On Friday I scheduled by telephone a safety recall for the driver's side (truck) airbag which had a history of detonating spontaneously when electrical wire would wear through and short. I was scheduled for 1PM Monday. When I got there, I was not in their system anywhere, was told that that had been happening a lot lately due to outsourcing of appointment scheduling, and that I was lucky that there was somebody available to work on my vehicle. Over two hours to disassemble steering column and was told that they were not able to drill out rivets for the free safety recall (rivets probably installed when air bag detonated on previous owner). This cost me $199.00 and I was told that it required $1700 from me for them to replace steering column since rivets could not be drilled out. I know that where a rivet gun fits, a drill bit should fit. So I had my son's truck towed to Tom Smith Ford of Lillington (about same driving distance) and in short time and for only $45.48 Tom Smith Ford mecahnics drilled out the rivets and then performed free safety and recall I was happily on the road again. The service reps. at both Lafayette Ford and Tom Smith Ford were very pleasant and I was treated with respect. The difference was that Lafayette Ford would have charged $1700 to replace the steering column when their mechanic(s) were ""unable"" to drill out rivets and Tom Smith Ford easily drilled them out and replaced them with bolts for $45.48--a $1654.52 difference!!
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