Freya Svensson's bumpy ride with the Rusnak Auto Group & Volvo North America
It’s now been 12 days without any incidents. My Volvo XC70 is running well — there are no leaks & nothing is smoking. I am feeling quite optimistic. Perhaps the repairs will stick, this time around. May I say… it’s running almost as well as my 1965 Volvo 122 I used to have in college.
I spoke to Bill Casey at Volvo yesterday, and he asked me not to drive my car until they can check it out. So, yesterday afternoon, a flat bed tow truck pulled up and took my car away. This time they brought it to Volvo of LA (16 miles away), not Rusnak Volvo in Pasadena (3.5 miles away). Apparently, the field engineer from Volvo is tied up at Volvo of LA for a few weeks, and since he wants to do the work, the car had to come to him. I am eagerly awaiting his diagnosis.
My car has now been inspected by Volvo’s field engineer. He spent the entire day yesterday investigating pretty much the entire car from top to bottom, as least the mechanical parts (the scratch on my bumper was probably ignored). The engineer issued a report that he has sent to and discussed with Bill in customer care at Volvo Cars, North America (VCNA). According to Bill, “all my concerns have been validated” — they confirmed the transmission problem, problems in the “engine area” and possibly a leaking radiator that may be the cause of the coolant leak. They also found a few other issues with the car. Bill is now compiling a complete dossier of the 10 year history of my car. He is getting notes, service records and repair orders from the extended warranty company, from the field engineer, and of course from Rusnak Volvo, and I am also sending him the receipts of the two repairs that was performed at Independent, to complete the picture. Bill will then send this complete dossier to the Engineers in Sweden for review. After this dossier has been reviewed Bill will get back to me and get me up to speed on all their findings. I will be getting a copy of the report as well. Bill informed me I am his top priority, and that his company’s mission is to “do the right thing”. (Sounds good to me.) We are scheduled to speak again on Tuesday, when he will give me a complete picture of the issues with my car.
Although Ernie Murillo, the Service Manager at Rusnak Volvo, Pasadena, left me a message stating short and sweet that my car was “ready for pickup”, Volvo made the recommendation that the car stays at Rusnak and that I stay in my rental car until further notice. So, here I am sailing my KIA warrior ship for now, at least until Tuesday.
P.S. Worth noting:
Despite confirmation from Volvo, that I was going to get a rental car as a replacement upon drop-off at Rusnak Volvo on Dec 9, I had to wait for about an hour before Rusnak agreed to cover the cost. They stated they “knew nothing about it”.
