On the Friday after Thanksgiving we took our son to Disneyland for the first time. Flights were expensive, so to save money we drove down from Oakland and stayed at Marriott Courtyard Theme Park in Anaheim. Like a lot of hotels these days, you have to valet your car so they can upcharge you for parking, in this case $24 a day. Our vehicle has one slightly unusual feature--a manual transmission. Minutes after leaving the car with the attendants they came and fetched us at the front desk because they couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse. So I went out, leaned in the window, and showed them. Easy. We even offered to park the car for them, but were told valet only.
We went up to the room and immediately there was a call from the valet. Something's wrong with the car, can you come help? I walked with the driver, Gregory Vega, and his manager (Christian) to the garage. Gregory was explaining that the shifter wasn't working and so he had to get out and push the car into the spot. It's worth noting the car was backed in, so he was clearly trying to use the reverse gear that gave him trouble. I hopped in the car, felt the shifter, and indeed something was very wrong. The shifter didn't register the gears at all, but was instead floppy and loose. My very first car was a stick and I've driven them all my life, but I've never encountered anything like this before.
We filed a report with Towne Park. On the form I filled out what happened according to me, and Gregory filled out his report, which I present in its entirety: "Valet was parking the vehicle and when he tried to shift gears it became loose and vehicle was unable to move."
Now I suppose it's possible that the car could have chosen this very moment for the stick to just break for, like, no reason at all. But the timing was certainly suspicious.
We took a Lyft to dinner where we stressed out about the situation. Rather than enjoy our vacation, we were now trying to figure out how we could possibly fix our car in time to get back home on Monday for school and work. When we returned to the hotel we got a contact for the regional manager, Octavio Montejano, and called him. He explained they would send a tow truck and I would find a mechanic open on Saturday.
On Saturday, after many attempts to get a hold of him, Octavio clarified that what he meant was he would give me the number for a tow truck, which I would be paying for. Thanks guys.
What followed was a long ordeal of me spending our holiday, at Disneyland, on the phone with various people from the valet company, AAA, the hotel, and the mechanic. Everything that could be fumbled was fumbled, and in the end our car did not make it to the mechanic until Monday afternoon. We bought last-minute flights for my partner and son to return home on Monday. I stayed with a friend for another day in the hope the car would be fixed quickly, but after assessing the situation, the mechanic reported that the pin that holds the shifter linkage together was missing. They would have to drop the transmission to reconnect it--would be a couple days.
I teach as well as run a small company, so I flew back to Oakland Tuesday afternoon for work. Friday I returned to pick up the car. Our total costs with repairs, flights, and Lyft rides was just under $1,800. This doesn't include two days I had to take off, including one where I had to cancel class.
We got a statement from the mechanic, Alfred Banks at S&K Euro in Westminster, where he notes: "When the vehicle first arrived, it was un-drivable. My mechanics had to physically push the vehicle inside the garage. Once the vehicle was diagnosed, my mechanics found the Gearshift Pin was missing, and could not be found on the vehicle. Based on the design of this Pin, a physical force had to have caused it to fall off. When this occurs, it's usually due to an inexperienced Driver not knowing how to drive a manual transmission. When the Driver gets caught in between gears, it tends to "Grind" on the transmission - causing too much strain on both the Gearshift and the connecting cable. It is this Pin that holds the two together. In my opinion, it is believed that the driver inadvertently caused this problem."
We sent this statement along with our own to Towne Park but they have twice now denied any responsibility. I run a business myself, and ever so rarely a thing will go wrong. When it does, we fix it, even if we might believe it wasn't our fault, because that's how good businesses treat their customers. This could have been a very short story--Towne could have said, "No problem, we'll take care of it," and then taken care of it. I have little hope that Towne will do anything at this point, so howling into the wind on social media becomes my last resort. All I can say is if you have the choice, don't reward this company with your business. read more