MichaelRunyon.com – All Things Geek

Well, at this point, I can say that I am satisfied, though they has not been enough time to examine all possible scenarios and items.

We picked up the vehicle from the Ford dealership after a bit of an ordeal with the credit card amount (despite my calling the company and alerting them that I would be making a large purchase not even an hour beforehand), and inspected it and drove it around the lot before leaving the dealership. It had all of the parts that were listed in place, as well as a new coat of paint. The invoice amount was slightly more than we were told (about $150), and Leah refused to pay more than the original total (which was actually listed on the file that the dealership had). We did then end up just paying the original invoice amount, and found out later that the dealership had sent a notice to Walmart that their actual costs were about $150 more than they had originally anticipated, and requested that the difference be sent to them. Walmart then called Leah today with a notice that they would be sending the additional amount, upon her signification of it, but we have yet to hear from the dealership about the matter.

We attempted to listen and test the vehicle for any other defects and didn’t find any, though when you are intently listening for something, everything that you hear sounds dreadful and possibly life-threatening. We went through a similar phase with that vehicle after getting the brakes and calipers replaced, and it just takes time for your ears and mind to get acquainted.

I’ll let you know of any other updates, but at this moment, all seems well. I hope to wrap up this situation on a positive note, and thus far Walmart has done everything quite well, in my opinion. I still feel the need to report the situation to some of the consumer reporting agencies (like the Consumerist and others) just to get the story out, but they don’t typically pick up on the stories where the major corporation behaved in a respectable way. We’ll see what happens down that avenue.

Well, it has been quite a few days since the last post about all of the junk that has been going on with Walmart and Leah’s car. The incident occurred on March 10th, and it’s now March 27th, so it’s been nearly 3 weeks without Leah’s car being returned.

Since the last update, quite a bit has happened. Let’s try and break it down in not quite as much detail as in the past.

- The Ford dealership finally returned with an estimate of the damage. They provided an initial quote of $2,041. This included a new rotor, backing plate, lug nuts, and lug screws. They also needed to repair the quarter panel, replace the back bumper with a used one, and reattach some of the affixment molding. They came back a few days later and upped their estimate by $300. They stated that the absolute earliest that they would be finished with the repairs would be the 28th, since that’s when the parts would be received.

- The insurance company (Walmart’s insurance company, rather) required some paperwork from Leah’s step-dad (the owner of the vehicle) that stated that the check could be sent to her for the damages. They got it in at the last minute, but Lindsey from CMI indicated that it was received in time, and that they would be overnighting the check via FedEx. I received the check the next day (yesterday) and deposited it today. So, we’ll see how the chain of believability goes until the very end. I’m still skeptical that something isn’t fishy, but I have no reason to believe otherwise thus far.

-Walmart also included $35/day (standard rate) for a rental car, despite the fact that we were able to avoid this expense through the generosity of our families. This will be nice (though it seems, again, fishy) as some extra to offset some of the expense and inconvenience.

So, tommorow, we’ll have to be in contact with the dealership, to see if the repairs are being completed and if the damages will be the same cost.

Well, today, I am going to sum up some of the small happenings that have occurred over the last few days.

We heard from Lindsey (CMI’s adjuster) that the inspector would be reviewing the vehicle on Thursday and that we would be notified of the results on Friday morning at the latest. The video that was recorded of the service transaction was inconclusive of fault, since the service technician was siting in front of the camera the entire time, and they could not prove that the nuts were applied with the correct force or directionality. The inspector would be reviewing the damage and the apparent cause of failure, and determining fault, based upon the vehicular evidence.

Friday around 1 PM, Leah was leaving work (quite early, for that matter), and gave Lindsey at CMI a call. She got a message that repeatedly stated that she was out of the office that day, and would be returning to work on Monday at 6:45 am. After calling quite a few times, Leah was getting agitated, thinking that the supposed results that she was supposed to be receiving that day were not actually be going to be given. I suggested that she call the store and have them connect her again, but before she was able to get that number from the Internet, Lindsey gave her a call and told her that the inspectors report had been returned, and that the fault for the incident belonged to Walmart, and that they would be fully re-imbursing us for the damages and expenses incurred because of the incident.

