The first thing we did was just go around to dealerships when we had spare time, or a few specific trips out to look.  This started months in advance.  Once we went out on a Sunday.  Why a Sunday?  Because Indiana laws don't allow for the sale of cars on that day of the week.  Since dealerships are closed, we could walk around and look at cars without the harassment of sales persons.  I have a very love-hate relationships with automotive sales persons.

Once we had done that with a lot of internet research, we went out to get in the cars and gather brochures.  Let's think of what cars in no particular order...

• Ford Fusion
• Volvo S40 & C30
• Mini Cooper & Cooper S
• VW EOS
• Honda Accord, Civic, & Insight
• Audi A4
• Smart ForTwo
• Saab 9-3
• Nissan Altima & Altima Coupe
• Infiniti G37 and G37 Coupe
• Subaru Impreza & Legacy
• Toyota Corolla & Camry
• Acura TSX & RDX

I may have missed a car or two in that list, but these were the ones that we considered in this phase.

The earliest removals from considerations were Audi, Saab, and Toyota.  Nothing personal about the cars - they just didn't make the cut.

The rest graduated to a test drive with the addition of a few surprises along the way...  Stay tuned or not...

If you know me, you probably know that I love cars.  I learned it from watching my dad (say it like the commercial), and I've got a lot of experience in shopping, buying, maintaining, and lusting after cars of all kinds.

When Vic and I started dating, she was definitely not a car person.  Skip a long segue just to know that she's now more of a car person than most.

Last fall, she was in the market to replace her aging VW Beetle with a new or newer car.  She wanted something "more fun" since in her mind, our next car will be something more apt to repel cereal and crayons while safely seating miniature humans in special chairs.

How did we go about it you may ask?

• Looked at dealerships.
• Gathered brochures and pricing.
• Test drives.
• Decision.

There is a very healthy dose of online research at the beginning and in-between all the phases of the process.  There were some cars / dealerships that surprised us in good and bad ways.  In the end, we chose a car that wasn't even on our radar.

I'll bust this thing into separate posts, partially because it lets me have new posts for a number of days, but I could write at length about any one step of this process - and I don't want this to be thousands of words in one or two posts...

Why post something that I began months ago and forgot to post?  Mostly because my lease is up in a few months, and I'll be going through the decision process of this again.

[link to part 2]

The Bad
So our DVR started acting funny sometime around the 26^th and 27^th of April.  Finally on the 28^th, things really started to go wrong.  The whole thing froze, and forces a restart.  I let it sit for the evening, and got back to it after coming home a little early anticipating a customer service call in my future.

Before the call, I took it through its paces.  Replicated the problem many times, and completely cycled the machine more than a few times (unplug it and let it sit for a few minutes before rebooting it).  No error message would appear, but the machine would always freeze when any DVR function was requested.  Then I took a deep breath and called.

I wasn't on hold too long, and when I got someone t took a few minutes to get my account pulled up and verify that I'd cycled the machine.  After a little more description of the problem, I was put on hold.  All things totaled, I was on hold for over probably in 20-30 minute range.  Since I had my laptop open and TweetDeck up, I tweeted while on hold:

On a marathon phone call with Dish Network tech support... The DVR has been giving us headaches...

My customer service rep would come on every few minutes to confirm that I was still there and to assure me he was looking into the problem.  Finally he said that there were similar problems reported in the area and that it would be fixed in 15 minutes.

We relegated ourselves to Netflix for the evening.  And the problem never fixed itself like I was told it would.  I would get back to it the next day with customer service when I got home from work.

The Unexpected
The next morning I got a reply on twitter from the Dish Network corporate Twitter account asking me if my problem was solved.  I replied that it hadn't been fixed, so after a few exchanges I was emailed an advanced technical support number that wouldn't require any wait time.

The Good
When I got home, the DVR had now began giving me a warning signal upon powering up that no DVR function would be possible.  But I picked up the phone and called the number I was sent, and it only took a few minutes to diagnose that the hard drive in the DVR had failed.  The process for sending me out a replacement unit started.  It would arrive in 4 days thanks to the weekend.

Nice little nugget...  There was no record in their system about my support call the previous night.  That's a little crappy.

But I got the DVR, and after a couple minor headaches with the poor manual, everything was right as rain.

I've got to give props to Dish Network for intelligently using Twitter as a customer service portal.

