What's in Your Glove Compartment?

Monday, April 17, 2017


I’m not a professional comedy writer, so I probably couldn’t have come up with this story even if I locked myself in a room and bribed myself with Oreos and Dark Chocolate M&Ms. 

I got a letter in the mail today from the company that built our car.  I could tell you what car company sent the notice, but I’m not comfortable disclosing the source of one of my funnier jokes.  I may have to draw from that well again if I ever get writer’s block.  (OK, it’s FCA – look it up if you can’t figure it out.)  It was a recall notice dealing with the subject of proper child rear seat installation.  Apparently, the owner’s manual may have misinformed some people with the fine details of the attachment process.

There was an addendum card enclosed, which was about the size of a large postcard.  The notice asked owners to review the corrected content on the card and then place the card in the glove compartment.  It went on to say that “If you prefer not to place the addendum card (in the glove compartment) yourself, simply contact your dealer to schedule a service appointment.”  If you bring the addendum card to the dealership, they would be happy to put it in the glove compartment for you – at no charge.  It went on to say that if you have already paid for this repair, you may apply for a reimbursement. 

There was a moment, albeit brief, that I wondered if our local car dealership might offer a loaner car for the duration of the repair, but while re-reading the recall notice, I saw that the estimated time it would take to put the addendum card in the glove compartment would probably not exceed just a few minutes. 

I don’t have a huge social network to poll, but even so I don’t believe I have any friends, family members or co-workers that would find it more convenient to make a service appointment with the dealership to perform this “repair” than to put on their Mr. Fixit auto repair hat and insert the addendum card into the owner’s manual themselves.  It couldn’t be too dirty a job, and might offer a good opportunity to do some spring cleaning of forgotten parking tickets, expired registration forms and insurance cards at the same time. 

I chose to do the repair myself.  I hope that in the process I didn’t void the warranty in any way.  It wasn’t specific about where to put the notice, so I just put it in the front of the manual between the “Congratulations on Your New Car” and “Don’t Waste the Dealer’s Time with Unnecessary Issues” sections.  I hope I got that about right.

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