The Fight Goes On

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 to Tuesday, March 14, 2005
Remember this letter that we received a couple of weeks ago? It was sent to us by the National Service and Parts Manager for Daimler Chrysler Canada, Jim. He suggests that if there are any observable warranted defects in materials and workmanship in our vehicle that we should take it to Sorenson Page for review. Jim did not give me a phone number to reach him at, but I did manage to track him down.

In my conversations with Jim, it was obvious that he was not well versed in my case. He seemed unaware of several issues that have been ongoing and of several of the issues that we've had with MacIVER Dodge. Regardless, we continued to discuss what the next step should be. He even started to entertain the possibility of Daimler Chrysler buying out my lease. Wow! Could we have finally made some progress? He was going to check into the amount owing on my vehicle, but he still wanted me to schedule another review of the ongoing issues. This was to be done at Sorenson Page under the leadership of Phil, the district tech manager (remember him?).  We agreed to schedule an appointment to have this done.

Over the last couple of weeks, our transmission has continued to slip. We've also started to have some additional issues with our left sliding door. It is starting to make a really bad grinding noise most of time when it is opened or closed. And, on at least 3 occasions it has actually seized while part way open (or closed). Our left rear interior light has also continued to turn on randomly by itself. This has happened at least 3 times over the past 2 weeks.

Chrysler Financial is also starting to hound us.  We have been holding off on payments while trying to work out some other courses of action.  They are demanding payment, so I asked Jim if he would tell to hold off until we have resolved the ongoing issues with our vehicle.  He initially tells me that they are a separate company and that he has no control over them.  Yes, Chrysler Financial is a separate company, but it is still part of the Daimler Chrysler group of organizations.  Jim did eventually agree to make a phone call and my lease payments were put on hold.  I was actually quite surprised by this.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005 to Friday, March 18, 2005
March 15 was the scheduled date for the review of our ongoing issues. It took a while to get this booked due to scheduling conflicts with Phil and with Peter, the service manager at Sorenson Page. We started by reviewing my list of ongoing issues. We then proceeded to take a test drive. We were unable to reproduce any of the issues. However, this was not at all unexpected. Most of the issues are electrical (caused by corrosion on wires), and these types of problems are intermittent by nature.

The plan was to keep our van in the shop for several days.  Sorenson Page was to fully review and attempt to reproduce all of the issues.  At the end of this week, it was indicated to us that the only issue found was related to the transmission.  It was resolved and we were expected to pick up the van.

Jim, the National Services and Parts Manager even sent us an official letter stating that they found our vehicle to be in "very good condition".  You can view the letter here. I'm sure that Daimler Chrysler assumes my wife and I are making up all these issues. I can assure you that we are not.  We have much better things to do with our time.  Most of the issues are electrical (caused by corrosion on wires) and therefore they are intermittent and often difficult to reproduce within a short period of time.

Monday, March 21, 2005 to Wednesday, April 6, 2005
The issues with our van are still unresolved and we're really getting tired of having to deal with them.  We have decided to not pick the van up until additional effort is made to resolve the issues.  We waited several days and then received a phone call from Paul, the Manager of Customer Service for Daimler Chrysler Canada.  He called to remind us that our van was ready and that Chrysler Financial had been advised to pursue payment collection.  I advised him that we were not picking up our van until the issues were resolved.

I asked Paul to explain why, given that MacIVER Dodge has witnessed the left rear interior light turn on by itself, that this is not enough to investigate the issue further - more than a couple, short road tests.  His response was simply that Sorenson Page had to witness the problem happen.  It was not good enough that MacIVER Dodge had witnessed the problem and it was not good enough that we've witnessed the problem in excess of 20 times.  It has to be witnessed by Sorenson Page to warrant further repair effort.  Nice!

Tuesday, March 29, 2005
We have received a nice letter from a law firm representing Daimler Chrysler.  It states pretty bluntly that we are to pick up the van, prove that we still have insurance on it, and make all outstanding payments or we will be sued.

Base on the above letter, I am assuming that Daimler Chrysler is not going to buy our lease out.  I have been unable to get in touch with Jim again, so I have been unable to confirm this - but I think it is pretty obvious.  Jim is apparently out of the country and not able to call me.  I guess he's in one of those countries without phones.  I've also been told that there is no one else that I can speak with.  They have no one else available to handle my situation.

Thursday, March 31, 2005
Today it was announced that Daimler Chrysler has recalled 1.3 million Mercedes vehicles. Unbelievable! That is a huge recall! You can read the story here .

Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Phil Edmonston, the author of the LemonAid Car Guides, was doing a book signing tonight at Chapters in Newmarket. That is just around the corner from my house, so my wife and I decided to stop in and say hi. Phil and I have been conversing by e-mail for the past several months, but I had never had the opportunity to meet him. What a great guy! Just watching him talk to the line up of customers really impressed me. I bet he's heard every car horror story out there. Anyway, my wife and I had a great conversation with Phil. He went out of his way answering our list of questions, provided us with a lot of insight, and gave us a lot of ideas to help with our battle.

Thursday, April 7, 2005
Based on input that we have received from several lawyers, we have decided to take our van back.  The fact is that I am in breach of my lease contract, so it would be really easy for a judge to rule against me.  If I were to get a sympathetic judge (maybe a Dodge owner themselves), they may listen to the un-ending troubles that we've been having and rule in our favour.  However, the risks are too great.  We'll take our van back and continue to fight in other ways - like getting a vehicle wrap to promote this web site.

Upon taking our van back, we have been instructed to call Sorenson Page whenever we experience one of the issues we're complaining about - as soon as the problem occurs.  I don't really understand the point of all this.  Are they going to rush someone out to our house when we wake up in the morning and our interior lights are on?  Are they going to rush someone out when our sliding door seizes part way closed?

Friday, April 8, 2005
Less that 24 hours after we received our van back, we are now experiencing problems with the passenger side window.  The power window buttons (on the driver side and on the passenger side) will not open the passenger window.  The driver's window works and the rear windows work, but not the passenger window.  So, as instructed, we call Sorenson Page to report this.  We are asked to bring our van in later that day to be looked at.

Later that day, we drive down to Sorenson Page to have our passenger window inspected.  It is now working of course.  As soon as we started the van the next time, it started working again.  The explanation we receive is that it is probably the motor for the window.  If we experience the problem again, we are told that the motor will be replaced.

There are only 3 explanations for all these problems that we continue to experience.

• We are experiencing widespread electrical problems due to corrosion on wires caused by the large quantities of water that had leaked into our vehicle on multiple occasions (due to manufacturing defects). -- I think, to most people, this is the most likely explanation!
• We have had multiple, independent components fail for no related reason. -- While this is a possibility, I think this makes Daimler Chrysler look even worse.  How can a single vehicle (less than 2 years old) have so many independent problems?
• My wife and I are delusional.  --  I'm sure there are people who think this is the case.  :)

Saturday, April 9, 2005 to Monday, April 18, 2005
We're actually enjoying having our van back. We did really miss it for the past couple of weeks. If it wasn't plagued with problems, we could REALLY like it. We are still bothered by a grinding noise as the left sliding door opens and closes and it is getting progressively worse again. It really seemed like the door was oiled the last time we complained about it. The chain certainly looked a lot more oily than when we had dropped it off for service. As well, there still seems to be excessive road noise from this same door.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Our left rear interior light was on this morning. I did not notice this time if it was on before the vehicle was started (usually it is). However, once I started the van and closed the door, all the lights went off except for the left rear one. I had to get out and physically turn it off. The problems are starting again. What a great start to the day!

On my wife's way home from school at lunch, she started to notice a burning smell coming from our van. At first she thought it must be something outside. When she arrived home though, and got out of the vehicle, she could definitely tell that it was coming from our van. There was also some smoke starting to come out from under the hood at this point as well. We immediately called Sorenson Page and they instructed us to call Roadside Assistance to have our vehicle towed to the dealership for service.

While waiting for the tow truck, I decided to give our left sliding door a try. I pressed the open button on our remote. The door started to grind open. I closed it and it grinded closed. The grinding sound is getting worse again.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005
It turns out that the smoke and burning smell was caused by the A/C compressor being seized. Sorenson Page replaced it. One more repair to add to the list. I'm beginning to wonder what original parts are left in our van. They did also find a problem with a rolling hinge on the left sliding door and they replaced it as well. Maybe this will finally end the problems that we've been having with this door (excessive road noise, grinding noise when opening and closing, occasionally seizing on open/close). We've been complaining about some of these issues for months now. We're convinced that Daimler Chrysler thinks we're making them up. Maybe now they will finally be resolved.

Sorenson Page had also planned to replace the rear left light assembly, but the part had not arrived yet. We decided to wait until another day for this work to be performed.