American Crapitalism

I hate American Crapitalism.

Last weekend the wife and I got in the car for a trip to the store. The car hesitated to start but did eventually fire up. However, the dash lit-up with a bunch of lights and warnings. I opened the hood and a squirrel jumped out. I figured he had chewed on something so started checking it out.  

Now I'm not a certified mechanic but I can troubleshoot and generally fix things. I was in the auto repair business for about fifteen years and have a solid background in electronics. My car rarely goes to a shop.

I spent about four hours going over the wiring of the car and found several places that had been chewed on that were not related to wiring, hood mat, a few pieces of plastic etc.

I did eventually find one short section of wiring that had been chewed on. A six inch section containing eight wires with a plug on one end. One wire had been mostly chewed through with only a couple strands still connected.  A couple other wires had superficial damage but looked like they would still carry current.  

The broken wire was hard to get to and looked like it might still be functional so I just put a piece of tape around it and scheduled an appointment with the dealer.

My thought was that this probably wasn't the issue, that there must be some more damage somewhere that I just couldn't find or that the computer had been glitched when the little devil bit this wire. Regardless, it was going to take the dealership's equipment to figure it out and clear the warnings.

So I take it to the dealer to get checked out.

Their base cost to trouble shoot is $184. This seems high but I understand they will have time in it so I told them to go ahead.

The next day they call me with the findings.

... the brake fluid has never been flushed. (yep)

... the rear brakes are about ready to replace. (I'll do that when it's time)

... the rear differential fluid has never been changed (OK)

... the transmission fluid has never been changed. (I do that)

God-Damn, stop with the sales and get to the point.

... we did find rodent damage and will get you an estimate.

I stopped by to talk with the mechanic. 

He said the damage that I found was the issue. The one broken wire was the only one he could see that was really broken and that it was worse than I thought,  down to one strand out of 13-15. He was sure it was the problem.

Now the American-Crapitalism.

Now this wire is about 6 inches long with 8 individual wires wrapped in split-plastic wire-loom and black tape.  It's a little hard to reach but is accessible and I could cut-out and splice in a replacement wire in hour, maybe two. It would work and probably last the life of the car. Total cost, even at dealer labor rates probably less than $400.

But ... This is not an option for the dealer.

They have to replace the entire wiring harness. 

Total cost: $8,427 !!

$4,769 for the harness and $2,800 labor !! (Note on the labor. The mechanic said it would take him eight hours or so but they bill for 14 because that's what "the book" says.)

To fix a 6 inch section of wire!

Fuckers!! 

The dealer says "These are related to safety devices so our insurance company won't allow us to work on the harness we have to replace it."

I said what about brakes? you work on them. you could get sued. 

"Well, yeah right but we can't repair harnesses."

Wonderful.

So $8,500 to  fix what could be fixed with a 6 inch piece of wire, a tech with a soldering iron, and some electricians tape.

Now my comprehensive insurance is supposed to pay for rodent damage but it still costs someone $8,500. My deductible is $1000 so it'll cost me that. My insurance may go up so it'll cost me there.

But,.. this isn't really about what it costs me.

It's about a fucked up system and the incredible fucking that consumers take when dealing with American business today.  

Big business combined with our legal and insurance system put us here.

I'm sure the dealer could be sued if they repaired the wire and it did fail. Hell, they might lose a case even if the failure was somewhere else, it would be hard to tell. They worked on it. They are responsible.

The manufacturer sure doesn't want to give their dealers the go-ahead to make out-of-the-box repairs. They have enough issues with liability lawsuits.

They both assume that insurance will be covering this so they might as well get all they can, $4,800 for $100 worth of wire and plastic in the harness along with 14 hours of labor that will really only take 8 hours.

The consumer feels raped by the cost of auto insurance so doesn't really care about the total cost as long as they are not paying it.

So, we end up with a $200 job costing $8,500

And yep, I could fix it myself but ... now the car VIN is in the system as needing a harness. If I fix it and then there is a problem, I could be liable. I could see my car insurance refusing to pay because I didn't fix it properly.

If I had it to do over again, I would have fixed it and just kept my mouth shut.