The grumpy thread

[MrDuke]

Just pretend you're living in North Wales, and put it down to 'rural charm'. That's what I've been doing for the past 10 years.

[Spiny Norman]

Car insurance due yesterday. Did an online comparison site thingy on Friday, so far so good.

Wasn't out in the car all weekend so only got round to it today at lunchtime and the quote had expired.

Back onto the same site and hit 'refresh' ..... £35 dearer for some reason.  FUCK OFF.
Got on the phone to the company concerned, went all through the palaver of giving all my details so they could review my application and try to give me the same price, which after about 20 minutes they did but what a time waster.

 

I'm old enough and have a full NCB so the actual price of car insurance doesn't really bother me these days, but why do all these so called service industries make dealing with them such a fucking faff?

[chaseracer]

Jesus, wasn't expecting such an in-depth reply, thanks Frank.

How do you work that, to ensure you A) Don't get told to FRO !

and  B ) Look like i know what i'm talking about

 

Become an active member of a trade union.

[Pillock]

 

 

I'm old enough and have a full NCB so the actual price of car insurance doesn't really bother me these days, but why do all these so called service industries make dealing with them such a fucking faff?

You could always bin it off and not bother with insurance.

 

Oh, wait. No you can't. And there, right there, is your answer. Do they have to make it easy? Nope. Because you can't go without. They just have to make it slightly better than the others, it's like eating twelve shit sandwiches and eleven of them are mouldy bread. One is better, but it's still a shit sandwich.

[chaseracer]

Eloquently stated 

[AnthonyG]

Lost the skylights on the bus at 4.30am... in the depot at 5.30am...

Oh yeah. The parts are NLA from the manufacturer, the conversion kit is special order, costs a fortune and is a cunt to fit? Excellent.

Now been waiting on a relief driver at Ardrossan for an hour 'cos I had to steal his bus to finish the first part of my shift. He's bringing me a Sherpa down so I can drive an hour up the coast to the other depot to get their spare bus 'cos all of mine are fucked. Then tonight at midnight I need to drive an hour and a half up the coast from Ayr to the other depot to take their bus back, collect the Sherpa and then drive an hour back to my depot. All in storm force winds.

YEAH MATE HAVING A GREAT DAY TA

Hey, you get to drive a Sherpa, what's not to like?

 

Unless this Sherpa is not LDV's finest, but a Hungarian single decker or something. In which I endorse your grump!!

[ChinaTom]

Mercedes Benz Norwich Service Department. You used to be fine. Polite, efficient and worthy of the marque. Peterborough was always rotten, but then what isn't in that place (grew up there). Exeter is fabulous - I doubt Bentley customers are treated any better.

 

Booked on-line for a major service - paid £50 for the collect / return service and requested early pick-up for a variety of mundane life-based reasons. 08:00 came and went, as did 09:00, 10, and the 11:00 self-imposed deadline too. Rang them at 12:30, and got a right snotty cow who couldn't understand why I was annoyed that I had to cancel my afternoon. She didn't press the mute button, or pressed the wrong button for putting me on hold and I overheard her yelling at the service department chap that "some guy reckoned he 'ad a pick-up booked. I ain't showin' anything 'ere. 'E'll ave to bring it in yeah? You speak to 'im - he sounds a bit pissed off I don't wanna deal with 'im - not my fault he don't know how to use the website properly"

 

Anyway, resisted the temptation to reveal I had heard that excellent piece of customer service as the service chap sounded pretty annoyed with her too. I know who this was - she is an orange overweight peroxide daughter of nouveau-riche bathroom and kitchen fittings showroom. Daddy probably orders his pre-owned ML's and SLK's regularly enough to warrant her employment there. They knew nothing of my booking until I gave them the reference number off the invoice I had already paid. Suddenly, I was a respected customer again. Good.

 

Rocks up at 14:00 and promises to get the car back to me in time for 18:00 when I need to leave for South West.

 

OK, now it's little things that infuriate me - made worse by the events of the morning. The trip meter "from start" mode shows 16.8 miles (the precise distance between dealer and home) and the mpg shows 22.6 and 21 minutes. That means no horrendous traffic jam mpg (I can't do that journey in 21 minutes on a bright summer morning at 05:00), just the fact that the delivery driver has managed a surely illegal and dangerous average speed for the B1113. It was the same driver that collected it sans apology / sans explanation for the fuck-up. Why can't he just take the time to return the car settings (seats and mirrors, radio station, heater settings) as they were? Why did the person who valeted the car not put all the items that were in the door bins back into the door bins after vacuuming? Why did he not see that the de-icer leaks from the trigger when lying upside down on the seat. OK, all little things, but when I had the same service done in Exeter, a thoroughly nice chap arrived at the house on time, explained very clearly that he would adjust the seats and mirrors, but store the settings he finds when he first enters the car in the 3rd memory option. We had a bit of a giggle when he realized my car doesn't have the memory pack, but he made the effort to remember them anyway. He gave me a set of brochures to store in the downstairs loo so I can plan the car's replacement, and told me to expect the car back between 16:30 and 17:00. When he returned the car, he walked me through the service, all the little things they had found on the inspection, asked me to check the car before he left to make sure I was happy (I noticed 35.8 mpg for 6 miles and 16 minutes which was very good for the hills around there). As there were many sheep in the drive, I offered him a cup of tea while they were rounded up and barked at. He accepted and we discussed Exeter City FC for a while, and the AMG S65 he'd collected and delivered earlier in the week.

 

The whole experience was a pleasure - even good value for money.

 

OK. I'm boring myself now - just needed to vent. Mrs CT just can't see what my problem is. My fault for paying 60 times more than she (I, actually dear) did for her little Seicento, which is serviced in the village for about £55.

 

Lesson: use Exeter next time. Or be less flippin' lazy and find a good independent.

 

Over and out.

 

O yes, I know there are much much worse things to moan about (Je suis Charlie etc) and if they print the cartoons they are promising to print this week, I expect full armageddon...

[cms206]

Hey, you get to drive a Sherpa, what's not to like?

 

Unless this Sherpa is not LDV's finest, but a Hungarian single decker or something. In which I endorse your grump!!

LDV's finest indeed, except on 200-odd thousand miles with a typically LDV baggy steering box, no handbrake, no load sensing valve at the back end and a full set of ditchfinders... still, fibreglass flooring and quality Rover 800 switchgear means an exciting journey is always had.

[messerschmitt owner]

Mercedes Benz Norwich Service Department. You used to be fine. Polite, efficient and worthy of the marque. Peterborough was always rotten, but then what isn't in that place (grew up there). Exeter is fabulous - I doubt Bentley customers are treated any better.

 

Booked on-line for a major service - paid £50 for the collect / return service and requested early pick-up for a variety of mundane life-based reasons. 08:00 came and went, as did 09:00, 10, and the 11:00 self-imposed deadline too. Rang them at 12:30, and got a right snotty cow who couldn't understand why I was annoyed that I had to cancel my afternoon. She didn't press the mute button, or pressed the wrong button for putting me on hold and I overheard her yelling at the service department chap that "some guy reckoned he 'ad a pick-up booked. I ain't showin' anything 'ere. 'E'll ave to bring it in yeah? You speak to 'im - he sounds a bit pissed off I don't wanna deal with 'im - not my fault he don't know how to use the website properly"

 

Anyway, resisted the temptation to reveal I had heard that excellent piece of customer service as the service chap sounded pretty annoyed with her too. I know who this was - she is an orange overweight peroxide daughter of nouveau-riche bathroom and kitchen fittings showroom. Daddy probably orders his pre-owned ML's and SLK's regularly enough to warrant her employment there. They knew nothing of my booking until I gave them the reference number off the invoice I had already paid. Suddenly, I was a respected customer again. Good.

 

Rocks up at 14:00 and promises to get the car back to me in time for 18:00 when I need to leave for South West.

 

OK, now it's little things that infuriate me - made worse by the events of the morning. The trip meter "from start" mode shows 16.8 miles (the precise distance between dealer and home) and the mpg shows 22.6 and 21 minutes. That means no horrendous traffic jam mpg (I can't do that journey in 21 minutes on a bright summer morning at 05:00), just the fact that the delivery driver has managed a surely illegal and dangerous average speed for the B1113. It was the same driver that collected it sans apology / sans explanation for the fuck-up. Why can't he just take the time to return the car settings (seats and mirrors, radio station, heater settings) as they were? Why did the person who valeted the car not put all the items that were in the door bins back into the door bins after vacuuming? Why did he not see that the de-icer leaks from the trigger when lying upside down on the seat. OK, all little things, but when I had the same service done in Exeter, a thoroughly nice chap arrived at the house on time, explained very clearly that he would adjust the seats and mirrors, but store the settings he finds when he first enters the car in the 3rd memory option. We had a bit of a giggle when he realized my car doesn't have the memory pack, but he made the effort to remember them anyway. He gave me a set of brochures to store in the downstairs loo so I can plan the car's replacement, and told me to expect the car back between 16:30 and 17:00. When he returned the car, he walked me through the service, all the little things they had found on the inspection, asked me to check the car before he left to make sure I was happy (I noticed 35.8 mpg for 6 miles and 16 minutes which was very good for the hills around there). As there were many sheep in the drive, I offered him a cup of tea while they were rounded up and barked at. He accepted and we discussed Exeter City FC for a while, and the AMG S65 he'd collected and delivered earlier in the week.

 

The whole experience was a pleasure - even good value for money.

 

OK. I'm boring myself now - just needed to vent. Mrs CT just can't see what my problem is. My fault for paying 60 times more than she (I, actually dear) did for her little Seicento, which is serviced in the village for about £55.

 

Lesson: use Exeter next time. Or be less flippin' lazy and find a good independent.

 

Over and out.

 

O yes, I know there are much much worse things to moan about (Je suis Charlie etc) and if they print the cartoons they are promising to print this week, I expect full armageddon...

Surely this is a FIrst World problem of the type not normally found on Autoshite?

 

For a minute, I thought I was on the Mercedes Benz owners club forum again!

 

BTW try http://www.mercedesworld.net/forum/

brand new forum, run by enthusiasts with old Mercs rather than the owners found on other Mercedes forums.

[ChinaTom]

You're right. It doesn't really belong here at all. I'll have a look at the forum, but to be honest, this is the only forum I feel safe. And I am especially grumpy this week after I was so nearly scammed on airbnb. I dodged a bullet by millimetres. Denis Juarez Sanger nearly got me. The Bastard.

[messerschmitt owner]

lol

my Merc may hit a specialist for the odd thing my local garage or I cannot do but it won't be near Mercedes - those b*st*rds crashed a Merc into my smart roadster in their car park and gave me a BMW 1 series as a replacement till they could be bothered fixing it.

[Cavcraft]

I just want to apologise for living in Cheshire and categorically state that the desirable* area I live in does NOT contain any space hopper knockered vacuous tarts whose eyes are in different post codes.

[angle]

London drivers. Two miles, four roundabouts. The first two I'm cut up by someone turning left from the right hand lane, the second two I have to brake for someone turning right from the left hand lane. Oh, and it took half an hour. If you set fire to every Vauxhall Zafira in south London the world would be a far happier place, I've never come across one that wasn't driven by an absolute dribbling weapon.

[messerschmitt owner]

Cheshire is just the arse end of the Wirral.

[jakebullet]

I'm banned from evilbay's boards again. Posting the words "P's me off though" is “Posting material containing profanity, vulgarity, hate speech, or threats of violence.â€Â

 

I am Sparticus.

[MarvinsMom]

i'm sparticus too, and so's my wife 

 

(i think that i've got 2 films mixed up, bugger....)

[Minimad5]

Forgot how shit i was at trying to make a C.V

[cort16]

I found mercedes or be excellent when mine conked out and I was dealing with the call centre and mercedes recovery guy who came out . Only once it got in the hands of the dealers did it go down hill .

This was my old leased c220 coupe not the cl 500 they'd think all their Christmases had come at once if I took that in.

[Cavcraft]

Forgot how shit i was at trying to make a C.V

 

 

Message me on FaceAche later, Mark, I know somewhere you could send a CV to.

[Bren]

Which dickhead at VW decided that the battery should be located under the scuttle on a passat B5?

 

Just had to swap a battery on one (big), thought I was heading for prolapse - my bollocks were near the front wheel.

[steve_earwig]

You should just drag it out over the engine.

 

The Rav's battery is in a similar position, fortunately* it's minuscule.

[dugong]

Try to edit photos on Mac.

 

Brand new Mac refuses to recognise camera or NTFS formatted USB stick.

 

'Just works' my arse.

[cort16]

I flippin hate Mac's, which is really annoying as I need to buy one.

[Alan_Green]

Car insurance due yesterday. Did an online comparison site thingy on Friday, so far so good.

 

Wasn't out in the car all weekend so only got round to it today at lunchtime and the quote had expired.

Back onto the same site and hit 'refresh' ..... £35 dearer for some reason.  FUCK OFF.

Got on the phone to the company concerned, went all through the palaver of giving all my details so they could review my application and try to give me the same price, which after about 20 minutes they did but what a time waster.

 

I'm old enough and have a full NCB so the actual price of car insurance doesn't really bother me these days, but why do all these so called service industries make dealing with them such a fucking faff?

• Clear cookies then try again.  Or open an incognito window and search again.  
• With budget flights the price keeps going up a little each time you search (unless you clear cookies) to give the impression they are selling out fast.  Might be something like that going on here.

[Lord Sterling]

I've just worked out what has been causing my stomach problems - the Surgar-free mints which contain Sorbital ffs. Basically, if consumed as much as I do, the toilet becomes your haven, or other people will quickly move away from you as your stomach acts like a turbo and rids of it's content at the same speed.

 

I've bought 3 packs of these mints today, a good proportion of 1 packet has consumed. I shall be laying of these for a good while.

[Cavcraft]

Which dickhead at VW decided that the battery should be located under the scuttle on a passat B5?

 

Just had to swap a battery on one (big), thought I was heading for prolapse - my bollocks were near the front wheel.

.

 

You'll be an expert in removing it in no time as your rear foot wells will soon let you know.

[dugong]

I've just worked out what has been causing my stomach problems - the Surgar-free mints which contain Sorbital ffs. Basically, if consumed as much as I do, the toilet becomes your haven, or other people will quickly move away from you as your stomach atcs like a turbo.

 

I've bought 3 packs of these mints today, a good proportion of 1 packet has consumed. I shall be laying of these for a good while.

FBP7: "Jesus! Has Mo gone to the toilet AGAIN?"

[Lord Sterling]

Well, at least I found out before the next meet. Hopefully my stomach will hold up better.

 

Bastard "Sugar free" mints. Back to the regular shite again.

[twosmoke300]

Diesel corsa c batteries are a pain in the cock to change too. Esp when the plastic nut for the clamp goes round and round

[andy18s]

I've just worked out what has been causing my stomach problems - the Surgar-free mints which contain Sorbital ffs. Basically, if consumed as much as I do, the toilet becomes your haven, or other people will quickly move away from you as your stomach acts like a turbo and rids of it's content at the same speed.

 

I've bought 3 packs of these mints today, a good proportion of 1 packet has consumed. I shall be laying of these for a good while.

The Mrs had been munching through a big bag of sugar free Werthers that her nieces gave her for xmas

Ended up on the throne on the hour,every hour

Close inspection shows them to be full of the same stuff as you have found