Along with the first robin of spring comes the car salesmen and their pitch to get you behind the wheel of that car you always wanted to drive. I bought into the hype and bought a new car. The salesman couldn’t do enough for me, he even sent me a thank you note afterwards. He no longer works at that dealership. Too nice of a guy, I suppose.

I was told that the car had a 36,000-mile or three-year warranty on almost everything, except wearable parts like tires and batteries. For an additional charge, I could purchase an extended warranty that would cover up to 50,000 miles. It sounded like a good deal to me. As it turned out, I should have been dealing with the service manager rather than the salesman.

At l4,000 miles, the rotors and brakes were shot. I immediately retrieved my warranty and headed for the dealer. I discovered that the rotors only had a life expectancy of l2,000 miles, and after that were considered wearable parts and not under warranty. To add insult to injury, the service manager implied that I must have been “riding the brakes.” I wasn’t about to pay $140 for new rotors without a fight. Since the salesman had gone with the wind, I petitioned the sales manager to intercede. Begrudgingly, the service manager installed the new rotors.

I skipped that dealership on my next car purchase and went to one whose service department was considered “top flight.” Once again, I was misled. On our first long trip with the car, the air conditioner went on the “fritz” on the hottest day of the summer. I got an appointment with the service department and arrived at 8:00 a.m. I was dispatched to the waiting room, where I could watch TV or read while they serviced my car. Just as “Oprah” came on, a service department employee showed up to tell me I would have to come back tomorrow.

I exploded, as any normal human would, and demanded to see the service manager. He was unsympathetic to my plight. Next, I demanded to see the owner to have someone deal with the problem that day. I talked with his secretary and she made a call. A “technician” was assigned to fix the problem before I left, proving the old adage—never underestimate the power of a woman!

Before this new era of “technicians” and extended warranties there was the local garage mechanic who could fix anything on wheels. We had one in Schenectady, NY in the 50’s. His name was Eddy and he learned his trade by watching and doing since he was a youngster. In high school, everyone knew a guy like Eddy that tinkered with cars. They popped up like mushrooms whenever a car’s hood was raised. They would stick an ear close to the engine and direct you to give it a twirl while they listened. Most often, they came up with an answer to your problem, and if you had a wrench or some other useful tool handy, they would fix it for you. Eddy was one of those guys and he naturally gravitated to owning his own garage.

A trip to Eddy’s garage was an event. You showed up with your problem and he popped up out of his grease pit, cigarette dangling from his lip, wearing what were once green Dickies but were now the color of grease. He had a cap on his head that if wrung dry would fill up a quart of oil. There were always a few hangers-on at Eddy’s place and they would scurry out to watch and listen as Eddy performed his magic. A look under the hood, a few “revs” of the engine and Eddy would begin to make noises that sounded like “yep, yep.” He would pop up from under the hood and pronounce his “diagnoses.” If you had an hour or two, he would fix it then. If not, bring it in the next day. He would write your appointment down with a stubby pencil on a wall calendar, the one from the auto parts store with the picture of the sexy girl.

Once Eddy had fixed it, I don’t recall bringing the car back with the same problem. He offered the best warranty of all, his word that it was “O.K.”