The Chrysler Letter

17 Ardmore Rd Kensington, CA 94707
December 11, 1983.

Mr. George C. Biagini
B & H Motors
900 Sansome St.
San Francisco, CA 94111

Dear Mr. Biagini

In October of 1980 we bought a 1980 New Yorker from your firm. This was a demonstrator with 1260 miles on it, serial number TP42 HAA 157771.

The car has generally performed satisfactorily and has been a comfortable travelling vehicle. We have made several long trips with four to six people in the car and have been able to get 19 plus mpg while using unleaded regular.

The service which we have received from your garage, however, has been drastically different from the performance of the car.

We brought the car in for a few minor repairs on November 17, 1980, and most things were done properly except for a stalling during the warm-up period, the continued presence of a used jack in the trunk and the failure to answer a question (I had provided a nit-picking list) about the very skimpy undercoating job on a car of such class.

The problem of stalling or roughness was still present and I finally had time to leave the car with your garage crew for several days in May of this year. I brought back my old list with some new things. One was a non-functioning left front parking light. I told the garage manager to keep the car for a few days so that they could find the warm-up problem. That was a Tuesday. On Friday my wife picked up the car so I didn't get to see it until the next day.

The light was still out even though the work sheet (copy enclosed) showed that a new one was charged against the job. The warm-up problem was still there (replacing one spark plug didn't do it). I also had complained about a rocking driver's seat but a part had to be ordered. There was still no answer to my question about the poor quality undercoating.

In spite of the failure to fix these major problems, the door locking knob from the driver's door had been "stolen", or so your garage man told my wife. It is my belief that one of your people took to replace one missing from another car. I find it hard to believe that someone would walk in off of the street and take a door locking knob from a busy garage. Well, in spite of all of these bad things the car was covered with dust .... and so you can understand that it came as no surprise that the promised seat rail and the missing door locker never were ordered and no one has called me on it since May.

You can also understand that I would only come back to your garage for repairs if the car's wheels fell off at the corner of Broadway and Sansome, and that would be to call a tow truck. Of course I could do that repair myself as I do have a shiny new jack in the trunk of the car.

But I wouldn't want to leave you hanging with the mystery of what was causing the stalling during the warm-up period. having lost all hope of any attention to the problem at your place, I went to McKevitt in Berkeley (being within only 20 minutes fast walking distance from my work) and sure enough, they replaced all eight spark plugs and put in a light bulb that worked (I thought that your report might have been right and that there was a wiring problem) and they answered my question about the undercoating: it was indeed skimpy but that was the type of junk they were getting from the factory these days.

Good news now - I guess it's good, depending on your point of view - McKevitt's boys didn't fix the stallout problem either. I guess you could say that replacing one spark plug in error is no worse than replacing eight, but then McKevitt also somehow loosened up a heater hose so that coolant slowly dripped out onto the exhaust manifold and smelled like burning phenolic so I thought that the brakes were dragging or that we were about to burst into flames on the freeway. I fixed this with my trusty Swiss Army Knife the next day.

I soon made another appointment with McKevitt with the understanding that I would leave the car in the morning and come hack at lunch and show someone what was wrong with the car. Oh, I forgot to mention that in the meantime I had found which linkage to move by removing the top of the air cleaner each tine we started the car cold.

I went back at 12:30 and waited till 1:15, but it was worth it because John, the shop manager brought me to Ron (sorry men, I forgot your last names) and we went out and around the block to where I left the car, pulled the air cleaner cover and started the car.

"Ah," Ron mused thoughtfully. "Yeah, that does look a little strange. Let's drive it around to the shop." Ron walked over to his bench, picked up an identical carb, pointed to the choke linkage ... mine was bent at a different angle, causing a lockup as the thermostat tried to open up the choke.

A simple bending of this linkage with a pair of pliers and the problem went away.

I have owned a variety of new cars over the years and once the warranty runs out I never go hack to a dealer. Why? Re-read this letter. Just to get a few simple things done requires several time-consuming trips because of lack of attention to the customer's complaints. In the long run I have benefited by saving thousands of dollars in repair money over years by doing all of my own work and I have yet to be stranded anywhere due to a malfunctioning car.

Well, you have probably guessed by now that I wouldn't spend several hours getting this letter written just to get even with you or to blow off steam. I expect, free of charge, the missing driver's door locking knob to appear at my mailbox in the next few days.

There is one other item that you owe me. On a trip to Las Vegas, one of of rear seat passengers pulled on the hanging safety strap and it came off in her hand. I searched for the screws which I assumed must have fallen out but finally found them still screwed in place. The idea of two small flathead screws holding this large leather strap was rather bizarre so I checked the other side and guess what? That side had a flat, shiny plate with countersunk holes for the screws which of course would hold the leather strap properly in place. The fact that the screws were still in place indicates that either the car came from the factory that way or, once again was "stolen" by the same Chrysler trivia thief that walked off with the door locking knob. A sketch is provided to clarify the part's description. Please also procure one of these for me so that I can re-hang the safety strap.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Yours truly,

James S. Jardine

cc: McKevitt Chrysler/Volvo, Berkeley, CA
Customer Relations, Chrysler Center, Detroit, MI

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