I Love Warranties and Good Customer Service!

A week or so ago, our dishwasher quit working. We could not find what was wrong with it. John left for an Army trip, and I called the repairman. The warranty is good until 2011 on this cheap machine (we bought the warranty on all the appliances last year when they were put into our new house). It was much less expensive to buy all the warranties as one big policy than taking them out separately (some of the warranties last until 2016!). The guy came out right away and fixed the loose wire (that's all it was!) and saved us $70.

A few months ago we blew the fuse inside the microwave/range hood (not a cheap machine) and the warranty covered that, too. That would have cost considerably more than $70.

Yesterday I took our van in for a look-see because I heard a funny noise. Whenever I turned the steering wheel, I heard this groaning. Never heard it before! In the near future, the kids and I are trekking out to Mom and Dad's, and all I could think of was us losing steering ability while driving the terrible path through Kansas City (by far the worst roadway of the trip), and flying off an overpass into the Missouri River, or even a stockyard (p-u).

Ralph, the repair center guy at Honda, gave me the happy news that two "transmission specialists" (who knew there was such a thing?) looked at and listened to the van and said there was nothing at all wrong with it. Just normal noise. They even washed the van! And, NO CHARGE for any of it! Hoo-ray!

So, why did I hear the noise? Where did it come from, all of a sudden? Thinking back, it was on a day when I had the van all to myself. This is a rare event! There was no noise from the DVD player, no noise from electronic toys, no noise from boys fighting World War III. I heard NOTHING for the first time in weeks. Except the normal car noises.

Sheesh. At least it gave Ralph a good chuckle.