After reading a few posts and remembering an experience my mother had, I thought this thread, wherein people post "dumb" service requests or "issues" with their MINIs. Although not a MINI issue, here was the story about my mother.

She bought a new Honda Civic. After a while, she began hearing a thumping noise when she drove. She took it to the dealer, who heard it too. They kept the car for 4 days, doing all kinds of road and other tests, all to no avail. Then, one of the service techs noticed that, as another one was parking the car, the red ball my mother stuck on her antenna (which, apparently, is required in Ft. Lauderdale) was bouncing against the roof of the car.

 

LOL, of course the obvious question is why would a red ball be required??

Annette

 

Same reason old geezers wear pants with beltlines under their armpits. It just is.

 

lol I had to explain the clock being off after two weeks, that felt kinda dumb, as weel as the airbag light tripping from excessive G-force cornering.

 

Umm, why was the clock off

 

well, as one approaches the speed of light, time kinda s-l-o-w-s d-o-w-n. . . .

 

The folks at oxford were counting 1 2 3.... instead of onethousand one one thousands two one thousand three.....

 

Kinda related.
My youngest sister was still in high school and dating a guy who....let's just say he knew the engine was in the front of most cars, but that was about it.
They are off on a date, it's getting late, and he remembers his dad told him to check the oil before he left home. He hadn't. So they stop on the way to the house to check the oil.
Sis soon realizes they were going to be late, so she calls and tells mom what was going on..la la la.
Two hours later they show up. When questioned about why they were so late they both stick to the "we had to put oil in the car" story.
Skeptsism doth ensue. Then came a moment of clarity.
The young man said "It would not have taken so long if they had made the tube bigger".
You have to admire a man's patience that can put a quart of oil down the dipstick tube on a cold night.
He's a brother-in-law now.
I still laugh at the mental picture.

 

I worked at a Mitsubishi store in the late '80s and there was a woman who bought a new Cordia or Tredia or Beadia or whatever and she came back after a week all irate because the seat was uncomfortable. Not defective, just uncomfortable; and she wanted a new, different replacemant seat under warranty. Isn't this the kind of thing you check out BEFORE you BUY a car? Incredibly (although I suppose it was good for customer service) the shop put a seat from a different model into hers, no charge.

 

They probably just had one from a wreck or something and decided it was easier than dealing with a loon.

 

Similar to the antenna ball story, when I worked at Saturn we had a women come in complaining of a banging outside her door when driving. The tech didn't hear anything and went on a ride with her. Turns out she was closing her jacket in the door and the material was flapping away in the breeze ash she drove down the road.
Also we had a customer who won his Saturn by guessing how many pumpkins were inside of it (it was a halloween contest). He would always come in complaining about an dor from teh heating system. We all joked it was a pumpkin that got left in the car from the contest.

 

Well, it wasn't nice to put a dead rat in the vent just because he won the car.

 

Does this have to be confined to cars?

A while back, a computer tech was on the phone with a lady who said her computer wouldn't boot up, and she'd tried everything. He asked if the power cord was plugged in, and was treated to a loud blast on the phone for that.

He went over, checked it all out. He looked at the power cord, and though it was in the wall socket, it wasn't pushed in far enough to make contact. he placed his shoe against it, placed his hands on the computer (a then new Mac Plus) and in a loud voice, said "HEAL!".... and pushed the cord in with his foot. You can take it from there

 

Well, you could have waited for an answer..... Actually, I like the more free-form threads.

 

Since when do Mini owners WAIT? We're SUPPOSED to be non-confromist!

 

Trow Hoo.

 

Not really a "service request" but it fits pretty well, I think.

Back in 1990, the Air Force sent me to Japan. Like most military people arriving there, we picked up a relatively inexpensive Toyota sedan to drive around for four years. It didn't make it that long.

Within months of arriving, I picked up a little Toyota pickup truck as well. The sedan became my wife's (long since ex-wife) commuter. Being a good ol' Louisiana farm girl, I trusted her when she continued to assure me she was checking her oil when she gassed up.

I get a call at work one morning. The car died. I go out to where she's stopped and I pop the hood. I asked her if she's still been checking her oil. She says "sure". I ask her to show me how she does it. She promptly pulls out the transmission dipstick which is nicely covered with purple tranny fluid.
:impatient

 

I would LOVE to hear an explanation why my wife's MINI's clock is so inaccurate. Please elaborate and explain it in a way that makes me like it that way. . . .

 

I have a similar story from the '60's with my grandfather. He was a broad man that always wore a three piece suit. Grandpa bought a Lincoln Towncar - new, it was his pride and joy - something he always wanted and could not, until then, afford. After he picked it up he could hear "tick, tick, tick" everytime he made a turn. He brought it back to the dealer three times and was told each time that they could not recreate the problem or find anything wrong. He then asked me to take a ride with him and see if we could locate the source of the sound. He made a turn and sure enough - "tick, tick, tick" - He made another turn and again "tick, tick, tick". I asked him to turn again and this time I looked down below the steering wheel where I thought I had heard the sound emanate. Sure enough, everytime grandpa turned the steering wheel the wheel was "ticking" off a button on his vest!!!! Mystery solved!!!

 

Ok... I want to hear some MALE dumb customer service stories!!!..please!

 

Since this thread has obviously become wide open, here's one from my Maytag repairman days. The complaint was an intermittant buzzing sound from a pretty new side-by-side refr. It has an ice maker, so that's where I started. I took apart everything I could get apart. I heard the noise, but it didn't last long enough to pin point! I worked for nearly an hour, before the "noise" vibrated right off onto the top of my head! A cell phone, left on top of the freezer, on vibrate indicating there was an unanswered call! Even the warranty people at Maytag got a kick out of that one!

 

Somewhat related.

There was the elderly lady took her 7 Series BMW back to the dealer to have her FOURTH flat fixed. She was fed up with the car and told them to get rid of it. She was fed up with having a LEMON Duh.

There there was the blonde who took her car in and asked the mechanic what LIO meant in the engine. The couldnt figure it out so they asked her to point it out ... She did and they just laughed for 5 minutes ... you can figure out what she was pointing to (oh wait ... that was a joke but I bet someone has done it).

 

4xAAA,
I'm really liking your posts so far. Don't be a stranger.

 

I knew a mechanic in a dealership in Sydney who had a lady come in with her new (mid 1970s) car, complaining that the fuel mileage was terrible. He drove it and got reasonable mileage, so he gave it back to her. A week later, she was back with the same complaint.
So he got in the passenger seat and asked to to take him for a ride, doing exactly as she normally did.
She got in, put on her seatbelt, pulled out the choke and hung her handbag on it, then went for a drive. Mystery solved.

 

Wow, total flashback to my grandmother. My Dad caught her doing the same thing with her car!!