I brought the car in to the dealer last Friday for the gas tank and swing arm recalls as well as regular maint. Later that day I received a phone call saying that the water pump was damaged and that they needed to keep the car until Monday (I've since searched on the site about the water pumps leaking/breaking) no biggie. I had also made a complaint about a ticking sound coming from the front wheels when turning on a tight radius.

When I picked up the car on Monday, the first thing that I noticed was that the radio was on, I never listen to the radio, I don't think much of it. The next thing that I noticed was that the audio plt was on, I found this feature too distracting with the constant volume change so I always leave it off. Next, the air was turned on, I know for a fact that I hadn't turned it on the morning that I dropped off the car. Finally I noticed this morning that the amb temp was showing 55F, I leave it on centigrade reading because 15C means more to me than 55F.

So in summary these are the things that were turned on:
radio
audio plt
a/c
amb

I don't really want to read into things here, but I have a feeling that my car was taken for more than a road test. It's my fault for not having checked the odometer when I dropped it off, so I can't say for sure. But if it was just a road test, why would all these options need to be turned on?

Am I making something out of nothing?

 

Didn't they note the odometer reading on the invoice when you dropped the car off? Also did you lose your radio pre-sets? They might of disconnected the battery during the service.

 

Expo is right, If your presets are lost, then all your questions could be answered. If not, I would mention something to them. Not to alarm you but my buddy took his mustang GT in for service and when he got it back he had 75 kms put on it and 1/2 a tank of gas gone. thats one hell of a test drive. But Im sure that is not tha case with you. Where did you get it serviced?

 

I checked the radio stations and some are programmed to the local channels. Like I said before I don't really listen to the radio so I guess I can ask my wife if she had any pre-sets. Since the radio was on, maybe whoever took it for the road test quickly set some channels.

The KMs on the invoice show 31,000, when it was actually around 35,800. It's funny too because when I brought it in July the invoice shows 30,568; as if I only drove 200km in 2 months! I should have written down my kms before bringing it in.

Do you think that I should contact them? I have a feeling that they'll deny that there was any foul play.

Performance Mazda did a real sloppy I don't think that I want to bring my car back to them. Not impressed.

 

Sounds like the battery was disconnected to me . . . The ticking wheels I fixed my self, cleaned up the surface of the rotor hats and torqued the wheels to 108 ft/lbs as per the TSB. That took less time than getting the car to and from the dealer. I didn't get the recall notices yet, will wait until they have finished experimenting on a few other peoples cars before I take mine in . . .

Overall I am not very impressed with Mazda dealers in Ottawa. I have found Performance to be the best but they are a bit disorganized, it took multiple visits to get a successful reflash as per the cold start Special Service Program notice from Mazda. At least the service manager seems knowledgeable and they do try to help. Both Carling and Bank Street refused to do the SSP work for some reason even though the dealer I bought the car from in Toronto was calling and reminding me to get the work done. Bank Street completely annoyed me on the phone and I never set foot on the premises. I have heard several accounts of service problems there, most recently from a coworker and the management doesn't seem to care when the issues were brought to their attention. Carling are too smart to read the TSBs, they were not following them to do the work and they outright lied to me about the existence of the cold start SSP, they claimed to have checked Mazda's computers, the other dealer had no problem finding it . . . The service manager was quick to feed me a pile of BS when I initially complained about the service issues, then when I provided printed information to the contrary from Mazda he just decided to ignore me from that point on. When my squealing brakes were finally fixed by Performance as per the TSB the problem went away, imagine that . . I will not step foot in Carling again . . .

The devil you know is probably better than the other choices in my mind . . . I don't know what Argus is like other than I got placed on infinite hold when calling for an appointment and gave up.

I don't get these guys, other car dealers and some independent shops in town bend over backwards to provide excellent service. They seem to understand that they can make good money repairing cars and that a happy customer will return, go figure . . .

 

Hey Scoop, Hows it hanging bro?

 

The radio presets are what my wife had set them at. So the battery was not disconnected. I've dealt with Argus before and was happy with their service, they're a little out of the way for me now but I don't like having to question the service that I get.

Thanks for the advice.

 

Hey Helas, things are going fine, maybe Mic will reappear and attempt to put Bellville on the map again at some point :-)

Mistersql I have another thought . . . As part of the recall for the heat related problems they are supposed to reflash the ECU, the new program ensures that you can't rev at high RPMs for a long time if the car is not moving. They probably clear all the user settings out of memory during the upgrade to minimize the chance of problems and you could end up with all the defaults. That may explain some of the issues, I have no idea how much integration there is between the ECU, HVAC and radio, they are definitely connected at some level.

 

Bellville is aking to be put back on the map again:D

 

I just find out that I am going on a 6 months tour this 25th Nov,
So if you want to come over here, I have to know ASAP...
I have to go to Ottawa for one week 24 to 28 Oct
and kington from 12 to 21 Oct....Lots of courses coming up
Busy busy busy
gas is cheapper here....97.5 as we speak

 

A tad busy also, it's looking like spring or something . . .