Saturday, May 18, 2013

A few words on B-Quick

Lifetime Tyre Warranty


Only for a Simple Fix
You know those promises of Lifetime Warranty? Well they make it a pain for you if you did try to claim them. My front tyre showed a budge just after less than half a year on the road. And so I visited B-Quick where I had bought it in the first place. After inspection, they said I have to leave it with them so that they could investigate if it is valid for claim. I asked, so what do I drive with? My Volvo ain't no Tuk-Tuk, it can't balance on three wheels. Use the spare one they said. So, we all know that spare tyres are normally used for temporary emergency situations and not meant for long term driving, by my spare wheel became my permanent wheel for the next two months. Yeah, that's how long I had waited, with the constant calls to B-Quick asking them for an update on the progress of their investigation routine. I got a feeling the tyre I sent in for claim was undergoing a molecular level post mortem with DNA analysis in the process. And at the end of the long wait, they said "no claim free, damage because of my driving fault". WTF? They could have just told me two months ago upfront and spare me the ordeal of driving with my spare. Lifetime Warranty? Buyers beware.

So What's B-Quick Good For?

Most of us expats would not know where to go, so we ended up sending in our old cars to the nearest shops that displayed signboards with English, or at least some icons representing what looks like a car workshop. And B-Quick will be just one of them. I have learnt my lesson. Theses shops, are good for only the general services such as a simple tyre change, a quick oil change, the replacement of battery and that's about it. Look, cars are like species of animals and you need to visit the correct vet to get the correct animals fixed. B-Quick, the mechanics are not specialized to particular makes of cars. They are like the Jack of all trades but masters of none. So when they start telling you that they had performed a complimentary thousand point inspection and found that this and that needed to be fix if not your car will careen off the roads at high speeds, that is when you need to get your car to a specialists and have it double checked. Specialized workshops are all over the place, you just need to speak Thai and find out where they are. Normally, they will have the logos of brands displayed, the least the better. They are run by ex-mechanics from dealers, they will tell you their life story if you ask. From my experience, something loose with my steering turned out to be an extensive change of parts at B-Quick which at the end of the day, a Peugoet I used to have was going left all the time. I kept sending it back and it only got worst and worst. My second car here I got smart, an old Volvo. B-Qucik will give a quotation amounting to more than 20k, a visit to my trusted mechanic fixed my issues at only 8k. Why I would bother visiting B-Quick when I already have a trusted mechanic? That's because these special workshops are located in obscure parts of Bangkok. You will still need B-Quick sometimes to fix simple issues near your office or home, you will need to know your car and get wise on when to visit what.

2 comments:

Bestof2Worlds said...

My experience with a big tyre shop in Ubon..I wanted to remove a nail from my tyre and patch it up. My car was still red plate then and the service consultant suggested I change all 4 tyres. I am very seldom speechless and this was one of the few times. After that I was laughing hysterically.

Jewie said...

What the.. . . ?? Goodness.... whahahahah.. I guess this is also another problem, some shops will try to rip us off if they can. Sometimes I think they view us foreigners as some kind of large grey colored animals that has horns. . .