altezzas, oil changes, $80 plastic lights,

Way back on the break, on the day before my birthday to be exact (3.29), celeste, my father, and I put the altezza tail lights in the neon. If you’ll recall, that was the third set of lights that crutchfield had to send before they figured out how to keep them from getting cracked in delivery. So, at the end of March we finally got those on the car. My dad tried to put in the lighted windshield wiper fluid nozzles at that time as well, but gave up for the day because his hands were too big to keep ahold of the tiny components, that and the thing wasn’t really made to fit into a neon’s hood correctly. I had also bought clear side lenses (the 4-way/turning blinkers), but we didn’t even attempt to put those in because it wasn’t going to be an easy task (you can’t get at them from the outside, so you have to go in through the wheel well).

Last weekend Celeste got an oil change, tire rotation, and a wayward screw removed from a tire. On Tuesday while loading the van up at work I noticed one of the tires was low. I checked it later and sure enough, 10psi. So, I called up the dealership and told them they had to redo their patch on the tire. The guy said to just come in on saturday. Saturday morning I called again to confirm that I could just “come in,” and also to ask if they could install the clear corner lenses and the windshield washer nozzles. The guy said “sure, we can do that, just come on in.”

So we get there, wait in line (in the car) outside the service department only to have some guy come out and turn us away because we didn’t have an appointment and they were “all booked up for today.” I explained the situation and the guy said that maybe I had talked to someone across the street at their sister (chrysler/jeep) dealership. So, with no other options we went over there. They didn’t know what we were talking about, but agreed to look at the car and try to install the stuff anyway. We were informed while in the waiting room, that the other dealership had “way over inflated” the tires when they changed the oil. Three hours and 82 dollars later, we drove away with the tires fixed and everything installed. Ironic, the installation of the corner lenses cost 14 times what I paid to get them. Also Ironic that it took until June to finish giving Celeste her christmas gift.