A certain Italian car company...
I was en route to a date in my then three year old Italian saloon with a name that sounds a lot like "Awful Romeo", when it died on me by the side of the road and refused to restart. Anyway, as luck would have it I was 300 yards from the main agent dealer in Chelmsford so I left the car by the road, went for the date and had the car towed the short distance in the morning.

I popped up to the service desk and explained the problem and left my keys with them before going on my way and preparing for a large repair bill.

Anyway, by the Wednesday I'd heard sod all, so I gave them a call:

Me: "I'm calling to see how you're getting on with V*****D as I haven't heard anything?"
Service Monkey: "Oh, we've got no record of that car here".
Me: "WTF!?"
Service Monkey: "Are you sure it's here?"
Me: "I suggest you get your manager immediately!"

Turned out the Johnny No-Stars who'd taken my keys forgot to tell anyone my car was there. After physically searching their car park, they found it.

Service Monkey: "Is your car registration V*****D? We've, ah located it in the car park"
Me: "What's the news?"
Service Monkey: "Well there are nine other Awful Romeos which broke down since and they're all newer than yours so we haven't got round to looking at it yet. Probably next week I'm afraid"
Me: "So you mean to tell me that you had a strange car in your car park for four days before anyone noticed, because someone forgot to inform the service department and that it's now my problem that I have to wait because of your inability to count?"
Service Monkey "Is you car still under warranty sir?"
Me: "It's a month out of fucking warranty! I suggest you fetch your manager immediately."

Anyway, I get the car back on Friday after being stung for a bill of £300. What had they found? Turned out the earthing point had corroded, so some spanner monkey unbolted it, sanded it a bit and bolted it up again. Three hundred fucking sniffs...

The dealership manager lost his sense of humour when I asked if dinner and champagne with his fetching lady service receptionist was incluced and suggested that he fired his service monkey who advised "Well you really should expect problems with an Awful Romeo".

No refund or discount later, I was contacted by Awful's head office.

"How would you rate the standard of service from ### in Chelmsford?"
"Dismal, surly, cynical, disorganised, poorly trained and obscenely expensive".

Again, I walked away with fuck all. Since then my car has developed an appetite for air-mass meters. At first it was amusing, but it's on it's fifth and the cost of replacements escalates by £20 per year. They're now £210 for a piece of plastic pipe with a wire in it. Bizarrely a piece of metal which holds the suspension together and wears out quickly due to piss-poor bearings was replaced for £26. But a year on the same part now costs £52. Someone obviously saw an opportunity there...

The most interesting thing is that Italian engineers have been specially trained to construct a part which will fail exactly two weeks outside of warranty expiry (the last three air mass meters have done this).

Then there is the radiator. A simple device for cooling an engine, but in an Awful Romeo they corrode and last five years before they have to be replaced at stupid cost. I pity the poor people who bought them with "Selespeed" gearboxes (which have push buttons to change gear, so you can feel like Michael Schumacher in your front wheel drive saloon). Apparently it's not a case of "if" it will break expensively, but "when". £2k gearbox rebuild, just out of warranty? Yep.

Cunts, cunty, cunting rip-off merchant, simian employing, cunts.

I'm now boycotting pasta.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 15 Feb 2007, 17:36, Reply)