Zebulon Montgomery Pike Trail to the sources of the Mississippi 1805 — 1806

Day 6: August 16th, 2002 Pittsburgh (Transdrive)

I am like a cat on a hot tin roof. I try to reach Transdrive several times, but I only reach their answering machine. Around 2pm I am getting really nervous. I need my car back over the weekend to do my planned work. Otherwise I will run out of time for installation of my transmission oil cooler. I leave a message on the answering machine and hope they will call me back. Only 20 minutes later I receive their call.

He apologizes, but on Friday they are always busy like hell. Up to now they were not able to locate anything leaking. Therefore I shall come and pick up my car. Helen drives me over and I meet the guy (Carl) outside who took my car in. He shows me again, that they were not able to locate anything. Then we go into his office and he gives me back my keys: You are all set!

When he sees my questioning look he says that they have done nothing at all. They only filled in 3 quarts of transmission oil — that’s it. What a difference to my Chevy dealer who almost start to charge for typing the order in…

I say thank you and promise to be back if I should encounter to loose oil on my trail. Then I drive back home. Also Helen cannot believe that they have charged nothing, not even the oil. This is real customer service. But I am pretty upset now with my Chevy dealer: Instead of topping off my transmission they tried to sell me a new one!

Helen says that I should at least tell them what they did. So I decide to drive over on Monday. At least I want my $70 back what they charged for their wrong diagnosis. Anyway this is all a big relief for me, even when my rear main seal is still happily leaking…

I still need to buy some stuff. But now it’s Friday afternoon and the stores are really busy. Therefore I decide to do my shopping trip tomorrow morning. I will use the rest of the day to relax — understandable after all the trouble I had the last couple of days, right?