Journalism to the Rescue

Back in April, Sean Murphy at the Boston Globe did a story about lemon law in MA, and I was the featured victim of car injustice. The day it ran, my friend Nirvi sent me a text with a bunch of emails for KIA corporate employees. Her thought was Hey, let them know this story ran and maybe they’ll actually take responsibility.

At this point, among other things, the car was still not repaired, a lawyer told me I had no case for lemon law, and KIA had declined buying back my car stating, basically, they didn’t feel obligated to. I also filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau, and the Attorney general’s office.

I typed up and email to this collection of KIA folks,

I wanted to send you an update about my car. Still not fixed, my car is back at KIA Burlington. They do not know what to try next to repair it. I still have not received my $4k car rental reimbursement which I was told I would receive from KIA. Also, congratulations, you’re in the news!

I then shared the link to the Boston Globe story.

That was a Friday. The next morning, I woke to a voicemail which came in at 8:30am. It was a KIA escalated case specialist, “My name is “Mark” and I am the Executive Escalation Analyst for KIA America. I apologize immensely for the issues that you have been through and I’m going to take over working your case personally. I will attempt to reach out to you again on Monday.”

I later learned that Mark was calling from California. Which means he called me at 5:30am his time. On a Saturday. From then on out, Mark was very attentive to me and my situation. He was going to get a field engineer out to see my car. “I know this guy and he’s like a NASA specialist, practically” Then later, he told me the NASA specialist wasn’t available until June, (mind you this phone call was taking place in April) so he was going to look into having the field engineer facetime with the mechanics at Burlington.

On Thursday of that week, I called my KIA Burlington contact, “Dan”, to fill him in on my communications with Mark. Dan at KIA Burlington said “The field engineer was here today. I couldn’t believe it because they said he wasn’t available for a while.”

Interesting.

“He drove the car around for four hours,” Dan told me, “When he came in to say he was able to replicate the issue, I asked him Did it make you want to poop your pants?‘ ” The field engineer confirmed that this was indeed not a comforting sound coming from the car. Or normal. And I felt vindicated once again.

And it’s the transmission. My car needed a new transmission.

Backing up for a moment to talk about the first mechanic from KIA Cape and Islands where I took the car in July, a few weeks after purchasing it. He rode around in the car with me until the sound replicated. He was a young guy from Brazil. I remember this because I recognized his accent and asked him about it. I don’t usually have a good memory, but this stuck because of the conversation. That young mechanic told me it was the transmission immediately after hearing the sound, but when I was joined by the admin person in the lounge area of KIA after we returned to the repair shop, the admin guy told me it was the clutch assembly that needed replacing.

That young mechanic was correct ten months ago. He was the only one who heard the sound, but they replaced something else instead. I could have avoided all of this if only they’d listened to that first mechanic back in July, one week after I bought the car!

Cut forward to the announcement in April that the car needs a new transmission, “But it’s on backorder” Dan tells me. Of course it is.

Meanwhile, Mark tells me he put in paperwork to request my $4k rental car bill reimbursement be made, “I’ve been working here five years and I’ve never seen paperwork go up the chain faster than this has. The VP of Consumer Affairs signed off on it herself.”

KIA was acting like their hair was on fire and this pleased me very much.

Mark then told me that he’s looking into reimbursing me for the car loan payments made while the car was not in my possession. By my calculations my car was on KIA property for seven months and a few days. It would be very nice to get those car payments back. I feel I’ve earned it.

When I learned that KIA Burlington will have my car until a transmission comes, I made it clear that I needed a rental (I was in Mom’s car again at this point), and I wouldn’t be paying for it myself. They made that happen.

This afternoon I picked my car up at KIA Burlington seven weeks after dropping it off. I chatted for a long while with Dan while I was there, “How did the field engineer know that the transmission was the problem?” I asked.

“He didn’t know for sure. It was his best guess”

So I guess this sound my car was making (and hopefully will never make again) is truly a mystery.

Dan also told me they saw the clutch assembly that the KIA Cape installed and said they did a “really shoddy job” with it. Great.

Time will tell.

Here’s the thing; It shouldn’t have taken an article in the Globe for KIA to pay attention to me. It shouldn’t have taken me being tenacious as all get-out, constantly advocating for myself, and talking to as many people as I could to educate myself on all aspects of this situation.

For example, despite the fact that I asked multiple times for confirmation that I would be reimbursed for my rental no matter how long I was stuck with it, at the end of it all the paperwork they sent me was referred to as a “request for reimbursement”.

I feel rage for others who don’t have the time in their workday to make the lengthy, countless calls I had to make to advocate for myself. I’m even ragier for those who cannot afford a $4,000 rental bill to not be reimbursed. I needed that reimbursement, yes, but I could still buy groceries until it came. Not everyone can.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Find the (hopefully) final installment here.