Leah was over-joyed upon hearing this news and reported her findings to me, but I reminded her that until she either got the check or received written acknowledgement of fault, she should assume that possible non-payment was still an option. Leah then called the Ford dealership and requested that an estimate from them be completed, versus the estimate performed by the Wal-Mart funded inspector. The dealership informed her that the inspector did not actually perform an estimate, but rather just evaluated the vehicle to determine fault. They responded that they would be doing their estimate and reporting the results within two days.

Clearly, this is good news, and confirms that the fault of the incident lies in their hands, as they would have exploited any avenue to avoid fault and re-imbursement, I am sure. So to validate the feelings and opinions of people is good, and to be recompensated for the expenditures associated is also good. I, for one, am still skeptical of the claimant of fault, and will likely remain so until the actual money is in the bank, but for the moment, I hope that Walmart will continue to do the right thing.

I don’t at this moment intend to press any other charges against them, such as pain and suffering, or possible wrongful death, or anything of that nature. Many people whom I have shared the story with have urged me to take legal action against Tire and Lube Express to motivate them to hire more competent technicians or utilize better work checking techniques, or really any mechanisms to motivate better workmanship. I feel that as long as we are fairly compensated, that we will not waste our time and money attempting to take on the world’s 19th largest economy on a matter of a few thousand dollars (though, realistically, punitive damages would likely be much more than that to stimulate change). A woman who was paralyzed from the waist down from a bad tire job won a $4 million lawsuit a few years back, and they still have yet to employ any better practices, from what has to be seen.

One good thing that has arisen from all of this is that my wife no longer shops at Wal-Mart. Being a true dyed-in-the-wool Wal-Mart junkie from birth, this has been a difficult week for her, as she went there to do everything (and thus the reasoning that we got tire and oil jobs done at Wal-Mart in the first place). She now is resigned to shop at Meijer for her late-night needs, and many other stores that provide the same functionality as Wal-Mart, if not all in one place, or at such a cost savings. I think that this is the moral and ethical thing to do, though it is too bad that such a drastic event was required to stimulate this change. We shall see where the evolution of this will go. More details to follow as they come.

I did not personally talk to anyone today about Walmart and vehicle related things at all. In fact, not much was said or done today in regards to the vehicle. Leah, on the other hand, attempted nearly the entire morning and early afternoon to get in contact with the insurance company (CMI), who apparently still needed a verbal statement from her regarding what had happened during the incident. She left upwards of 7 messages on the voice mail of the adjuster assigned to our claim (Lindsey) and finally demanded during the last message that someone call her before 3 (when they claimed to close). As Leah was driving to the airport to pick up her keys from the rental car company (Hertz) (she left them in the car when she returned it), she called me, very upset that she was unable to get in touch with the adjuster. I suggested that she call the store under the pretenses of speaking with the TLE and then ask them to connect her to the adjuster. I found the number and as she was dialing (it’s now exactly 3) when the insurance adjuster called her back.

Leah was asked the same series of questions that I was, what happened, describing the damage to the vehicle. She noted to the adjuster that she was not a mechanic and therefore didn’t know precisely what had been damaged on the vehicle, as we were still waiting on an official estimate from the Ford dealership.During the conversation, the adjuster recorded the statement of the damage and incident given by Leah, but refused to record the question and answer session, stating that the recording was for reference purposes only, and applied only to the initial statement. She repeatedly asked Leah to give permission to turn off the recording to speak about the consequences if fault was found, and about the videotapes. She refused to discuss anything on tape except the verbal statement, and after the statement was finished, then the recording was terminated.