This is an account of our experience with John Stewart Realty in the middle of 2008.  It's long for a blog entry, but it's important in the case that someone stumbles onto this who is considering utilizing the Realtor services of John Stewart Realty, Homestead Guarantee Ltd, or considering taking part in a Guaranteed Buy Out (GBO) from the same company.

To be specific, John Stewart Realty is part of the FC Tucker Realty Group in Indianapolis.  His website clings to John Stewart Indianapolis Real Estate...  Anyway, just getting those searchable strings in there...

I purchased a condo back in 2002.  I lived there for over 5 years.  Over this time, I got married, complete bathroom remodel, kitchen refreshening, and lots of painting among other things.

So contextually speaking, the housing market was already suffering in early-mid 2007.  We became aware of a housing edition that took part in various GBO programs.  A GBO basically is a contract with a Realtor that guarantees a purchase price at the end of a predetermined time that the property is on the market.  If the property sells before the term is up, then any funds above the agreed price go to the property owners.

We agreed on a bottom price and a GBO term of 3 months.

The pros and cons of the GBO were easily apparent to us, and we were willing to take it because of the desire to change our housing situation was worth it to us.

We paid for and passed inspection and appraisal by those chosen by John Stewart Realty to qualify to take part in the GBO.  Everything was going well.

We didn't think that the Realtor would make common mistakes in the process that resulted in our losing out on a higher sale price that he later was able to make.

How did this happen?  Over the course of the first two months of listing, we had regular showings, but no offers.  Sometime in the last month, we got an offer a little bit above the GBO bottom line that we accepted with the usual conditions here and there.

This is where things get weird.

Because we were closing in less than a month, the buyers had to speed up their process for the closings to take place on the same date.  They were doing an FHA loan, and because of situational constraints, we made the agreement that we'd sell the condo to John Steward Realty under the terms of the GBO, and they would then sell the property to the purchasing party at their earliest convenience.  When that happened, we'd get a check from John Stewart Realty for the difference between our GBO contract, and the agreed price minus closing costs.

Literally less than 48 hours from closing I get a call from John Stewart informing me that FHA regulations prohibit a property from changing hands more than once within a 90-day period if it is to qualify for an FHA-backed loan.  So that meant that John Stewart Realty had to hold onto the property and rent it to the purchasers for three months.

In the end, the party did buy the property.  But I never saw any of the money above the agreed GBO price that I was promised from John Stewart Realty.  He was well aware of FHA regulations when the offer was submitted and contingent on FHA approval.  There were three weeks to prevent this scenario from happening.

Months after the fact when I inquired about what happened to him, I was told that the original buyer is now putting the property back on the market (it's not listed at this time) and repairs had to be made during the "rental period".  I've not been offered any proof of this.  So that's why I never head from them, because in his mind there was no money to give me.

Regardless there is a matter of fact...  I fulfilled my end of the GBO contract with flying colors.  John Stewart Realty did not perform well as a selling agent, and the GBO wound up in some weird purgatory that I'm tempted to fight.  I don't see how I'm liable for expenses or whatnot once the property left my possession because the property passed inspection and appraisal twice each.

In the end, we're happy to live where we do...  But we do feel a bit of annoyance that John Stewart screwed up that much and we lost out on a good little bit of extra money because of his poor handling of the situation on his end.

The cherry on top?  The John Stweart Realty company is still sending company announcement postcards to our old address and not the new house that they sold us.  Smart cookies over there.

So now that we've had a little time to calm down and gain some perspective, I'll fill in the gaps of our little experience that we dealt with three companies...  AAA, Carmax, and Tom Wood Volkswagen (a local Indy VW dealership).

So we do have the car back, but it took a day shy of 3 weeks to get it.  That's 20 days for you all keeping score...  The final things fixed were a water pump and thermostat.

Now for the involved parties.  If I were a teacher grading this experience... I'd give AAA an A+...  Carmax an F...  Tom Wood VW a D...

AAA was johnny on the spot arriving earlier than quoted, and delivered the car to Carmax quickly with all the right signatures and customer service to back it up.

Carmax misplaced the car...  Couldn't diagnose / repair the car...  Couldn't communicate when there was news...  Over communicated when there wasn't news...  Withheld a rental for 13 days...  And didn't hold the VW dealership accountable for their screw ups.

