Had a fiasco at the Smart Center of Tampa today trying to get my 2.0 upgrade.
They called me last week and told me about an event they were having today to get a bunch of 2008 owners to come in and get their 2.0 upgrade. I went ahead and scheduled my appointment to have it done today during their event… they even provided me with the best time to bring it in.
My wife and I show up @ 11:00am and there is a small crowd of others who had already dropped off their cars for the upgrade. So I sign the paperwork to authorize the work to be done on my car and my wife and I start walking around to pass the time…
Mind you, I was repeatedly told that the entire upgrade should take about “45 minutes to an hour”.
Two hours later, my wife started to wonder if we did the right thing by bringing it in…. 3 hours later, people were starting to ask if they could “borrow” the dealer cars in order to run errands that they had planned to do 2 hours ago.
After 5 hours of waiting, one of the people came up to me and my wife and apologized… “I’m sorry, but we had not planned for this big of a turnout. We have taken your car over to the servivce area, but it is still in the queue. Would you like to remain waiting here or would you like to take your car and bring it back another day?”
WHAT??!? Where was this guy 3 hours ago to tell us there was going to be a wait???
My AS prevents me from displaying most emotions, but my wife doesn’t… and was quite capable of showing her frustration. “Fine,” I thought to myself, “I work within a mile of the dealer, so I’ll just drop it off after work during the week.” Again, they gave me the spiel about it only taking 45 minutes to an hour… MAYBE even shorter as there won’t be such a crowd.
My advice to anyone who has NOT yet had their upgrade… if your dealer is holding some kind of “event” for the upgrade, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!! Just schedule it like a regular appointment and avoid the hassle.
There are apparently quite a few different “upgrades” in addition to the transmission being performed that varies on the type of Smart you have. I’ll post mine when I get it done… if ever.
Here are some iPhone pics from the day:
Miranda with a Smart to match her bag…
Miranda next to a TINY Subaru van…. Miranda’s 5′ 4″ btw…
LOL!
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March 29th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Gee, Son, maybe it was taking longer for the re-boot after the upgrade was installed (LOL). Think about it – mechanics and a wheeled computer. There was undoubtedly a couple of the techs trying to figure out how to get a socket on the “driver” and wondering what as so “gooy” (LOL). Just wait for the 3.0 major upgrade (hee, he, he). Dad