After the recording was finished, Leah pressed questions about fault and the video tapes, and what would be done if Walmart was indeed found at fault. The adjuster responded that the videotape was unclear, as the technician was sitting in front of the camera, and his actions were unclear, and fault could not be confirmed or denied based upon the tape. Given the scenario that we were presenting, that was not a great step for them, since they can’t prove that they did it correctly. After being questioned about consequences of fault, she responded that if fault was correctly assessed, Walmart would compensate “within reason” everything to do regarding the incident, including any damages that were associated with the incident (rental cars, lost pay, etc.) Leah responded that she didn’t intend upon pressing damages for pain and suffering or anything along these lines (a wrongful actions suit, basically). The adjuster confirmed that Leah should not expect to be compensated for anything not physically damaged in the accident.

The adjuster informed Leah that an inspector from the South Bend area would be visiting the garage to do an estimation of fault and damages to the vehicle, and that the results would then be relayed to her that same day. This estimation was scheduled to take place tommorow (Thursday, 3/13).  The adjuster promised that some answer of fault would be provided no later than Friday morning (3/14), and be based upon the findings of the inspector, since the video evidence was not useful in proving or disproving fault.

Leah called the Ford dealership when returning home and they confirmed that they were not allowed to provide an estimate of damage, based upon the instructions from Walmart (who had been given their contact information). They confirmed also that they had  been told about the inspector coming to provide an assessment.

Now, we wait to see what the inspector and Wal-Mart have to say. I can only hope that some fault is admitted, and something recorded or in writing stating that they intend to compensate for vehicular damages.

Continuing the saga of the Wal-Mart incident…

Today, I stayed home and worked in the morning because I had to go to trial today (that’s another story and another post). I received a call from the claims adjuster for Wal-Mart (Lindsey) this morning about 10:15. She asked to speak with Leah and when I told her that she was unavailable, I gave her the contact information that she could reach her at (cell phone). After it was established that I was neither the owner of the vehicle nor the operator of the vehicle during the incident, she took down some general information about what happened during the incident (she had clearly not been given the report that we filled out at the store the previous evening, as she asked some of the same questions and had some of the same reactions that the other employees had). I basically told her what had happened, and what the consensus general estimate of the damage that had been done. She seemed somewhat knowledgeable about the parts of the vehicle that were involved in an incident of this type.

She asked for the information of the vehicle owner (Leah’s step-dad), and then determined that all he needed to do was release the handling of the case over to myself and my wife, since we were the day-to-day users of the vehicle.  I gave the contact numbers for her step-dad and then proceeded onward with giving the adjuster information about what had transpired.

She took down the names and numbers of the towing company, the Ford dealership that we had the vehicle towed to, and the rental car company that we had rented from. She did make a note that items such as the rental car would “certainly” be paid for if the fault of the company is found, but to hang onto the receipts for those transactions until fault is correctly assessed. It was at this point in the conversation (the first question of fault to be brought up) that I began to feel apprehension, based upon the tone and verbiage of the words being used in this context. I asked what procedures that they would use to arrive at the conclusion of fault in this case, since I knew that they would employ all mechanisms possible to minimize and/or eliminate their monetary compensation.

She proceeded to inform me that fault assessment would begin at the local branch, where apparently a video is recorded of each service appointment, one camera for each tire. The camera records the actions of the service employee (presumably for situations such as this). The store would be reviewing the actions recorded on the tape for look for obvious signs of fault, and if none were found, then an inspector would have to be dispatched to determine fault based upon the damage and condition of the vehicle in question. Given that I had recently spoken with the garage, telling them that I didn’t know what to do with the vehicle, this further complicated things, because it meant that the time-table for all that needed to transpire was going to be longer than I am comfortable with, and relied solely upon the speculation of Wal-Mart paid employees to determine fault of…well, Wal-Mart. So I confirmed with the adjuster that I should not have repairs done to the vehicle until I was certain that an inspector would not be dispatched, because I would not want to destroy the evidence of the incident.

She gave me a 1-2 day timetable for review of the tape, and a 4-5 day timetable for arriving at a conclusion of sorts, depending upon all that was neccessary to arrive at said conclusion. I did not launch into any other questions of guilt with her, as I didn’t know what else to expect to be done upon the review of the tape. After our conversation was complete, she said that she would be calling the other two parties (my wife and her step-father) to get their verbal statements and/or neccessary permissions to proceed.

