Individually we each reached the end of our rope this past Wednesday. I was going to post that evening but I was beyond exhausted. Then I was still stressed about it the next day and too tired to post yesterday. Colin actually started to write this post on his own. It now has bits from him as well as myself.
We have been having some strange sounds in the Jeep when we turn the A/C on. It sounded like a Covid patient gasping for air. We took the car to both Jeep dealerships here in town and both needed close to three weeks before they could see us. I, Colin, discovered that Fountain Tire whom we paid well over 4K for new RV tires in the spring also did mechanical work. I snagged an appointment for 8AM Wednesday. About thirty minutes in the mechanic came out and said that the problem was the alternator and it was weak and not generating enough electricity for the A/C to operate and that we ended to replace the alternator. This was the mechanic’s assumption and he stated that he has been a mechanic his entire life. So three hours and $900.00 later the original sound problem we had was still present. He then said “solved that – however we still have an A/C sound to fix”. I (Colin) was quite upset as the mechanic said before the new alternator installation, that he was 99% sure that the alternator was the reason for the A/C noise 😯 So here we are, paid $900.00 to fix an A/C gasping noise and no fix done. The option was to put the old alternator back in which had a bit of a squealing noise as per the mechanic ( we never noticed it ) and leave it at that or go one step further and have him totally inspect ( on another day ) the A/C system discharge it and recharge it at no additional cost??????
I think that the problem may be the A/C compressor or perhaps the system could just be low on freon because it is still giving us cool air. What to do? Did we spend $900.00 that we did not have to?
That was expensive but easy compared to Contessa’s problem. The worst night of her life. Telus is the internet email service we use for specific things related to business and a few other important things. Telus decided to change their provider to Gmail so now we get our Telus emails through Gmail. Except, Telus never informed us of these changes and we were unable to receive our TELUS emails since July 29th. She spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone with a Telus technical representative who is located in the Philippines to help her. Unfortunately they are not always knowledgeable of the system. After 2.5 hours she questioned what he was doing and asked if he knew what he was doing. He said “I will have to pass you on to a more knowledgeable person who will call you back”. The new higher up tech guy called and she started over. Apparently Telus is migrating their email to Gmail. Now 4 hours in, our diner has been cooked and is ready to eat, nothing else done re diner prep (no time) as we are on the phone with this guy who has taken over the computer and keeps trying different things. Total frustration and lets throw the dining room table through the window thinking. So this highest level Telus tech guy is lost, now 5 hours in. Contessa is trying to be patient but is very upset. I am thinking. DONE DONE DONE. A really good blog to read and to remember re this is 2020 and we have evolved into a very complicated technical age. Simple is better and maybe we should throw it all in the gargbage and just eat raw foods? So now 6 hours in and the laptop reconfigured and Contessa wants to do my desktop and all I want is a tub of ICE CREAM. So here we are reconfiguring my computer to accept Telus emails. So a little more than 6 1/2 hours later I think we are done and working. The Phillipino tech said he needs an hour break. Well, our whole evening was taken up because of their inefficiency in setting up the transfer of their email accounts through Google. Someone screwed up here.
I seriously was ready to cry. I was not sure how much more I could take.
So life goes on, I will leave the rest of the blog to Contessa, Signing off, Colin.
Colin actually wrote this while I was still on the phone with Telus. He was most frustrated and he even stamped his foot several times. He was already done from the Jeep issue and now here I was dealing with another huge problem. Yes it is true, I was on the phone with them for over 6.5 hours. The first tech, Abel, knew nothing about the Apple system nor much about what was happening with the migration. I finally insisted that he find some else who knew how to work with the Mac system. Nico was kind and gentle but took a very long time to figure out the problem.
Not an act for the camera. I wanted to scream into the phone but had to hold myself in.
Colin and I had no idea that Telus was doing this migration thing. Nico said that I should have received info on that the end of June. Nope, non and nada. Later it turns out that Telus had sent me information re the switch on July 30th. However we were offline from July 29th on. I kept putting off calling Telus as we often go off-line and eventually it comes back after a day or two. As our answering service is linked to Telus I finally found the time to call late afternoon last Wednesday. It was daylight at 4:30PM when I started and it was closer to 11PM when I hung up the phone. I truly was feeling sick throughout the call, my stomach was churning and I wanted to cry and then to scream in frustration. I had no control over the situation. More so because both of the Telus techs had taken control of my computer. As I could see what they were doing I was able to voice my concerns and tell them that they were wrong. Heck I know nothing technical but knew enough to keep my eye on what they were doing. At one point they wanted to erase all my stored emails. It was very tiring and I was hungry. It was a simple plan was for me to call Telus and get the problem resolved. But it went on and on and on. While all this was happening I decided to put a frozen seafood lasagna in the oven. Between heating the oven, the 60 minute cook time and the cooling time, it was pitch black out and I still has two more computers to do. Colin ate and I had no choice but to continue. I feared that if I waited to the next day to finish up that I would not find a tech who knew what to do. It had taken Nico over 3.5 hours to figure things out. We finally did get both desktop computers and the laptop working with Telus but he was unable to figure out my iPad.
So once done he told me that he was really tired and needed a one hour break. I asked him how he thought I was feeling having started 2.5 hours earlier with the other tech. He suggested that I have a glass of wine 🙄 It was close to 11PM. I got off the phone, ate a small piece of lasagna ( sadly no salad nor veggies ), brushed my teeth and went directly to bed.
On the laptop, still had Colin’s desktop to go. As you can see it is now dark outside. I think Colin may have eaten by now.
Friday morning Colin went back to Fountain Tire for them to check out the A/C system which they said they would do at no charge to us but we would have to pay for repairs if needed. Colin decided to go for a walk while they worked. They called and told him that they could not do it as the Jeep had a newer type of freon that they were not able to work with. He got back and they handed him the vehicle keys. Umm no he said. There really is nothing wrong with the alternator and I want you to put it back into my Jeep and I want a full refund. We both believe that the alternator was not the problem. So they took out the new alternator and put in the old one and Colin got a full refund.
Colin then headed over to a different location called the “Auto Doctor” who listened to the wheezing sound and knew exactly what was wrong. The mechanic explained that this was a common issue in Jeeps and Dodge trucks. He said that it was low on freon, the new freon that came out in 2015, but as the Jeep was still putting out cold air that we were okay to wait until next summer. Oh, the repair cost would be between $350.00 and $500.00. The new freon costs $13.00 per ounce. So happy to get our $900.00 plus back.
Last Wednesday ( August 5th) was definitely a low point for us.
