I hope this is the actual end to the car story....*UPDATE*

OMG.  I have decided that I need to live in the land of Harry Potter, and just use magic.  Forget mechanical things.  Magic rules!!!

The dealership called at 10:30am.  They said it was the O2 sensor blah blah wire blah blah blah. $250.  And that they were doing us a favor by not charging us another diagnostic fee.  WHAT???

G-man is not the most assertive person, and I could tell that he was about to get in over his head.  So I wrote him a note and sort of coached him.  Still, not going great.  Told him to tell the guy that we will call him back.

So I told G-man how to handle this.  NO, we aren't paying $250.  They need to apply the $150 from yesterday towards today.  They misdiagnosed the car to start with.  We aren't paying for their mistake.  NO.  I told him...STOP ASKING.  TELL THEM WHAT WE WANT.

He called the guy back (he is the shop manager), and he was hemming and hawing.  I whispered to G-man to ask for his boss.....the guy didn't like that.  Back and forth and back and forth.  I whispered to G-man to mention the last problem we had with them.

Amazing how THAT changed his tune.  (That is another story, but let's just say it was ugly). Manager ended up only charging us for parts.  $58.  We are waiting on the call to say the car is done.

I am not saying that being a bully is the right way to go.  But you need to stick up for yourself.  They misdiagnosed the car....it broke down an hour after they released it.  That is on them.  If they diagnosed the car properly the first time, we would have paid for the repair and that would have been the end.

G-man is still learning how to be assertive.  And it took alot of restraint from me to not grab the phone from him.  Without the coaching....he would have agreed to pay the $250 (he admitted this afterward to me).

So our new car repair numbers are:

Towing - $18
Rental car - $50
Garage 1 - $55
Dealership - $150+58 = $208

For a total of $331.  We had $250 in available in the car maintenance fund....leaving a difference of $81 that I will have to pay off next week when I get paid.   I am so thankful that we had a car maintenance fund.  Without it, it would have come from the EF, or worse...the credit card!!

Of course....my car is a whole other story.  That will probably come from the EF.  Bummer.  But that will wait until next week.

UPDATE:  You know what....I quit.  Stop the world, I want to get off.

Went to pick up the car...and the part was $10 higher than they told us on the phone....plus tax.  So it was a total of $15 higher.  That is the least of my problems right now.

On the invoice, they marked that ALL the oxygen sensors are tangled and improperly mounted.  Now, I have no idea why they didn't tell us this on the phone, and give us the option of fixing it all at the same time.  No...let's just wait until the car dies again....makes sense to me!  NOT!

The oxygen sensors are related to the transmission...the transmission we had replaced in March.  At yet another place....the place we didn't want to bring the car back to because their quality of work has so drastically gone down hill.  But they installed stuff wrong.  Which technically means that they are liable for the repair, right?   We have to check the warranty paper work.

I am so sick and tired of people just not being able to do their freakin' jobs!  

Now we will have to sort all of this out and figure out who should fix what, and pay for what.  Because we sure as HECK aren't footing the bill for all of this.