I spoke with my father not long after, telling him how expensive the car rental was for us being under-25, and he recommended a place in town, Walter’s Auto Sales and Rental, that rented used cars to under-25’s for $24.99 a day, with a 50 mile/day cap and $.25/mile after that. I thought that was quite a good change over the current situation ($150/day), and decided to let Leah know of my intentions upon terminating the Hertz rental early and going with something like that. She was dismayed that she would likely be displaced of an SUV type vehicle, but I reminded her of the fact that we would likely be fronting this cost for some time and would be prudent to keep it down for time’s sake. After we talked about this, Leah remembered that her mother was out of town, and called back her step-father to borrow one of their vehicles, so that we could skip the rental altogether. I agreed that this was the easiest and most economical way for us to continue, at least until her mother returned from her trip (Sunday).

Upon meeting Leah to proceed to the airport and drop off the Hertz rental, Leah noted that the insurance adjuster called during her lunch hour (when Leah has to serve the kid’s lunch, not when she gets a break to eat lunch) and Leah told her that she couldn’t talk at the moment, but that she would call her back in 10 minutes. I had already told Leah that the adjuster would be calling and that she needed a verbal statement from her to proceed. After 10 minutes, Leah called back with the information that the adjuster left, but was unsuccessful in contacting any else besides voicemail. Leah called roughly 15 times in the span of the next few hours, asking for supervisors and other adjusters, and being greeted with voicemails on each and every connection. Finally, upon attempting to reach Lindsey (the adjuster), Leah was told that she had gone home for the day, as her office was closed at 3. Frustrated, Leah gave up for the moment, leaving one final message on the voicemail of the adjuster.

During our transit to the airport, Leah also had me lookup the number for the Wal-Mart branch in my phone, so that she could inquire about the video. She spoke with the manager of the TLE (Tire and Lube Express), and he was very helpful in answering her questions and basically, once again, admitting fault and wondering how things were playing out. He mentioned that they were unable to find fault based upon the video, and that an inspector would likely get involved. Leah was unhappy to hear this, especially in light of the fact that she was unable to get a hold of the adjuster. The manager seemed puzzled, telling her that he had just recently spoken with the adjuster about the things concerning the case (this call took place around 4:20, more than an hour after the office supposedly closed). Frustrated again at being unable to reach the adjuster, Leah resigned to the issue and called it a day.

After we had gotten to Leah’s parents house (quite some distance away – ~25 miles), Leah realized that she had left her keys in the rental car. After we returned home, she was on the phone with Hertz, desperately trying to get someone to understand what car she turned in and what to look for. They finally called back about 9:30 and said that they had indeed found the keys, and we, after breathing a sigh of relief, let them know that we would be in the next day to pick up the keys.

More to report tommorow, I’m sure. Much, much left to be done, including an estimate, a statement of fault/incurrance of an inspector, etc. We’ll see how it all pans out. Until then…

Well, a lot has happened in the last 24 hours. I suppose the only logical place to start would be the beginning.

I got a call from Leah (my wife) yesterday (03/10/2008) at 5:02 PM, saying that she thought that she blew one or more tires out, but that she was OK. She told me that she was at the intersection of Twyckenham and South Bend Ave (SR 23), and that she had gone just a ways after turning left onto Twyckenham when she felt the driver rear of the car drop violently.  I asked if she had hit a pothole or something, and she said no, that it had just happened randomly. She didn’t sound frantic, but given that I work very close to there, I ran down the 6 flights of steps to my car and got over to her as quickly as I could.

