Well I got my truck back. It had been in the shop for two weeks. I made the serious mistake of taking the truck to Botnick Chevrolet in Binghamton, NY.
I suspected the injection pump went bad. Chevrolet, as part of a class action suit increased the warranty on the injection pump. I thought it was increased to 150k miles. It was only increased to 120k miles. I have 132k miles on my truck. I asked Brian if it was under warranty. He originally said yes. So every day I would call Brian from the (place primary color here) team in service and everyday he told me tommorrow, except for Friday when he said Monday.
The original quote for the repair was $2100. So I told them I would take it to a diesel shop where I could get it done for $1800. They decided to fix it for $1800, 'cause they would have had to put it back together. I think that is quite a bit of flexibility in price. They have quite a gravy train.
So yesterday I give Brian a call at 12:00 and leave a voice mail indicating that I was making special arrangements to get my truck at 4:00 pm that day; call me back if that is a problem. No call.
On the way there we get rear-ended on RT 12 in Chenango Bridge. Some young lady ran ito the car behind us which in turn ran into us. There turned out to be no noticable damage to the Subaru, but we called the cops and got a report just in case since there were three cars involved and some pretty good damage on the at-fault car. No one was hurt thank god.
I get to Botnick Chevrolet in Binghamton, NY. and Brian said the truck wasn't ready. It is now 4:30. I had to wait until 6:00 for the truck to be done. At one point the technician came into the room and walked intimdating in front of me while I was waiting. I can only imagine what Brian was saying to the tech. I don't think it was very motivating. I told Brian that I am sure the tech was doing what he could. I asked Brian how he had decided to have the tech work on "higher priority" jobs than mine. I did not receive a suitable answer. The tech made sure he took a long test drive and my radio was tuned to a country station. Brian made sure both the tech and customer were upset. That doesn't seem like that is a good goal. After I finally get the truck, they have problems verifing my check to pay the bill. I had to wait another 15 minutes for them to screw around with that.
Anyway, overall, in the scheme of things the whole deal is quite trivial. I am sure this is a very common story for many people. It just gets you going when you get lied to everyday for two weeks creating distrust of them and then they make you wait 15 minutes for a check verification because they don't trust me. What has happened to the golden rule? Jerks.
Small farms
Bonnie and I went to a wedding yesterday. That was nice. It was in a small church in Virgil, NY (in between places). James and Georgie got married. Now they have 7 kids between them. I think there are five girls and two boys. The oldest is younger than 10. Everybody has to have a hobby. I had a good time.
We are working on the yard again today. I am working mostly with stone. They are plentiful and mostly in the way. I found a great use for old roof shingles. I put them under the stones in the washes I am constructing. It looks great and should keep the weeds out for quite a while. The shingles are also plentiful and inexpensive. There is no shortage of work. I had to get out of the sun for a while. The basement is cool. I am tinkering with some technology projects.
You can see the bluebird sticking her head out of the house. There is quite a bit of activity in the bluebird house. It probably was not the best time to build the stone ring around the well head.
The truck has been in the shop almost all of last week. I still don't have it back. It may be the injection pump which is under warranty still at 132k miles. I have no choice but the leave it at a GM dealer. It really helped us realize how much we use the truck. I have to get feed, hay, salt for the softener, the tire fixed for the tractor. You get the idea.
