Many of us have had the new car purchase experience. And when you have a good one you tell people, right?
But this is the Internet Age and if there ain't pictures it didn't happen. And there are some dumbasses out there just stupid enough to push it over the line and call you a liar if you won't put up. So you do thinking you got the last laugh. The numbers are real. It really was a great deal and it verifies everything you'd been saying to these lowlife salesjerks. Instead of admitting they were wrong, they start crapping in new directions comparing apples to oranges all over again... bottom line to "invoice" ... insulting you and others even further ... and daring you to tell their boss.
Dude private messages me that my on the road price was $5 better than his secret order pricing book tells him "invoice" is. Can I see those numbers? They're probably confidential. And of course they're lower than anything online that the public could see... the root of the argument. The "invoice" price I found before I bought my car was $2300 more than I actually paid proving once again "invoice pricing" is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Even if it was a real price, it's still a number that hasn't been taxed and tagged and walked back and forth to some sales managers office. Is the apples and oranges allegory that hard to grasp? Do I let the insults slide or call the punk-ass 23-year old's "professional" bluff. He sent me his sales manager's address. I looked up the -owner- of the dealership in a matter of 2 minutes. (average guy... 61, married, address, phone, dealerships are straight with the EPA, and he gave money to the RNC in 2004)
I honestly want to convey to this kid that he needs to -earn- his million selling a million for a buck a piece. If he keeps up with this deceptive, manipulative, bullshit, high pressure, you-can-trust-me-because-I-say-I'm-not-lying approach he's going to have a shitty career as a salesman. Attacking and insulting people in public ain't helping much either. I'm just trying to decide if his insults are worth me taking another five minutes of my time to radically alter his career path.
I suck at poker. I never bluff. I can't believe I just called a 23-year old a punk-ass.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
pet peeve
My dry old web personals ad used to mention "electronics that break" as a pet peeve of mine. With no moving parts, why should an electronic component ever break? Well, there are moving parts at a microscopic level. The expanding and contracting that a part goes through as heat builds up and leaves a part that is energized technically qualifies as movement... on a molecular level.
That doesn't change my peeve though as my nearly $3000 television reduced itself to 52 inches of widescreen paperweight this past weekend; all for the want of a thimble-full of transistors and resistors.
I found them. Charred. Melted. Looking really sad amongst a small collection of arguably some of the worst looking solder joints I've ever seen. Probing with my $3 GE multimeter, they offered no resistance. Or rather they offered nothing but resistance since they now represent open circuits. They were buried in the front left corner of the innards of the tv attached to a circuit board I deduced was the power controller for the master lightbulb. (Itself a $200 glorified flashlight that burned out last Friday starting this whole adventure.)
I've learned it is the "lamp power ballast" and my archaelogical dig through the tv paid off in the form of a part number. Google and its infinitely powerful ability to provide me with shopping links and product reviews instead of assembly diagrams or service procedures snarfed up the part number and actually provided several retail sources. This helped me determine what I should expect to pay from a retailer close enough to actually put the part in my hand instead of a box and some brown truck. Said truck would have doubtlessly visited my home three working days in a row leaving me small stickers to throw away instead of the part I need.
Eh, that's a whole other peeve. Two actually.
Instead of ten pounds of parts screwed to a metal tray, all known as the "light engine" and costing $570 to replace (best price I found), I've been able to isolate the problem to eight ounces of circuit board costing $48. That's probably still too high a price, but it is the price of getting caught up on a week's worth of my favprite shows.
That doesn't change my peeve though as my nearly $3000 television reduced itself to 52 inches of widescreen paperweight this past weekend; all for the want of a thimble-full of transistors and resistors.
I found them. Charred. Melted. Looking really sad amongst a small collection of arguably some of the worst looking solder joints I've ever seen. Probing with my $3 GE multimeter, they offered no resistance. Or rather they offered nothing but resistance since they now represent open circuits. They were buried in the front left corner of the innards of the tv attached to a circuit board I deduced was the power controller for the master lightbulb. (Itself a $200 glorified flashlight that burned out last Friday starting this whole adventure.)
I've learned it is the "lamp power ballast" and my archaelogical dig through the tv paid off in the form of a part number. Google and its infinitely powerful ability to provide me with shopping links and product reviews instead of assembly diagrams or service procedures snarfed up the part number and actually provided several retail sources. This helped me determine what I should expect to pay from a retailer close enough to actually put the part in my hand instead of a box and some brown truck. Said truck would have doubtlessly visited my home three working days in a row leaving me small stickers to throw away instead of the part I need.
Eh, that's a whole other peeve. Two actually.
Instead of ten pounds of parts screwed to a metal tray, all known as the "light engine" and costing $570 to replace (best price I found), I've been able to isolate the problem to eight ounces of circuit board costing $48. That's probably still too high a price, but it is the price of getting caught up on a week's worth of my favprite shows.
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