Donny Carlson
01-13-2004, 08:10 PM
:mad2: Good question, and one I intend to ask Mercury.
If you read any of my thread about abnormal tire wear on my MM at 15K, you'll know I found the inner tread on my fronts were wearing fast, a sign of excessive negative camber and/or toe out. I scheduled an appointment to take my car to my selling dealer, Champion Lincoln Mercury in Birmingham, to have an oil and filter change, an alignment, and my 15K checkup. Simple. When I made the appointment (in person), I asked the service writer if they had the proper adapters and the specs for a Marauder, which he said they did. I also got the bad news that at 15K, there would be no free alignment, even though I bought the car with 6K as a demo. Okay, needs to be done do it.
Today, an hour and a half of drinking coffee and thumbing through magazines in the lounge, I decide to go over to parts to see what they would charge for a spoiler. I notice my car is parked outside in the area where they park cars when they are ready to be picked up, an my service writer runs up to me saying, "uhh, sorry man. We can't do the alignment. Our equipment can't grab those 18" wheels." He then runs over to the stand up desk, grabs a yellow pages, and makes a call. I hear him say "Hey..this is Champion.. can you guys do an alignment on a Marauder? Yeah, it's got those big 17" (sic) wheels... you can? No, customer is gonna pay. Good." He hangs up and tells me that some local tire dealer can "fit me in" if I go right away.
Excuse me? Alignments are SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE. You can't perform a scheduled maintenance? And what if "Joe's Tire" damages my car or sets it up wrong, is LM going to honor the warrantee? Is Joe going to enter the alignment into OASIS? :fire:
I an extremely annoyed with Champion! In all fairness, they have given me great service in the past and performed maintenance and repairs on other Mercury cars I bought elsewhere. They have been friendly. But, grrr....
I think this service writer is a dip*****, because this same guy was the one who sent me off with a bad door control module. I took the car back a couple of weeks later when he was off, and the service writer who helped me called a tech over, they talked a minute, then "no problem, Mr. Carlson. Sorry you're having trouble. We'll change that module out for you and it'll only take about 15 minutes..." I mean GREAT service.
I am going to complain to Mercury about this. I think they should tell me just which LM dealer in the Birmingham, AL area is READY to service Marauders, and is WILLING to service these cars, even if they were bought at Champion.
I have to be able to protect my warantee, and sending me out to some non-LM tire dealer is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
There is a silver lining in this. I took the car to Saab Tire in Birmingham. They have a web site www:saabtireandautomotive.com . They are an authorized installer for Tire Rack, and have the right equipment to align and service MM's. The owner, Charlie Saab, LOVES Marauders. They are supporters of the local Porsche club, and I even noticed from photos in their showroom they sponsor a Porsche racer. While I was there at least 5 Porches of different vintages came in. Their alignment tech knew how to align the Marauder, had the right specs. He showed me my car had both excessive negative camber AND toe out, the right was worse than the left. They were able to salvage the fronts, so I'm good to go for at least another 5-7K.
Best part was Charlie Saab -- the owner and a busy guy -- personally test drove my MM to see if the alignment and balancing was right (They have the Hunter 9700 Road force variation oem matching system and use Corghi Atrigliomaster Tire mounting machines) not once but THREE TIMES (he took it back over to the alignment tech twice for tweaks) before driving it right up to where I was sitting, getting out with a big grin saying "Okay, I'm satisfied now. It's perfect. And this is a GREAT car!" He even called over some of the wrenches saying "This is like those old classic muscle cars, guys."
BTW, I could tell when my car was started and moved out for the test drives. It's like being able to recognise the voice of your child or good friend.
I could hear that throaty growl which was different than the sound of the Porche's and other cars. :coolman:
If you read any of my thread about abnormal tire wear on my MM at 15K, you'll know I found the inner tread on my fronts were wearing fast, a sign of excessive negative camber and/or toe out. I scheduled an appointment to take my car to my selling dealer, Champion Lincoln Mercury in Birmingham, to have an oil and filter change, an alignment, and my 15K checkup. Simple. When I made the appointment (in person), I asked the service writer if they had the proper adapters and the specs for a Marauder, which he said they did. I also got the bad news that at 15K, there would be no free alignment, even though I bought the car with 6K as a demo. Okay, needs to be done do it.
Today, an hour and a half of drinking coffee and thumbing through magazines in the lounge, I decide to go over to parts to see what they would charge for a spoiler. I notice my car is parked outside in the area where they park cars when they are ready to be picked up, an my service writer runs up to me saying, "uhh, sorry man. We can't do the alignment. Our equipment can't grab those 18" wheels." He then runs over to the stand up desk, grabs a yellow pages, and makes a call. I hear him say "Hey..this is Champion.. can you guys do an alignment on a Marauder? Yeah, it's got those big 17" (sic) wheels... you can? No, customer is gonna pay. Good." He hangs up and tells me that some local tire dealer can "fit me in" if I go right away.
Excuse me? Alignments are SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE. You can't perform a scheduled maintenance? And what if "Joe's Tire" damages my car or sets it up wrong, is LM going to honor the warrantee? Is Joe going to enter the alignment into OASIS? :fire:
I an extremely annoyed with Champion! In all fairness, they have given me great service in the past and performed maintenance and repairs on other Mercury cars I bought elsewhere. They have been friendly. But, grrr....
I think this service writer is a dip*****, because this same guy was the one who sent me off with a bad door control module. I took the car back a couple of weeks later when he was off, and the service writer who helped me called a tech over, they talked a minute, then "no problem, Mr. Carlson. Sorry you're having trouble. We'll change that module out for you and it'll only take about 15 minutes..." I mean GREAT service.
I am going to complain to Mercury about this. I think they should tell me just which LM dealer in the Birmingham, AL area is READY to service Marauders, and is WILLING to service these cars, even if they were bought at Champion.
I have to be able to protect my warantee, and sending me out to some non-LM tire dealer is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
There is a silver lining in this. I took the car to Saab Tire in Birmingham. They have a web site www:saabtireandautomotive.com . They are an authorized installer for Tire Rack, and have the right equipment to align and service MM's. The owner, Charlie Saab, LOVES Marauders. They are supporters of the local Porsche club, and I even noticed from photos in their showroom they sponsor a Porsche racer. While I was there at least 5 Porches of different vintages came in. Their alignment tech knew how to align the Marauder, had the right specs. He showed me my car had both excessive negative camber AND toe out, the right was worse than the left. They were able to salvage the fronts, so I'm good to go for at least another 5-7K.
Best part was Charlie Saab -- the owner and a busy guy -- personally test drove my MM to see if the alignment and balancing was right (They have the Hunter 9700 Road force variation oem matching system and use Corghi Atrigliomaster Tire mounting machines) not once but THREE TIMES (he took it back over to the alignment tech twice for tweaks) before driving it right up to where I was sitting, getting out with a big grin saying "Okay, I'm satisfied now. It's perfect. And this is a GREAT car!" He even called over some of the wrenches saying "This is like those old classic muscle cars, guys."
BTW, I could tell when my car was started and moved out for the test drives. It's like being able to recognise the voice of your child or good friend.
I could hear that throaty growl which was different than the sound of the Porche's and other cars. :coolman: