By Chuck Cohn
Last Saturday’s mail brought the annual postcard that tells me, here in Nevada, to have my car smogged and my registration renewed.
No sweat! Drive about a mile, Sundays are easy, pay $100+ bucks, and it’s all done for me for another year. I came home after church, changed clothes, had a bite to eat, and off I went. Uh, oh. I drove up to find the place is no longer open on Sundays. Okay, come back tomorrow.
Monday, I drove up, patiently waited my turn, and was handed a “fail” notice. I need to be honest. I’ve had a check engine light on for at least six months, maybe longer. My (VERY) trusted Mercedes mechanic checked it out for me months ago: “No problem. Oxygen sensor. We’ll replace all four at 100,000 miles. Meanwhile, keep your money in your pocket.” I’m almost at 99,000. Not bad on a ten year old vehicle!
The gal at the smog place says, “Here’s a list of State approved mechanics who will clear this up for you. You must pay at least $261. Once it’s clear, within two weeks, come back with your paperwork, and we’ll pass you. You may not have this work done out of State or by any but these 30 mechanics. I look down the list and see the local MBZ dealership. They’re robbers, but now I’m stuck, and my favorite mechanic cannot get paid for doing the job.
I drive straight to the dealership. The service writer writes it up for 7:30 am Wednesday morning, three hours, magically to cost $261, but with no commitment as to what they might find. Carte blanche.
Wednesday morning I’m there at 7:15. The service writer is approving, but not quite ready. He settles in, takes my key, and asks if I’ll “be staying”. I look at him, and say, “This is my only vehicle, unless you’re offering a loaner.” He looks at me as if I’m from Planet X, and stamps the work order with big red letters, “Waiter.” I go to the waiting area, nab a small bag of trail mix and down two very good hot chocolates while settling in. No TV on. Good. Put on my headset, tap into my emails, messages, and news feeds. Lots of folks come and go. When I look up, it’s 10:00 am.
An employee comes in and turns on the TV, and leaves. When he’s gone 30 seconds, I get up and go over and turn the TV off. No one in the room objects. People are being called. I wait patiently until 11:00, almost four hours and finally go to find my service writer.
He tells me that they “just” gotten back to him. It’s an oxygen sensor. The cost will be $750 plus $261 for a total of $1,100. I ask what it might be if I had them replace all four at once. He checks with his manager. They won’t do it, and if they did there would be no special discount, but they will apply a 20% coupon to the one. Now I’m back down to just over $800, but don’t forget the local taxes, so let’s figure $900. Why won’t they do four? Never found out. My guy will do the other three, cheaper, same parts, when I’m next in.
The service guy “checks” and finds he can have (one) sensor by tomorrow (read, “late this afternoon”) if I’d like to come in at 7:30 am again. Yes, it’ll most likely be noon before the work is done. Then, by the way, the check engine light will not go out until we’ve driven the vehicle for a couple days, which means I might get back to the smog gal by Saturday.
Now, what is the point of the story? You thought this was all about doing my part for clean air, didn’t you? And Chuck is simply whining, right? I want you to think about doing “your” part for recycling, for clean air, for saving the forests, the wild horses, whatever will preserve the environment. I want you to answer the question. Who owns you? You see, the point isn’t about any of the named issues. Your effort may, or probably won’t, have much effect on the stated good thing. What’s important is that when you add up the hours involved, I (you) will have given away a full day of my (your) life for this effort, this time, and around $1,000 of my (or your) capital, all so I can be allowed to drive my excellently kept non-polluting 10 year old low mileage vehicle another year.
Are you getting it? The State (and perhaps EPA) commands me to perform and pay. It commands me to go to their “authorized repair” outfit to pay whatever they ask, not to be less than what the State mandates. The repair outfit arranges to take half a day from me to diagnose the “problem” and another half a day (at least) to repair one quarter of the job (so they believe they’ll have another quarter each of the next three years?).
I’m not angry. I’m just observing. I came from California where all these systems have been in place for years. There is no objecting. There is no reasoning. I can file a complaint to some department at the State, but in the meantime will be driving an unregistered vehicle and will eventually be made to comply anyway if I want to drive. If I should be found out and reported for driving an unregistered vehicle, my insurance premiums will magically go through the roof, and if I should decide to not carry insurance any longer….
How much of every day do you spend complying with the gently coercive orders of an all powerful State, giving “it” hours of your life, giving it your money, and wondering where it all went?
