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On 26 Jun 2004 at 6:59, Steven Ayres wrote: > GregM=> Don't forget your time for maintenance. Time = money. > > True enough. But let's not neglect the intangible value of direct > understanding of what's going on with the car and how to deal with it, and > the resulting empowerment of the driver. That's why I got involved in VWs in > the first place. Case in point: Elderly neighbors with lots of money. Wife is a recent widow. 5 year old Mercedes in the garage; 4500 miles on the odo. Tow truck on the street. I went over to ask the driver some unrelated questions and found that they called him because the battery was dead (the car never gets driven.) They called him for a jump, but he couldn't help because the battery was too far gone. She couldn't remember the last time she had tried to drive it. The tow truck driver installed her new plates on the car for her. She called the M- B dealer to have them send out people to install a new battery on a saturday. I'll bet this little episode is going to cost them $300, and it will get repeated in less than a year. This is the third new battery in this 5 year old car. She has no idea that there might be any cheaper way to deal with this. I went over later to offer to put a charger on the battery overnight, but all the arrangements had already been made. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org