OT: Another Grammar Rant

I thought the most mispronounced words are liberry and Febuary, not to speak of joolry.

Or metric versus Imperial

LOL - we refer to "English" - not Imperial. Funnily enough, we were at the auto shop last night to supposedly pick up Nessie, (the Expedition) which has been having suspension work, along with the A/C being charged. We've had some issues with the repair shop having made an error in diagnosis which caused a huge delay with the repairs, and costs. The manager had left when we got there - and the service writer told us we'd been given a $59 discount as preferred customers - on a >$1500 bill. Not acceptable. So, we had a discussion about the history of what had been going on, and our unwillingness to pay for a bunch of labor that had to do with their mechanic's mistake, and it being undone, repaired. As the discussion continued, and no, I didn't yell, we explained the further complication of our Audi needing to go to its' shop today (we were going to drop it last night) but now would have to make another apptmt, which meant a wait, etc... So the nice lady asks "where do you take the Audi?" - to which DH replies "NOT HERE" - she says "oh, to the dealer?" - we say "no, to an Audi/Volks specialist". She then says "well, we could do the work ...." and before she goes much further I rather loudly say "You can't even fix our Ford properly

- why would we let you touch our Audi?" Realizing that was a bit abrupt, I follow with "After all, fixing the Ford is easy, at least you don't need the Metric tools."

So, footnote - we go to get Nessie this afternoon. Manager there. Very apologetic - we have a nice talk, he acknowledges the big issue they have with the original tech that both caused a problem in hooking up the air-line to new pump, and then lied about saying one of the air suspension reservoir bags was actually "split open" - so we had to replace the pair of them on the rear. Getting down to he'd already discounted a bunch of the work, etc

- but there is this labor charge which he knows is the big issue. So, what do we want? We agree to split the labor. He also apologize profusely, saying they should have gotten us a rental car, etc. All fine - we leave

- go home. DH takes Nessie to go to hockey reffing assignment. 15 mi down the road calls to tell me "check suspension" light is on - not good as this was all just supposedly checked and repaired. ~10, 12 mi further he's at the rink and calls to tell me that "We're a low-rider again" . The rear suspension - complete with the new air reservoirs that we didn't need but are on, and the new pump, and the supposedly repaired leak at the joint in the air line - has dropped down -which essentially means no rear shocks. Woo hoo.

Imagine the delight of the woman who tried to have us pick-up the car last night, who heard the whole story, then updated the manager - when -ta da - she answered my phone call letting them know. I can't wait for tomorrow. Currently I'm thinking about stopping the payment.

ellice

My caprese salad is just tomatoes, basil and mozzarella with balsamic and really good virgin olive oil. So if you have a recipe to share DO IT

Cheryl

Will do - I have to look for it. But it's very good. Also - I'm picky (go figure) about the mozarella.

I was thinking to myself, how do I describe the way I pronounce it, and you hit the nail on the head.

I had written something else, but went into the kitchen to have a wee bit of marmite on a cracker. I remembered that in my Med Tech days we talked of a nucleus, and I pronounce nuclear the same way, other than an "er" rather than an "us" at the end of the word.

Gillian

Sounds like the header needs to be changed to "Ford Rant"!

We used to have an Explorer and had horrible maintenance along these lines with local dealer. One day we ranted and raved to a neighbor, who also drove Explorers (two in their family), and they used another dealer and had no problems. So we switched, and immediately began to get excellent service at lower prices.

So is there some other Ford dealer in your area you can take it to?

sue

And just be forewarned that a number of Ford engines have exploding spark plugs....

Yup - first hand, and it is history.

LOL - not so much a Ford rant as shop problem. The truck is 10+ years old, parts wear out. Just the situation blows, so to speak.

These are the guys that are more honest than the other shop. And have given us better prices. This particular situation - just a horror - but they did admit fault and are dealing with the original tech. As an update - they gave me a rental car today when I dropped off. DH stopped in on his way to work, and had a "chat." Result being manager called me at work, very nicely, to arrange when I'd come in, and they would shuttle me to Enterprise for a rental - as long as it's needed. So, now I have a brand new (as in ~250 mi when I picked it up) Nissan Sentra. Huge trunk. And it's clean.

We tried the Ford dealer nearest - which is different than our original dealer - but we thought they were a bit high, etc.

Anyhow - we'll see how this all pans out.

Ellice

It's not an exploding spark plug. To be precise, as we've been through this, on a particular large truck engine block (as in the F150 which is same as the Expedition) there was an incompatibility with the metal coring of the engine block and some spark plugs. So, what could happen is the plug would fire, and literally pop - explosively - out of the block. Quite a noise. Then the engine would run a bit off, anyone who knows what the proper firing should sound like would recognize it essentially "missing" - as in the rhythm being wrong. We called the shop when it happened, as the truck had made this thunk, and the hood was warm - it was just as DH got in at work when I picked him up some carpool day. And then was running quite rough. The mechanics knew exactly - and we were lucky that they actually knew a tool/dye guy who had made a special tool that could come in and essentially finish boring out the part of the spark plug that was in the chamber, and rebore it with an insert to take a spark plug. Without having to pull the block, etc. I think it was about $300, maybe less - but could've been a lot worse. When it happened, IIRC, the truck was about 7 years old.

Yup - didn't we talk about this before?

I think so - but Ford has done a lovely job foisting paying for the problem onto the customer.

That`s been proven several times. Try leaving most of the vowells out of a written sentence - you don`t actually need them! LOL!

Come to think of it, my small son always referred to the "abdominal snowman."

Pat

Butbutbut.....words that end with e make the previous vowel a long sound! If it were to rhyme with john, it would be spelled scon!

Take *that*, Trish! :)

Joan (not john! -- two vowels make the first one long: moan, mean, jean, boar, receipt, etc. )

That argument has been going on since time immemorial (or at least since the first scone was baked!)

Reminds me of the old joke about the visitor to London many years ago who saw the sign saying "Oklahoma pronounced success" - and shot himself!

Pat

snip

Wow, Pat! Are you *that* behind on reading the group or did your 'puter blurp up some oldies? LOL! Check the date of Trish's post! :)

Joan