thing I realized was that the on-line instructions for removing the existing Kia badges was HORRIBLY INACCURATE.  The ones I saw suggested using dental floss or fishing line to remove the badges.... here's the problem.  The original badges have pegs that go into the sheet metal.... YOU CANNOT SLIDE DENTAL FLOSS THROUGH THE PLASTIC PEGS!  After breaking several pieces of fishing line I had to come up with an alternate plan.

The alternate plan involved a hair dryer and a screw driver. I gently lifted the badge and had my helper son apply some heat with the hair dryer, he was actually the one who got the first one lifted off so he deserves the credit for our success. Once we got it pried off it was pretty simple to keep applying heat and remove the entire thing.  The first one left a lot of the double sided tape behind which we had to remove with goo-gone but the back one came off with almost all the double sided tape intact.  I think our success with the second one was due to constant and heavy hair dryer heat application.  Once we had the old ones removed and the area cleaned up applying the new ones was a breeze.

For the wheel covers we simply had to place the new badges over the old ones.  Here is proof of our success, I think the new ones look way better than the old ones.  There is also another story in these pictures but I will get to that in my next post. (And its not the expert removal of my license plate in the second picture using MS Paint)

Kia Optima Re-badge Kit

One of the things I am not really in love with are the Kia emblems on the front and back of my Optima, they are also on the wheels and steering wheel.  I was reading somewhere that you can find replacements that are easy to install, they look like the picture to the left.  After a little internet research sure enough you can buy replacement kits, prices seemed to range from $50 to $80 for a set of 7 (front, back, 4 wheels, steering wheel).

On E-Bay there are lots of places selling the kits but some of them were located overseas which I normally avoid due to it taking forever for items to arrive and possible shipping damage.  I came across a place called the K5 Optima Store and the link to the items can be found here : http://www.k5optimastore.com/products/kemblems.  There were some good reviews on this company so I figured I would give them a shot.  Sure enough 5 days later the kit showed up in the mail well protected in a bubble envelope.

So next steps are to google some videos about how to apply these babies and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Auto Glym - Bodywork Shampoo Conditioner

Time for some new car wash product so I figured I would try something new.  I was reading that the Auto Glym line at Canadian Tire was supposed to be good so I bought a bottle at $13 for 1 litre.  It says on the instructions that you only need 2 capfulls to do a car, so from a one litre bottle that equates to something like 30 washes.

So we had a nice weekend this week, the perfect time to try out the new car wash product.  I opened it up, noticed the appealing aroma and dumped about two capfulls into my car wash bucket.  Two capfulls is not a lot of car wash product for a large bucket but it seemed to make a sufficient level of bubbles to wash the car.  The car washing went well, but I noticed two things as I was doing my car wash routine.

1) The dirt came off relatively easily
2) When I rinsed the car the water just ran right off the finish

I hardly had anything to dry after I was finished washing, because the water from rinsing was running off so easily, much better than with my previous car wash products.

The other up side is that this car wash product is Ph balanced so it does not deteriorate any wax or polish from the car.

At this point, I'd have to say this is the best car wash product I have ever used.

K5 Optima Store - Optima Upgrades

I was looking around for some ideas to spruce up the Optima and I came across the K5 Optima Store.  They sell some cool mods for the Optima like LED lights, re-badge packages and auto-fold mirrors.  I ended up ordering a re-badge package for $70 shipping included and can't wait for it to get here.  I was thinking the Kia guys might wonder what happened when I bring in the car in for service with the word KIA nowhere to be found but since I plan on keeping the car for a while I figured I'd do something to individualize it.  The link to the store is:
http://www.k5optimastore.com/products/kemblems

The LED fog light and tail light kits look cool as well but would take some effort to install so I will mull it over for a while.  I will post an update on how the re-badge install goes.  This is what the new emblems will look like:

How to remove dried on wax from car trim!

Every now and then no matter how careful you are you may get some wax or polish on your plastic trim around the car.  I tried removing it with cleaner to no avail so I figured the internet would have a solution to this problem.  As usual there is a solution... peanut butter.  If you rub peanut butter on the trim stained with wax it will come right off.  But there had to be more to this solution.... why peanut butter??  As it turns out the solution had nothing to do with peanuts but rather the oil in the peanut butter.  The peanut oil helps lifts the wax off the plastic and the peanuts act as an abrasive to help it get well agitated.  Turns out you can remove the wax with vegetable oil, I just ended up using regular vegetable oil and it did the trick with minimal effort.

So next time you make a slip up with your wax just apply a little veg oil and it will be good as new!

Aluminium Wheel Repaired!

I finally got my wheel back today and it is good as new!  The guys at custom wheels also balanced my wheel for no extra charge which was nice of them.  You can see where the wheel was welded but it feels good and well balanced.  I dropped over to Mr. Lube to get my tire put on and they did it in about 10 minutes for no charge.  The guys at Mr. Lube even commented on how nice the Optima looks.  I came home, washed up the Optima, shined up the tires and it looks as good as new.  

I think there is a lesson in all of this.... while I was at Custom Wheels I was looking through their magazines with hundreds of different rims and I was surprised at the prices compared to my $775 replacement Kia Optima rim.  For $200 - $300 there were some really nice looking rims available.  In the future I would suggest upgrading the rims yourself instead of going with the factory upgrade.  Of course the problem becomes that upgraded rims often come with upgraded everything else in a package deal so it's hard to get some of the good stuff like sunroof, leather etc... without buying the upgraded rims. Also if you are buying a used car, for $1,000 you can really give your car a nice upgrade by ordering some nice wheels.

Overall Custom Wheels does good work and saved me about $600, you just need to wait a couple weeks to get the work done.

HYUNDAI FACTORY AUTHORIZED CLEAROUT

Always on the lookout for new promotions, this month Hyundai has its Factory Authorized Clearout!  This amounts to different discounts on different cars but the one that caught my eye was $2,000 off an Elantra GT, since this is only about a $20,000 car that is a significant discount.  But as I have said before and will undoubtedly say again, if it seems to good to be true it normally is.

Fortunately I had costed one of these vehicles last month in the Elantra GT, GL trim.  At that time there was a $750 discount but more importantly a 0% interest rate up to 7 years.  As of today the 7 year rate or for that matter five year rate is 2.99% which means you basically pay the same as last month and in some cases $5 or so more per month.  So there actually is no deal unless you have some cash hanging around in which case you will save over last month.

Also worth noting is that there are no changes in Civic deals this month but rates are relatively low at 1.9% over 84 months and over at Mazda they are offering $3,000 off cash purchases on Mazda 3's and 0% up to 84 months.