The Incompetence of North Point Ford Lincoln-Mercury in North Little Rock

Wednesday, April 20, 2005, I took my 2004 Ford Escape to the service department of North Point Ford Lincoln-Mercury in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I dropped if off in the morning and picked it up that afternoon. Not only did they fix the two outstanding vendor recalls, but they also permanently "fixed" the passenger-side door as well with MULTIPLE, long, deep, plainly-visible scratches on a brand-new vehicle with absolutely not a single scratch anywhere on it before they "serviced" it.

Like most customers, as I would imagine, when I picked it up later that afternoon I was in a hurry to get back to work. I had already missed work that morning in order to drop it off. Of course, had I noticed the scratches while it was still on the lot they would have denied everything. Even still, I noticed it that evening immediately after I got off from work and before I had even returned home.

There is no question whatsoever that North Point Ford was responsible for the damage. I had washed the vehicle on Friday evening the week before as well as Monday evening of the very same week. The scratches were not there Monday evening. I did not go anywhere Tuesday evening after work.

The vehicle had never had a scratch on it before. I always, without exception, park at the far end of the parking lot at every single store or restaurant I go to in order to avoid other vehicle's doors and particularly any shopping carts. The same holds true at where I park at my work location, away from everyone else.

Does this look like a door ding or shopping-cart bump to you?

Wednesday night I left a voicemail for David Taylor who is the manager of the service department. He promptly returned my call the next morning but offered nothing but to "buff them out". I've used a buffer on many occasions. This damage, through the clear cost and deeper than the paint itself, is not going to "buff out". No apologies. No inquiry of the people that "serviced" the vehicle. No admittance of their incompetence. From the invoice I know that "Techs" 793 and 733, whoever they are, did the labor. (Obviously it took two people to put this many scratches in a door.) Glenn Zumbaum is listed as the "advisor".

My entire family--parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents--have owned Fords my whole life. None of us will ever be returning to North Point Ford Lincoln-Mercury in North Little Rock.

My strong advice to anyone taking their vehicle in for service is to provide your own "insurance", take a dozen or so photos around your vehicle on the service lot immediately before handing the key over to the service personnel. It will only take a few seconds and will cost you nothing if you own a digital camera. Let them watch you do it. Let them know you are watching them. Do not expect them to care about you or your property. Make them. I will never leave a vehicle in a dealership's hands again without doing this.

Any vehicle is eventually going to get scratches on it. But being 100% paid for, I was trying hard to delay it as long as possible on this one. Leave it to North Point Ford to not only let two defects go into production resulting in the two recalls, but to add physical damage to their own products.

Their professional incompetence and cover-up is why I will never be back.

Book Review - Portraits: Developing Style in Creative Photography by Terry Hope

Interesting B+W Picture Book
This is an interesting picture book for B+W photographers, particularly those interested in alternative development techniques and materials. Each picture has a paragraph or two from the photographer with, by my count, 19 photographers represented across roughly 51 photographs. Accompanying tiny print from the book's author provides technique tips and pointers. The stunning photographs run the gamut between grainy and non-grainy and different forms of toning. The book doesn't include any images created from digital capture. It's interesting and sometimes inspiring but you need to be specifically looking for examples based on different B+W papers and chemicals for development in order to get much out of it as far as technical know-how is concerned.

Buy it on Amazon

The Riverside Conversations Part III

In his book Adventure Capitalist (read my review of it here) Jim Rogers had some bad things to say about Georgia (the country not the American state). In Part 3 of the Riverside Conversations Jim and Marc Faber go to Georgia to speak with Kakha Bendookidze, the State Minister on Reform Coordination. At the end of the conversation Jim has a completely different view on the outlook for Georgia and its likelihood for economic success than his poor view which he started with. If you're interested in what is going on in the rest of the world, it is definitely worth listening to. Also check out parts one and two of the series.

I had a few technical problems worth mentioning. First, I had to download the RealMedia player since I couldn't get the Windows Media version of the file to work. Second, even with RealMedia I was able to get audio-only. It's supposed to be a video, but audio worked well-enough. Also, unless you speak Dutch you can skip past the first six minutes. A completely English version is supposed to be online soon.