On the way, I called again to re-assure that I was nearby and that I’d be there soon. She told me that she had gotten out of the car and noticed that the wheel, in its entirety, was missing from the rotor, and that she couldn’t even see it, and to look for it on my way to her. Shortly after turning right onto Twyckenham,  I went about 300 yards and noticed the wheel from her car in the front yard of a house about 4 houses down from where her car had eventually ended up. There was a pretty heavy mark in the pavement from where her rotor had torn itself and the asphalt up after the wheel had departed. As I was examining the wheel and rolling it out of that person’s front yard, a woman from across the street yelled and brough over the hub and nut cap, which goes over the lug nuts and the exterior of the hub cap. Every single lug nut was still intact in the cap. It was as if every single nut had simultaneously fallen off and the wheel fell off very shortly after that. The house where the cap was at was about 50 feet further down the street than was the wheel, so the two instances had occurred quite rapidly together.

Fortunately, Leah was unhurt, and was even unsure of what exactly happened. Puzzling together, we decided to call the police to file a report about the incident, should record be needed in the future. After waiting about 10 minutes, a friendly officer arrived, and after inspecting the tire and wheel rotor with me, determined that the only cause that could reasonably be  considered was that of the failure of the lug nuts (due to improper torquing of the wheel installation). This is the part where Wal-Mart enters.

We had taken the plunge after a long while and gotten 4 brand new tires put on Leah’s car, after her car had developed a flat over a year ago and we had put the (full) spare on the vehicle, while visiting Bethany and Preston in Missouri. As we were taking my car to get an oil change as well, we decided to get new tires for Leah’s car, since our brake guy had recommend that the tread difference on the rear tires was doing damage to the transaxle and the 4-wheel driveshaft. That was on 2/24/2008. Given that only 2 weeks and 1 day had transpired, we determined that the fault must lie with Wal-Mart, and their improper installation of the wheel.

After consulting  with the insurance company that Leah’s step-father insures her car through, she was told that since the cause of the damage was vehicular failure, they were not at fault, since no accident had happened (Which is technically correct, since they do not cover damage to the car not caused by other motorists or driver error). They do unilaterally pay for towing after an incident, so they contacted a towing company to come out and tow the car to the Wal-Mart in question. The towing operator, upon arriving, confirmed what we had already concluded, that it was nearly certainly lug nut failure, since they had all be intact in the hub cap. He did require that 3 of the nuts be replaced on the wheel, so that the vehicle could be loaded onto the truck for transporting. Thus far, this is the only tampering with the situation that had been done.

Upon arriving at Wal-Mart, Leah went into the service area of the Tire and Lube Express, where the technicians had earlier installed the tires and done the oil change. As she walked into the area, the technician greeted her and asked her “How are you doing today?”.

Leah responded “Not very well”.

The technician: “Well, why’s that?”

Leah: “Um, let’s see, the wheel just fell off my car while I was driving it”.

The technician: “OK…well, what do you want me to do about it?”.

Leah: “Um, well, you guys are the ones that put the tires on 2 weeks ago”.

The technician: “Oh…looks like Wal-Mart’s got a pretty big bill on their hands, huh?”

Leah: “Um, definitely”.

He grabbed some coffee and headed out to the parking lot, where the towing operator was unloading the car. The technician, halfway back through the parking lot, said “That white explorer right there? ” After we affirmed his expectation, he remarked somewhat to himself, “Huh, I remember working on that car a few weeks ago”. After the operator had taken it off the bed and was taking the chains off, the operator remarks to us “I sure as h#ll wouldn’t let them work on my sh*t again”. To which we responded with a resounding “Um, yeah, definitely not, and they won’t be”.

We returned to the interior of the store, and the technician rang up the manager for the area of the store, who would be handling the claim. The phone rang back a minute later, and the technician responded rather angrily: “Well, the wheel on her car came off while she was driving it. The rotor is messed up, the wheel is messed up, the quarter panel is messed up. You might want to come take a look”. The manager arrived a short time later, wearing just a headset and a shirt bearing his name.  He made some nervous jokes about the weather as we walked back to take a look at the car with him, and as he looked with really no interest in the car, he asked quite a few questions about how it happened, whether Leah was ok, etc. He made a few more jokes about how he can’t fix her, but he wished that the Wal-Mart garage that was going up next-door was finished, so that they could fix it right there, but that was not the case.

