busybee fluffy rambles

Okay so. Originally they were going to lend me a Kia Forte, which is a tiny economy car, but that was returned in unsafe condition.

Then they were going to lend me a Sorento, which would have been great (overkill, really), but that one still hasn’t been returned by the previous user.

This morning I got a notification from Kia that “the Niro is ready to be picked up. Will you need a ride here?” I thought, huh, so they’re done repairing my car? Great!

Today, right around when I was about to leave for the Matrix test drive, I got a call from the dealership: the loaner was available, but it wasn’t in a totally safe state due to a huge crack on the windshield. They asked if I still wanted it and I said I’d rather not.

blep

The Kia service person finally got back to me several hours later, and I have learned:

1. The parts for the repair have been ordered and are on their way
2. Which implies that they actually did diagnose it, phew
3. Also they might have a loaner available for me tomorrow, but they’re “uncertain”
4. Also they still haven’t told me how much these repairs are gonna cost or if the warranties are going to cover them, bla bla bla, not looking forward to a surprise bill

Meanwhile, I’m scheduled to test drive the Matrix XRS Thursday afternoon, and my brain is currently in a state which has me overcommitting to just buying it, without having seen it in person yet. Maybe let’s think this through, and make sure I’m not just doing my usual self-convincing/rationalizing of something stupid.

Today I finally got in touch with Kia’s corporate customer service after filing a complaint yesterday, and they said that they also haven’t been able to get in touch with the dealership.

I asked them how I can go about getting a loaner, and they said that it’s up to the dealership to do so. If the dealership doesn’t have a loaner available, then they have a rental reimbursement program.

I asked about that, and the answer was that from the time the car is diagnosed, if there’s a long-term repair that needs to take place, then they will reimburse the rental fees. However, they will only do so after the car has been diagnosed, and as far as I can tell, it has not. I asked them why the policy was based on diagnosis time rather than dropoff time, and their response was that it is Kia’s policy to be that way.

I said that for me the issue is that I’m without a car, and that it shouldn’t matter when the car is actually diagnosed, what should matter is when I am without a car. It seems to me that the service center has absolutely no incentive to actually move forward on things based on this policy, because it means they can just hold on to my car for months without any forward progress and any compensation to me.

The CSR said that she would file a complaint on my behalf about this policy, but that for now, Kia’s policy is that the reimbursement period only begins when there’s a diagnosis. And she will try to find out if there’s been a diagnosis, but the dealership hasn’t been responsive to Kia Corporate either.

So, yeah. Kia has great cars but their customer service is FUCKING AWFUL and based on this series of interactions (and lack thereof) I can no longer recommend Kia vehicles. Which is sad, as of all the current EV manufacturers available in North America, they have the best value proposition (and some of the best EVs available in general).

I took my car to the local Kia dealership to get TSB ELE234 taken care of on Tuesday. I still don’t have my car back or any indication of when I’ll be getting it back.

Stuff continues to happen!

It’s been a little while again! I think I like these collected updates rather than doing daily micro-dumps, and it’s also nice posting it here instead of on Mastodon or whatever. Timeline-based social media kinda bums me out these days.

But yeah today I’m feeling pretty accomplished!

I’m still trying to figure out the best way to get my music copyrights properly enforced on YouTube.

The problem is that I’ve released pretty much all of my music under CC by-nc-sa, which means that people are free to use it as long as they credit me, use it noncommercially, and also put their content under the CC by-nc-sa license.

However! People never fucking do. It’ll never be credited, is often used in a literal fucking advertisement, and is also absolutely never put under the same license.

So, you’d think this would be a perfect use case for YouTube’s copyright enforcement tools, right?

Time for another tedious life and project update-ramble!