After I graduated from college for the first time, I had this overwhelming desire to own a small convertible sports car. After looking at MG’s, Triumph’s and Porsche’s (the cheap ones), I settled on a Fiat 124 Spyder.

While the Fiat dealers in Grand Rapids and Lansing both had cars on the lot, the Lansing dealer had a bright orange car with a black interior and a black top. And, while I loved the orange car, the dealership was asking list price for it and would not deal. Finally, the dealership decided to knock a few hundred off the price and I jumped on it.

Now, the Fiat came with a 20,000 warranty. But, in order to maintain that warranty, the car needed to be serviced every 5,000 mile at the dealership. And, since this servicing came with an adjustment of the solid valve lifters, the servicing cost about $100. Ouch!!

I can honesty say that I didn’t like the Lansing dealership in the first place because I felt that they were a bunch of crooks. So, the 5,000 mile servicing didn’t improve that image, particularly since they had a big smile on their face every time that I brought the car in for service.

Well, when I was getting ready to get married, our honeymoon plans called for a trip to Canada, And, since we were going to be putting a few miles on the car, I decided to take it in for servicing. And, even though the car only had 19,000 miles on it, I decided to have the 20,000 mile service performed anyway.

Now, technically, the 20,000 mile service was the end of the warranty, so anything that needed repair would be at my cost. But, since the car only had 19,000 miles on it, I was surprised to learn that there was almost $1,000 worth of parts that needed to be replaced.

Naturally, the service manager had a big smile on his face when I arrived at the service counter. He went over all of the items that needed replacing and explained it all to me. I thanked him for his diligence and asked him why I was being charged?

He explained to me that when I agreed to the 20,000 mile service, I agreed to have these items checked and replaced if needed. And, since the 20,000 mile service was not covered by the warranty, I would have to pay for the parts myself.

It was at this point in time that I explained to him that the car only had 19,000 miles on it and was still under the warranty. And that any thing that they replaced was at their expense and not mine.

The “man, I just screwed you for $1,000” look on his face turned into the “I just screwed myself for $1,000.”

YES!! The look on his face was priceless!! He knew that he had no choice but to honor the warranty. After all, they had declared that the parts were bad even though the car was sill under warranty.

He wrote out a new bill of services and only charged me for the standard $100 service fee. I thought he was going to cry. And, while I never knew if I really needed the replacement parts, I felt that I got my money’s worth out of the warranty. I suspect that the parts that they removed went back into stock as they were not really defective.

I never went back to the dealership in Lansing. Instead, I had the car serviced by the dealership in Grand Rapids. And, while all of the time I felt that I was getting screwed in Lansing, the last time I went to them made everything right.