**** NOTE: This post is simply a public name and shame and is not intended to be insightful in anyway****

Ok, so across the road from HTD is the Ford Dealership Strapp Ford. They have apparently been voted Ford Dealership of the year 8 or 9 times but this either must have happened a long time ago or all the rest of the Ford Dealers are worse than they are.

Here's what happened.

I went to Strapp Ford to get my timing belt replaced on my car (100,000km service). I got the rest of the service done with a trusted friend of the family mechanic earlier and he told me to head over to my local dealer to get the timing belt changed. So that's what I did and 300 odd dollars later I thought all was good with the world.

Well that was a month ago, and on Tuesday night some belts and pulleys fell out of my car after driving to the airport (right at the end of my first long drive as I was going about 70km/h down Springvale Rd)

That's right, I'm driving along and then bang, stuff falls out of my engine and my car stops. You can see the bits in the picture.

So at about 2:30 in the morning after the tow truck finally arrives I get it towed to Strapp Ford to ask them to explain how this has happened, and to fix their mistake.

I arrive at Strapp Ford at 7:30am on Wednesday to tell them what has happened. They investigate and find that they didn't do up the screws properly... They offer a half baked attempt at an apology as if I'm supposed to understand that these things just happen and then say but we wont charge you for the repair and send me on my way.

Discraceful! Never go there! They can't even tighten screws... imagine what they must do to your car if it actually has a real problem. So I'm off to my family friend mechanic this afternoon to get him to actually check the car properly for me.

---UPDATE: My mechanic took didn't like the look of the screws Strapp Ford had used so he took them out and put proper ones in. So far so good.