Last Thursday my car was hit in the parking lot of my office. Not to worry, they only took off the driver’s side mirror and luckily left a note complete with a telephone number. Since then I’ve been in communication with both the culprit and the culprit’s husband. I met her at my local Ford dealership where she ordered the part for me. This is the first time in my life that a hit and run is going right.
But, leave it to Ford to screw things up. The part came in today. My guy doesn’t work until later this afternoon, so we switched cars and he took mine in to get fixed. He checked it into service, Ford called the lady who hit me, she paid for the labor over the phone… everything was going right until they discovered they ordered the wrong part!
How does one order the wrong part. My car was there. They seen it. And they had the VIN in hand. Getting this thing fixed has been an ordeal. My guy went out of his way by doing me this favor and the culprit held up her end of the deal… it was the dealership that disappointed.
So I wonder… what exactly is a VIN?
A Vehicle Identification Number, commonly abbreviated to VIN, is a unique 17 digit serial number used by the automotive industry to identify individual motor vehicles.
The VIN is composed of the following sections:
You’d think with my car’s unique VIN in hand… they would be able to order the correct mirror for it… and if not, they would take a closer look at my car (which was right there!)
Just to make sure it wasn’t my fault, I checked my VIN on Edmunds.com and as expected it was indeed my car. No VIN tampering had occurred.
According to Edmnuds, here is an example of the information a simple VIN can provide:
All I needed was a mirror.
Not thrilled Ford, not thrilled.
*Although, thank you for giving me something to blog about.
