FS: '93 S4, dealers to avoid

[Michael Spiers <mikes@specnet.com>]

HBL in Northern VA has a black '93 S4 on their lot, something around 27,000
miles.  Looks pretty, needs one rear tire (odd huh?) but elsewise looks
perfect.  Said it was a local trade on a Mercedes.

If ya buy it there, take it somewhere else to get it serviced.  HBL is still up
to their old tricks, finding things wrong that just aren't wrong.  Does $250
for an alignment seem high to anyone else?  ("Well Mr. Spiers, there was an
extra $100 because one of your tie rod ends was frozen."  "Really.  Which one?"
 "Umm, the left one."  "That's got 27 miles on it, I replaced it this weekend."
 "Umm, oh, sorry, it was the right one."  "I replaced both of them."  "Ummm,
oh, sorry it was the inner one."  "You guys aligned it five months ago, maybe
it was torqued too tight then?"  "Oh, no sir!"  "OK, so, an alignment normally
takes you guys 2 to 3 hours per car you said, right?"  "Correct."  "So, you had
to spend an _extra_ two hours to free this 'frozen' tie rod end right?"
 "Correct."  "And when I dropped it off at 8 this morning, you told me not to
stick around because you had two cars to align first, wouldn't even look at
mine 'till at least noon, right?"  "Correct."  "And it's now 12:30 and you've
got the other two cars AND mine done already?"  "Yessir!")

On the possitive side, they cleaned my windows & put this shiny, silicone crap
on my tires that took me an hour to scrub off.

-- 
-Mike
mikes@specnet.com
mks107@psuvm.psu.edu
87 5000CS TQ - Metropolitan Washington, D.C. (but not for long...)
84 5000S - Boulder, Colorado
90 80 - Bethesda, Maryland
(hunting for the elusive Lago Blue '91 200Q)