FYI: Car Dealers and Repair Estimates

Car dealers service centers should be located next to emergency rooms to make it safer for the service rep to tell the owner the cost of fixing a transmission. Mine told me over the phone. If I were a woman of frailer nature, I might have fainted dead away and hit my head on the tile floor. As it was, the room spun when he mentioned the king's ransom they wanted to repair our car.

To my amazement, our car maker will relieve some of the expenses for those car owners with good maintance records, facing a king's ransom in  repair bills.

Here is the 411: You have to ask for assistance at the time you are given the estimate. The service rep can't mention the possibility of assistance  to you. The decision to provide relief is made on a case by case basis. There is no guarantee you will receive it even if you do request it. I don't know if other car manufactures offer this assistance through their dealers but if you are faced with a potentially heart stopping repair bill, it can't hurt to ask.

We did paying a earl's ransom to get  the car repaired but no ER visits were needed.