Tom Wood VW...  Since I haven't blogged about them, I'll give a bit of history.  I've had many dealings with other Tom Wood dealerships.  Sometimes really good - sometimes really bad - and everything in-between.  As far as the VW dealership, I almost got my Jetta TDi there, but the sales didn't seem that eager to get me the options I wanted when another local dealer had it in stock and better financing.  I did help my mother buy her Passat there, but she lives and has it serviced in Maine where she lives.  This was our first dealing with Tom Wood VW service.  I'll admit that they are kind of in a bad spot since the closure of one of the other two VW dealerships/service centers in town (the only reason I didn't give them an F).  But that doesn't give license to drag feet on diagnosis, agree on problem with Carmax after replacing a newish thermostat, then fix something completely different while not keeping the customer informed.  This ranks up with one of the worst service experiences for a dealership, and I know it will have an impact on if I want to consider a VW in the future.

So in the end...  I love AAA.  Carmax had a good record in our book before this, but had really bad go of it this time.  Tom Wood Volkswagen service is overwhelmed and pretty bad on top of that.  It's too bad.  I really like VW's. and Carmax was a trusted business before this.

I was very anti-apple until mid 2006. When I was offered a job, I chose to go the Apple route because the performance per price was much better than in a PC. The biggest performance gain came from OS X, but the hardware package was flat out cheaper than buying the same specs on a Dell or HP workstation.

In terms of the current Mac Pro, I'm not sure if that is still the case. But when I could have bought an 8-core mac pro for $2,800 on March 2nd. On March 3rd, an 8-core Mac Pro would cost me $3,300. Isn't the price of comparable computer technology supposed to go down with time? I'm well versed about the specifics...  I know all about the newer CPU's, more RAM, and a different video card... but none of those components are new enough to the market to command such premium rates. Looking at the upgrade options for the Mac Pro is even more crazy to me. I know Apple always has premiums on components, but we're talking up to and over 100% or twice the cost over buying the same pieces elsewhere.

The other head scratcher was the Mac Mini. I'm really glad it's still on the market, but there is no way to justify a $200 increase between models with the only differences being 1gb of ram and 200gb hard drive space. That's complete BS with not even the possibility of any rational explanation.

Right now, none of this has any real impact on me. I'm not in the market for a computer, nor is the business. If I was, I'd have to do some serious pondering about whether the premium is worth it. Right now, I'm not thinking so.  After that, I just don't get it because they're in the midst of a spike in PC market share, so why would you do anything to jeopardize further increases in market share by unnecessarily raising prices - especially in this economic climate?

I'm just hoping that by the time I'm in the market either the price will come down on the Mac Pro (not very possible) or Windows 7 will be out and stable enough to consider...

The abridged version: Carmax screwed up and initially "lost" the car after we had it towed up there.  Carmax then didn't admit their mistake and delayed it getting in for service for another day.  They referred the car to the local VW dealership which couldn't even look at it for another 4 business days - and thus pushing it into the next week.  When VW disagreed with the initial diagnosis of bad head gasket, they replaced the thermostat which Carmax had already replaced just a few thousand miles ago.  They bickered for at least a day about what the diagnosis was.  All this while they wouldn't approve a rental car which her extended warranty grants until yesterday, 13 days after Carmax took delivery of it.

Sure, I could go into an insane amount of detail of exchanges, but it doesn't change where we are right now.  So far it seems like they give us too much contact and their supposed customer service when it's unnecessary (like calling multiple times to tell us there's no news or that there's disagreement between mechanics with no details of the disagreement).  But then there's the complete absence of customer service when it involves things like losing a car that your company took delivery of...  Or delaying the approval a rental car earlier because as a customer you'd paid for an extended warranty that grants one in such circumstances.  Someone from the corporate level got involved and basically did nothing but convey a little inconsequential information (no apology for losing the car, the time wasted and no granting of a rental despite evidence to the contrary).

Carmax blames AAA for the car misplacement (despite someone behind the fence at Carmax taking delivery of with the a signature).  The slow service at VW is the only thing everyone agrees is beyond fault.  But the bickering between Carmax / VW or the level of relevant contact to us (the end consumer) has been without consideration of our time or frustration at the situation.

A month ago, we'd have given Carmax decent marks with a good probability of earning our repeat business.  We're going to be very glad that we have that extended warranty (the head gasket is the culprit - yeah, ouch) - but it's just such a bad taste in our mouths from all the bumbling around.  I'm unsure how this will change our overall opinion of Carmax when we're done with this car.  A lot of it will depend on how this winds up in the next few days.

The first three matches in round 1 are up for votes (on the left side)... Haliburton vs. News Corp. sounds like too much of a match for round one. I could have seen that as a final match, but Exxon and Walmart also may have the ability to take it all the way...

So many bad companies, not enough time...