Tuesday, September 6, 2005

It's my lucky day, or I've been had

My car broke, and it cost me $200 to fix it. It's my lucky day, and I'm not being facetious. My catalytic converter was jammed up, and it needed to be replaced. Catalytic converters usually cost about $500, because they have essential components made of Platinum and Rhodium.

On a loosely related topic, I think I'm going to do some dumpster diving tonight.

But why was it cheap? I just passed my factory warrantee; I was assuming that this would've been all covered under my extended warrantee that I purchased.

Nope. But when I let go of that long, painful sigh to the servicemen, he said "management has agreed to waive all but $200" of the service. I could have left paying $700 today. (I'm guessing I got the thing @cost)

Either I had an unknown friend pull some strings, or I've been had. The serviceman told me "these things aren't supposed to go out," but it's all a bit fishy. They could've not told my it was covered, paid the warantee company my deductable $100, and put the rest in their pocket.

I'm going to find out. As a mechanical engineer, I should have little problem detecting whether they replaced it or refurbed/repaired my CatConv.

I was trained to be an Engineer, but I've also learned how to be a Reverse Engineer

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