Acura Roadside Assistance, part two

From part one, we had a "check engine light" episode, on our trip to Clearwater, Florida.  Luckily, we had booked a hotel room in Mobile, AL for the night that was directly across the interstate from the local Acura dealership.

Next morning, I called Enterprise, no pickup, since the rental is at the airport.  I ask if I can by chance pick up the vehicle early.  E guy says, "no sir, I'm short on vehicles."  I explain that its a truck, and what my circumstances were.  E guy said to come on!

In the process of completing the paperwork, I find that its a new Nissan Titan Quad cab pickup (online said Dodge quad 1500).  In the conversation, the E Guy says its gonna get interesting in a couple of hours.  Seems he only has 6 sedans on the lot, and 12 people coming to pick up reserved cars!  Only one of the customers was flying in, the other eleven were like me, walk up reservations!

In the airport parking lot, we swapped all our beach stuff and other stuff from the Acura MDX to the mighty big ass Titan Quad cab pickup.  We, (I), needed that truck to haul all our stuff and it was the only vehicle big enough for this Vaca man and his beaching gear!  Hertz had nothing!  Luckily, all the stuff from inside the car fit in the quad cab, and all the stuff from the basket hitch went into the truck bed.  Now, on to the Acura car dealership....

We get to the dealership, and wouldn't you know it, the lot is barricaded at all entrances.  You have got to be kidding me.......  Luckily, we had both sets of keys.  I took mine, walked to the service door, and found the drop box for early service.  The gate at the entrance to the dealership had a sign that stated that "the dealership is closed until July 5th, so that their employees could enjoy the July 4th holiday!"  It also included a telephone number that you could text a message, if you needed to contact the dealership during the holiday.  Wonderful!  The car won't even be looked at for four days!  We parked the car as close to the entrance gate as we could get, and left a note on the steerng wheel for the Dealership or the local Popo to see.   What else to do?????  Hopefully a responsible party would get to it before any criminal element......

With half the day gone, the second leg of our trip finally began.  We had booked a room in Gainesville for Sunday night months ago, since check in at the Clearwater Condo wasn't until Monday afternoon.  Three to four hours into our drive, the Acura dealership guy called to let us know that he had moved the car to the service lot of the dealership and they would look at it on Wednesday.

During our stay in Clearwater, we got daily phone calls from the Dealership.  Wednesday was spent trying to diagnose the problem, with no answer.  Thursday they finally hooked up to the computer systems in the car and confirmed that what we told them had indeed happened. (It was the same issue from September of last year, and happened outside Mobile!)  Instead of ordering a new computer module, they reinstalled the software, added some gas, then spent the rest of the day and Friday morning, putting some miles on it, in traffic similar to what we had experienced.

We decided to cut our vaca short and head back Friday afternoon, with an overnight stop in Tallahassee, FL.  The big ass mighty Titan quad cab truck was due back on Sunday anyway.  The Acura dealership confirmed that it would be ready for us to pick up on Saturday.  We made it to the dealership, picked up the MDX, dropped off the Titan (no refund for being 20 hours early) and hit the road for home, arriving without incident.

Yesterday, I called the Acura Roadside assistance number that the woman had transferred me to on Saturday night.  Three minutes of voice prompts and I finally get a feller on the line.  I stated that I wanted to file a claim for reimbursement for the car rental.  The plan says you are entitled to up to $300 per day for three days for reimbursement for car rentals, food, lodging, etc... but you must be at least 100 miles from home to qualify.  The Acura guy asked a bunch of questions, got all the particulars:  vehicle, VIN number, name, mileage, etc....  He then pointed out what the plan covered, and agreed that we did qualify.  He said he put all of my information in their system.  Cool.  Then.....

The Acura help guy tells me that I needed to call the original telephone number to file a claim.  I asked would they be able to see the information that he just put into their system????  He said no, different system.  I would have to go through all of this again!  You gotta be kidding me, 2017!!!  You just cannot make this stuff up!

I hang up with the Acura Guy, and I dial the other number.  Acura Gal answers.  Yep.  I gotta repeat myself all over again.  She asks what phone number was used to place the original road side assistance call.  I gave her the number, and she confirmed that the event had occurred.    She then tells me, "please hold, while I check with my supervisor to see if you have reached the right department for filing a claim."  What????  Really????  I'm glad I wasn't on the side of the road, that Saturday night hoping to get a yow truck!

The Acura Gal reconnected, and yes, I was with the right department.  I was instructed to MAIL all of my original receipts to an address in Massachusetts!  Can I not email it to you???  Nope, snail mail it is.  And of course, I don't have receipts for the food along the way since I paid cash, and I don't have hotel receipts since we used reward points!  Gonna be interesting to see what they do pay out of the "up to $300 per day for three days"......

I did find it interesting that none of the Acura Dealership paperwork mentioned much of anything that we described, including this being a "second occurrence".  Fingers crossed that this car doesn't get a third strike for a faulty computer module inside the transmission.  Otherwise, it will be another adventure fighting over a "lemon law" issue with those sales people that described this MDX as a luxury automobile with trouble free driving!