"Fuming"

It’s not good to write when you’re fuming. Or maybe it is. I’m fuming too much to know for sure.

When you’re fuming, you write with passion and intensity. That can’t be bad. The problem is, fuming keeps me from thinking clearly, and not thinking clearly leads to exaggerations and mistakes, and that’s not good.

Look at this. I’m trying to be reasonable about fuming while I’m fuming. It can’t be done.

Okay, so let me “fume down” a little. Here we go.

Fuming down. Fuming down some more. An upsurge in fuming…no, it’s under control. Fuming down a little more…a little more…almost there.

No. I’m still fuming.

Okay, we’ll have to go with that. Reduced fuming, watching for upsurges, which I may or may not be able to control.

Okay. I’m starting.

The Source of the Fuming

When our daughter, Anna, returned from college in 2005, we got her a car as a graduation present. A 2002 “pre-owned” Saab. Dark blue, with a black convertible roof.

A “pre-owned” car sounds much better than the former label for it – a “used” car. A “used” car sounds used. People used that car. How did they use it? We have no idea.

The word “used” carries whispers of cigarette butts in ashtrays and shenanigans in the back seat. Maybe a body found in the trunk. We don’t know the former “users.” They could have been miscreants.

With a “pre-owned” car, it’s possible – not likely but possible – to imagine that the “pre-owners” didn’t even drive the car. They don’t call it a “pre-driven” car. It was simply “pre-owned.” The “pre-owners” could have bought the car and kept it in the garage. Under a protective canvas cover. Came out on a regular basis to run the engine. Nice people with an undriven car.

Sorry, I digressed there. It’s one of the techniques I use for managing the fuming.

Big tension-relieving sigh.

Back to the story.

The salient factor so far: A 2002 Saab was purchased in 2005.

We write a check for the car. Then the salesperson asks if we’d like to buy an extended warranty. We think, “Hm.” This is a “pre-owned” car. A new car hasn’t been driven, you still like the warranty, because…you never know. With a “pre-owned” car, the “You never know” factor is even greater.

“We want a warranty,” we announce with authority.

“A two-year warranty, or a five-year warranty?”

“A five,” we proclaim.

We want maximum protection. The family’s in full agreement on that – Dr. M, a practical person, Anna, a sensible person, and me, the other person who happens to be around. If Rachel had been there, I’m certain she’d have supported the “Five”, Rachel being the most practical and sensible person of us all.

You have to be levelheaded in such situations. The “pre-owned” car had twenty-three thousand miles on it. So much for my “garage, canvas cover” fantasy.

We now pay a short visit to the “math” arena. Don’t get scared, it’s easy math. You can do it.

You purchase a car in 2005, and on the day you purchase that car in 2005, you purchase a five-year warranty for that car you purchased in 2005. What year would you think the five-year warranty the warranty on that car you purchased in 2005 would be good until? Everybody?

2010.

I told you it was easy.

Since five plus five equals ten, ipso facto, a five-year warranty purchased in 2005 would be in force until 2010.

Okay, the fuming’s starting to return. If you get the sense that smoke is escaping from the top of my head, please, find out where I live, race over here, and pour water on me. There’s a chance I could overheat and explode.

Wait, it’s subsiding. I better move on while I can.

Last week – in late September of 2008 – Anna had some serious car trouble. She took the car to the Saab Service Center where they told her the cost of the repairs would be in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred dollars. They also told her another thing.

The car was no longer under warranty.

Why?

Because the Saab Certified Warranty Verification clearly states, and I quote verbatim:

“The Saab Certified Pre-Owned Limited Warranty period commences at the time of sale of a Certified Pre-Owned Saab or upon expiration of the applicable Saab New Vehicle Warranty, whichever occurs later, and expires 6 years or 100,00 miles from the original in-service date, whichever occurs first.”

I graduated from college. My daughter, Anna, graduated from college. Dr. M has a Masters in Film and a PhD. in Psychology – she attended college a lot. The paragraph italicized above? None of us is certain what it means.

What it means in practice, however, is that math doesn’t matter. A five-year warranty, purchased in 2005 does not, as you might imagine, remain in force until 2010. Instead, it appears to remain in force for six years from the point that the car originally went in service.

Therefore, according to Saab’s, non-mathematical but nonetheless enforceable calculations, the warranty we believed would protect us until 2010, terminated in 2008.

And my question – trying to remain calm – is:

“How exactly is that possible?”

We bought a five-year warranty, which remained in force for three years. What happened to the other two years? Where did they go? Was the meter running on the warranty running before we purchased the car? Was our warranty protecting the previous owner?

I don’t understand it. If a five-year warranty protects your car for three years, shouldn’t they by all that’s true and just and fair and decent in this world call it a three-year warranty?

Imagine if, instead of buying that “pre-owned” 2002 Saab in 2005, we had bought it in 2008. And at the time of the purchase – in 2008 – we had purchased a five-year warranty. Would that mean that, rather than having five years of warranty protection, which a reasonable person – tell me if I’m wrong – would believe would take us to 2013, we would actually have no warranty protection whatsoever?

According to the Saab Certified Warranty Verification, if you buy a five-year warranty for your newly purchased “pre-owned” Saab six years after its “original in-service date”…

…you’ve got nothing!!!

You buy something. You pay for it with money. But in reality, you’ve got nothing?

What are they talking about?!!!!!

All right. I need to calm down. My stack is beginning to blow.

Keep writing. Okay, I will.

I hate Saab, and I want them to die.

Well, that wasn’t good. I don’t want them to die. That was over the top. But I do want them to be very unhappy.

Wouldn’t it be great if I had clout? Wouldn’t be it wonderful if among my millions of readers, one of them was the President of Saab, who read this post in Sweden while munching on some herring and proclaimed,

“Py Yiminy, that little Yewish fella is right! We’re cheating de customers with de misleading wording in our Certified Warranty Verification. We shouldn’t be doing dat. We’re Swedes. We care about people. You break your hip, we give you a new one for nothing.

“Find me dat little Anna girl. Tell her her warranty’s guaranteed till 2010, yoost like she t’inks it is.”

Just to be fair, let’s read it again.

“The Saab Certified Pre-Owned Limited Warranty period commences at the time of sale of a Certified Pre-Owned Saab or upon expiration of the applicable Saab New Vehicle Warranty, whichever occurs later, and expires 6 years or 100,00 miles from the original in-service date, whichever occurs first.”

Nope.

Tell me I’m wrong, but doesn’t the second part of that sentence – the part that begins with the words, “and expires 6 years, etc…” – cancel the guarantee in first part of the sentence? If you purchase a five-year warranty at the time you purchase the car, isn’t the company giving you something in the first part, and taking it back in the second?

How can they do that?

Excuse me, Earl. I hate to interrupt, but yesterday, your post went on and on about the disreputability of attorneys.

Well, I actually didn’t write that, Italics Man. My Uncle Grumpy did, though I can’t say I disagreed with it.

Okay. Well, today, having a problem with your little contract there, you might just benefit from the services of an attorney to defend your position.

I get the irony, Italics Man. It’s true. We could benefit from an attorney to protect us from the Certified Warranty Verification.

Feeling a little remorse then?

Not at all.

Why not?

Because some other attorney concocted the Certified Warranty Verification in the first place!!!