Texas this ain't

I mentioned in my last post that Kate and I went to our local Chevy dealer to test drive a car.  We ended up test driving it for a couple of days while they held our truck to make sure we came back.  When we came back to make the swap, our truck battery was dead.  They jumped us and said it was just a coincidence, and not to worry about it.

The next day, the truck was dead again.  We figured that maybe we just hadn't driven it far enough to really charge the battery.  So, we got another jump and drove to Toledo about 45 minutes away.  I figured that would be enough to let the battery really get a charge if that was all that was wrong, but we brought jumper cables just in case.  Sure enough, when it came time to leave Toledo, we went out to the car and found the battery dead.

Thinking that we were still in the friendly South, I popped open the hood and waited for someone to stop.  We were in a relatively busy parking lot, so I figured it wouldn't take long.  No one stopped.  People drove by slowly and rubbernecked, but no one so much as made eye contact with me.  I even waved at people and got nothing. 

Since we parked relatively close to the store, all the spots around us were taken, so even if somebody stopped we would have to push the truck out of the space to get a jump. So I figured I might as well push it out and see if that got somebody to stop.  I pushed the truck while Kate sat inside and steered.  We went out into traffic (not street traffic, but the flow inside the mall parking lot), and people just went around us.  Seriously.  A guy pushing an F150 with a woman and a dog in the cab and nobody even stops to ask if we're OK.

Finally someone did stop and we got a jump and got home.  It just surprised me that we could be there for that long and not have anyone stop.  The North is just different, I guess.

We called Trish at the Chevy dealership to let her know that our truck was just fine when we drove it in and broken when we drove it out.  She told us that she didn't know what we were talking about, and it must have been our fault.  I recognize that the dealership can't just fix anybody's car who says it was fine when they got there.  But it would be nice if there was some sort of remorse for breaking our car or offering to make it better somehow. 

We ended up going to Sam's Club and getting a new battery and everything worked out fine.  Yay for things working out!