4 on the Floor? Volvo Owner Has Lost Count

Don’t read this if you own a car.

Turn to the next page. Read about the weather. No matter what it is, it’s in better shape than Deborah Atwater and her 1975 Volvo.

Last July the Volvo’s transmission kicked the bucket. Atwater had her car towed to Arrow Motors, a Volvo agency in Compton where she’d taken her car for repairs before. Then she telephoned to discuss repairs.

The agency told Atwater she had to make a choice. Mechanics could install a new transmission, which would cost $1,200, a lot of money for that old a car. Or they could install a used transmission, purchased from a salvage company, for $500.

OK, Atwater said, go with the used one.

Later in July, the agency called back. The car was ready. Atwater hitched a ride with a friend from her home in South Los Angeles. When she got there, the service manager told her he’d only now discovered that the car wouldn’t drive in reverse. The agency would have to install another used transmission.

Atwater sighed. She arranged for a ride home, and waited. Days later, the work was done. The service manager called. The car was ready. She came back.

It was only then, Atwater said, that she learned that Arrow wanted her to pay for the labor to install the second transmission as well as the first. This meant that instead of $500, she owed $732.88.

Atwater is like a lot of us when it comes to this kind of moment. Stranded alone in mine fields of automotive mumbo-jumbo, our bellies fizz and we lose our nerve, as though our cars were being held hostage by terrorists.

So she paid and took her hostage home.

A week and a half later, the car began to shake. Atwater took it back to Arrow Motors. The second transmission wasn’t working, she complained. They agreed. They said they’d install another transmission. She went home. Her business--she’s a party planner who often visits clients--was suffering. Finally, Arrow Motors called again.

The good news was that the third transmission had been installed.

The bad news was that the car would not go faster than 15 m.p.h.

The worse news was that whenever this third transmission was made to function properly, Atwater was going to have to pay another $286 to cover the labor.

Atwater was livid. She refused to pay. After all, she said, there was a 30-day warranty on the used transmission, and she’d by no means used that time up.

To which Arrow Motors replied: The warranty covers only the parts, not the labor. It’s written on the work order.

To which Atwater replied: You never told me that on the telephone when I first authorized the work. You told me $500--period.

Unable to win the argument, Atwater announced: I’m going to the state Bureau of Automotive Repairs.

Today, a month later, a stalemate reigns. The Volvo remains inoperative, parked on Arrow Motors’ property. Arrow Motors would dearly love for Atwater to take it away. Atwater believes that Arrow is obligated to install another transmission in her car at no additional cost and refund the $286 for installing the second transmission. Arrow is willing to make a deal: It will give Atwater a $180 credit toward the purchase and installation of another transmission. The catch is that Atwater would have to provide the transmission on her own.

Said Joyce Johnson, an Arrow spokeswoman: “It’s normal procedure in the automotive business that labor is never warranteed in used or salvaged parts. That’s kind of a gamble that you take.”

Ernie Doerr, who investigated Atwater’s complaint for the Bureau of Automotive Repairs, said that’s not the issue.

Doerr believes that Atwater should not have been charged a penny more than the original $500 for a transmission that worked.

“They advised this lady to buy a used transmission,” Doerr said. “I feel they are responsible for it.”

How the squabble will end is not clear. The Bureau of Automotive Repairs, which normally attempts to mediate consumer complaints and on rare occasions seeks criminal sanctions through the district attorney’s office, is continuing to prod Arrow Motors to install another transmission--one that works--in Atwater’s car.

Atwater, meanwhile, gets around as best she can. She vows not to compromise. But she is tired.

“This,” she says solemnly, “is a nightmare that will not die.”