Hi all,
I spent a hour or two yesterday afternoon trying to replace broken alternator belt.
I got replacement from a local car spares shop. The new belt was too small by a little to go over the bottom pulley* (*more apparent later in story). So I gave up and would have to have another go tomorrow I thought.
My wife wanted me to go out to get her a bottle of wine for the evening, but car would not start due to the non existent drive belt not charging battery.
So I decided to call on the rescue company, "home start service" : "no problem, sir, someone will be with you within a hour".
Sure enough a guy called to say he would be about 40 mins. He arrived and asked what the problem was, he said to go indoors out of the rain he would be about 1/2 hour fixing the car.
After about 20mins he came to door to say that he could not get the belt to tighten and had called his garage (he was an appointed agent of rescue company) to find out how many pulleys there were on my car as the belt seemed wrong size.
Now for the interesting bit......... he shone a torch under the car and showed me a pulley was missing. (The very same pulley I could not get the belt to go over). Odd that the said pulley was there just before he arrived and then vanished.
He made his excuses and left, I checked again that I was not seeing things and sure enough the pulley had been removed and all bright and shining metal underneath where the pulley was.
I rang the rescue company and asked if the mechanic would kindly call me back, she asked me to hold and would put me through, she came back to say he was not answering his mobile and would keep trying and to expect a call a little later.
After around an hour i called up to say I had no call from the mechanic yet o.k I will try him again he will be in touch. Ten minutes passed, he did call me, and I accused him of removing the pulley from my car as to save face that he could not fix the car. He denied my allegations.
So back on to the rescue centre to tell them I want to lodge a formal complaint. I was transferred to a supervisor who said my allegations were very serious and said it will take a great deal of time investigating and would rather avoid this course of action and wanted to call the mechanic herself, and would call me back. She called back to say the mechanic would come back today with a new pulley and fit a new belt too if I wanted. I declined the offer and said I would be contacting my solicitor.
Ten minutes passed and I had the boss of the mechanic on the phone saying I am making a very serious allegation about his employee and his company's reputation and that the telephone conversation was being recorded and I will be sued for slander he hung up.
Where do i go from here any advice would be greatly appreciated.
John
I spent a hour or two yesterday afternoon trying to replace broken alternator belt.
I got replacement from a local car spares shop. The new belt was too small by a little to go over the bottom pulley* (*more apparent later in story). So I gave up and would have to have another go tomorrow I thought.
My wife wanted me to go out to get her a bottle of wine for the evening, but car would not start due to the non existent drive belt not charging battery.
So I decided to call on the rescue company, "home start service" : "no problem, sir, someone will be with you within a hour".
Sure enough a guy called to say he would be about 40 mins. He arrived and asked what the problem was, he said to go indoors out of the rain he would be about 1/2 hour fixing the car.
After about 20mins he came to door to say that he could not get the belt to tighten and had called his garage (he was an appointed agent of rescue company) to find out how many pulleys there were on my car as the belt seemed wrong size.
Now for the interesting bit......... he shone a torch under the car and showed me a pulley was missing. (The very same pulley I could not get the belt to go over). Odd that the said pulley was there just before he arrived and then vanished.
He made his excuses and left, I checked again that I was not seeing things and sure enough the pulley had been removed and all bright and shining metal underneath where the pulley was.
I rang the rescue company and asked if the mechanic would kindly call me back, she asked me to hold and would put me through, she came back to say he was not answering his mobile and would keep trying and to expect a call a little later.
After around an hour i called up to say I had no call from the mechanic yet o.k I will try him again he will be in touch. Ten minutes passed, he did call me, and I accused him of removing the pulley from my car as to save face that he could not fix the car. He denied my allegations.
So back on to the rescue centre to tell them I want to lodge a formal complaint. I was transferred to a supervisor who said my allegations were very serious and said it will take a great deal of time investigating and would rather avoid this course of action and wanted to call the mechanic herself, and would call me back. She called back to say the mechanic would come back today with a new pulley and fit a new belt too if I wanted. I declined the offer and said I would be contacting my solicitor.
Ten minutes passed and I had the boss of the mechanic on the phone saying I am making a very serious allegation about his employee and his company's reputation and that the telephone conversation was being recorded and I will be sued for slander he hung up.
Where do i go from here any advice would be greatly appreciated.
John
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