Sutori - Stories Tagged With 'quality'

It's LYING to you, don't worry!

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:27:50 -0700

We recently leased a new pickup truck to tow our horse trailer with because our old lemon (a 1998 Ford F-150) was not up to the task anymore. Because we don't believe in second chances where car salesmen are concerned (pretty much everything expensive on our old truck had been replaced or was in need of replacement by the time we traded it in), and Dodge trucks are terrible for fuel economy (we're talking large V8's here so I suppose 'economy' is a relative term in this context) we decided to go with GM. We picked a brand new 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD off the lot and got all the paperwork sorted out on a Friday. It was ready for pickup early the next week and I went over bubbling with anticipation, and that's where the fun began:

I had agreed with the salesman that their shop would quickly transfer the brake controller from our old truck into the new one. When I showed up he said they didn't really do that sort of thing that often, and that I would be better off going to an RV place down the road. So I had to go to the RV place to get the controller removed, and after that go back to the GM dealership.

When I drove the new truck off the lot I noticed the airbag light remained on. I was pretty sure that wasn't good, but not wanting to jump to conclusions, I went ahead to the RV shop for the brake controller installation and checked the user manual while I was waiting for the mechanic to do his thing. I went right back to the dealership and drove into the service entrance. After more than an HOUR of poking around, they decided the entire instrument cluster needed to be replaced. I was assured there was nothing wrong with the airbag, it was just the light that was malfunctioning.

Now I'm thinking: doesn't anybody check for these things before a new vehicle goes off to its new home? Doesn't anybody take a car for a spin to make sure everything is as it should be? The local mechanic I go to with our regular car does this even after a simple lube & filter job as a courtesy. Is it really too much to ask?

I love adidas, but . . .

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:18:36 -0700

I love Adidas . . . but this is not a love story.

Ever since I was a kid, the three stripes have made me happy. They have a certain iconic appeal that is seared into my consciousness. A sort of timeless beauty.

Because I fell under the Adidas spell as a kid in the seventies and eighties, I especially love retro-style Adidas. These days I think they call them “Adidas originals”.

So you can imagine how pleased I was when they opened a store in Vancouver (where I live) dedicated entirely to Adidas Originals. I discovered the store while walking past one day and a half hour later I walked out with a pair of shoes. A beautifully ugly pair of tennis shoes call Forest Hills.

I was a happy man.

But a few weeks later, I was less happy. The first problem was the holes. Turns out that when they were released in the early eighties Forest Hills were considered very innovative. First, they are extremely light. Sounds great so far. But they were also designed so that the feet of the tennis player wearing them woudl be cool and ventilated. To accomplish this, they basically put holes in the bottom of the shoes.

This makes perfect sense if you are playing tennis on a hot day. But a little less sense if you are walking around very rainy city like Vancouver. No one at the store told me about these holes when I bought the shoes.

Not a great start.

But I was still happy. A little duct tape inside the toes and voila! No more soggy socks.

But then came the matter of the glue. There is a strip of suede across each toe of the shoe. And within 2 weeks of my purchase these strips started to come loose as the apparently cheap glue holding them on lost its stickiness.

That’s when my adventures in shoe repair began. A few months, a few experiments and a new glue collection later, I’ve finally arrived at a workable method to patch them up when the glue starts to give out. It involves a tube of crazy glue, a roll of packing tape and, most importantly, a whole lot of forgiveness for the “mark of the three stripes”.

So why should Adidas care?

After decades of loyalty, I tried on a pair of Pumas just last week.

Sephora-Me want MORE-A!

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:22:43 -0800

I've ordered from Sephora.com twice and I've always been so happy with the company.

The orders are always accurate. What ever is in stock is marked, and if something isn't in stock, it is marked accurately.

PLUS you get three free samples (your choice) with every order.

They have all the beauty brands plus Sephora brand is a really great quality.

Woot woot for Sephora! Someone should give them a cookie.

Good Service vs. Poor Product Quality

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:59:02 -0700

Okay, time to get this off my chest. In June of 2005, I purchased a Dell home computer. This was my first Dell product and my wife's second. The ordering and shipping of the product was a good experience, fast and efficient. The setup was even smooth, up and running in less than an hour. Joy, Happiness. I’m thinking that I probably won’t need that 1 year warranty that I paid for.

Think again. The operating system started to do some funny things right off the bat, so the call went out to support. A very pleasant and competent person walked me through the re-install. I tell ya, Dell can do some wonderful things with the F12 key. All good, heck it was probably the fault of the operating system developer( take a guess ). Temporary happiness.

2 months later, the CD reader/burner was the next to go. Call to service, check this, check that. Yup, you need a new one. They ship it out. I replace it(yes, me – it was pretty easy) and ship the broken one back. System back up to speed.

Another 3 months down the road, the monitor blanks out. Call to service. Check this, check that. Yup, it’s broke, a new ones on the way. Get it and send the broken one back. I’m in business once again.

A year or so passes with mostly no issues, until last weekend(roughly 26 months since original purchase) when I’m greeted by the Blue screen of Death. Aka full failure of the main hard drive. Call out to service and yup, it’s failed. As I’m out of the warranty period, they check to ensure that I had all the disc’s I need to re-install, which I don’t, so they ship them out, then recommend that I call sales for a new drive. Well, I figure I can do this quicker on my own, so run to the local Best Buy and get a deal on a hard drive. Go home and tear the PC apart, only to realize that Dell has replaced the standard hard drive connector with it’s own proprietary one. Great!!! Now I have to order one from them, and return the other.

So here I sit waiting for the new drive to arrive from Dell, and am pondering whether the great service that I have received from them balances out against the poor quality of the product that they have sold me. Sadly, when I weigh the good versus the bad of owning a Dell, the bad is definitely the heavier of the two.