He led us back into the store and told us to sit tight for a few minutes while he grabbed a case file. After waiting a few minutes,he came back and took some basic information about Leah (DOB, etc) and then asked her to write a description of the incident on the case file paper. After consulting with me briefly, she wrote a very detailed description of what had happened, and how we felt Wal-Mart was at fault for the damages caused. The manager then, after going over the rest of the paperwork, then basically told us that the store would be launching an inquiry into the incident, and that he should be hearing back from the headquarters about how to proceed futher within 5 days. We were somewhat at a loss for what to do at that point, since we didn’t know if it would be covered or not by Wal-Mart. The manager, walking us back towards the Tire and Lube Express, said “You know, I’m not really supposed to say things like this, but I don’t see how this won’t be our fault. We put those tires on two weeks ago and you say that it hasn’t been tampered with since then. There really doesn’t seem to be any other scenario where we couldn’t be at fault. ” He then apologized on behalf on Wal-Mart and the Tire and Lube Express, and then we left the store.

We went home, let the dog out, found the local Ford Dealership, rang them up, found out that they were already closed, and then called the same towing company again to tow the car over to the Ford Dealership, so that they could deal with it. They said that they would be there in 10-15 minutes, and we said that was fine, since we lived only about 5 minutes away.

When we returned back to the Wal-Mart lot, the towing operator was not in his still running truck and we walked into the store to find out where he might have gone. The same technician as before responded that he had gone to the front to get paid from the claims dept, and that we could wait on the bench for him. Leah and I noted that the technician (whom we presumed was responsible) seemed to be drinking coffee very quickly while we were waiting. After waiting about 10-15 minutes, Leah received a phone call from the towing operator, who was still at the front of the store, wanting to get paid. Apparently, there had been an altercation between the assistant manager in charge of the case file and  the towing operator, with the manager getting quite upset about how the towing operator was wanting to get paid for an association with customers absent. The towing operator stormed out to the parking lot after the manager, and began hooking up the car to the bed again. We spoke to the manager again who made a brief comment about how the operator was not very nice to him, and then got Leah’s driver’s license number from her. Leah inquired about the possibility of them re-imbursing a rental car, and the manager responded that we should include that receipt along with the rest of the receipts that we should be collecting, so that we could then turn them upon the completion of the case file.

We went back out to the parking lot and the operator was fuming about how he’d never been treated like that before and was very upset abotu how the whole situation was being handled. Leah told him that if she went to the news about the story, that she promised to give him time to talk about they treated him. This was obviously a joke, but as the night progressed, we considered more and more the possibility of something like that needing to be done.

We drove towards home and talked about how Leah really shouldn’t have to be put out by the situation (she was going to have to carpool with her co-worker, who would have to go early or Leah would have to go late), and that we should really pursue a rental car. After going by the local Enterprise, we departed up towards the airport, where the only rental car counters were open. After walking through most of them and being told that they didn’t have any more cars, we finally arrived at Hertz and waited in line for about 15 minutes. After getting up to the counter, we were told that they did indeed have cars left for those without reservations.

After confirming with the woman that they did rent to those who were under 25 (my wife is 22), she asked to get an SUV, since the car that had been disabled was an SUV. After picking which one she wanted (the smallest that they had), the woman totalled up the amount to rent the car from Monday Night to Friday Night: a staggering $662. As we walked back to the rental pickup location, I told Leah that we needed to be careful with this, since we are going to have to front the money for the rental and have to entertain the possibility that we won’t be re-imbursed for the vehicle. Leah hopped in the car and we drove it home.

More to follow, as the story progresses. I’m already very concerned about the things that have happened thus far. I’m just very, very thankful that Leah wasn’t injured, and neither was anyone else. The fact that the wheel came totally off while driving…she could’ve flipped, could’ve been very badly injured. What if she had been going a higher rate of speed or making a more complex negotiation? The implications of their error is great. It’s more than a simple (yet costly) inconvenience. They endangered the life of anyone who drove that car.