Car servicing - finally we agree

I hate taking my car in for a service. It seems like mechanical blackmail to me. 'If tho donst gettith thy car serviced asif we declarith, thenith your warranty is voidith.'

My Mazda 2 is a clever little thing, it can carry all manner of stuff, tardis like, constantly surprising Steve and I enjoy driving her around. She is nifty and economical, the air con really blasts out the chill on hot days and the radio / CD player is loud enough to make me look like some head banging grannie. She is the second one I've had since new, the first now lives at Bell's. So for 7 years I have phaffed around and smiled a lot, until it comes time for the compulsory service days.

I have argued that the degree of over servicing was just money raking and as the warranty was  contingent on following these ridiculous rules, really it was just extortion.

So when I needed to book the old girl in for a service which was overdue by a month and a half, even though I had only driven 13000 km ( not quite 4000 km since the last time I threw money at 'em ) instead of 20000 km, which was the name of this service, which made it a major one! I was not best pleased.

I hate going there and I hate the fact that you play degrees of separation from mechanic, spear headed by the front of house staff who as mechanics would make rather adequate up-sellers at a call centre.

So with migraine head and a belly full of bile I arrived today. I whinged about the unnecessary cost and effort and then it dawned on the girlie, that in deed it was NOW deemed unnecessary.

For all this time I have fronted as demanded, every 6 months or 10000 km, which ever came first. But finally Mazda has decided that that really is just taking the piss, so she told me to come back in June,- 300 bucks saved. Yippee! I can only imagine that at some meeting somewhere important a bunch of folk sat around laughing and agreeing that they had taken the piss for quite long enough and that they would now arbitrarily choose a one year timetable to replace the six months, unless of course the car is driven for lots and lots of miles. Yippee again!

Except that then I remember that I have paid and paid for this girlie ride, and the last one. It seems remarkable to me that no-one is wanting to chat about refunding some of the extorted cash. But as that is never gonna happen and if I chased it, it would be a hiding to nothing, I am perhaps uncharacteristically gonna let it go. Yeh, I am just gonna be pleased that I only need to go in once a year. YippeeKaiYai!