Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

...
Proof of concept on an animal is at the very, very minimum $1,000,000,000 and a decade away from a marketable drug.

There are some firms in California working on medical technology. Interestingly, they are not looking at the home market to trial - too expensive as you point out.

I suspect places like India and Africa will become the proving grounds for much of this technology. Something like 300m Indians have no direct access to consistent medical; power; services in general.

Is it the case that something is better than nothing? I'm not sure.

vivatifosi

Pastures... Can one of your neighbours jump start you so you can get to Halfords?

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

I need to phone more garages. The one yesterday never phoned back. It was left that he was alone and once the others came back they'd work out a time they could come and phone me. They never did.

So I've identified two more .... and looked at their opening times - and the weather (freezing/frost) and thought they'd have a lot of phone calls/activity early this morning, with "everybody" phoning the minute they're open .... so now sitting and waiting until the "rush is over", so I stand a better chance of having a coherent conversation with them.

If the garages round there are anything like the garages round here, they get most of their business from drive-ins. They like to collect for big money jobs, not batteries. You may find that there's just not enough money in it. Hopefully I'm wrong.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I need to phone more garages. The one yesterday never phoned back. It was left that he was alone and once the others came back they'd work out a time they could come and phone me. They never did.

So I've identified two more .... and looked at their opening times - and the weather (freezing/frost) and thought they'd have a lot of phone calls/activity early this morning, with "everybody" phoning the minute they're open .... so now sitting and waiting until the "rush is over", so I stand a better chance of having a coherent conversation with them.

Once the battery starts acting up, you may as well replace it. You then have the benefit of the new battery. Otherwise, you'll replace it for the benefit of whoever buys the car from you.

Can you get a neighbour to jump start you, so you can drive to a car shop and get the battery changed?

Edit: Ah, I can see you said that that's not on!

Spirit_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yeah, no eye on the bigger picture ... of gaining some new customer confidence and good PR for free.

It wouldn't really "cost them anything" to look/listen/try to solve customers' small problems.

You are not a "customer", you are an enquiry. It is not "free" and there is an opportunity cost. An hour of labour is an hour of labour, and their aim is to sell all of the available hours they have. Only if they have more labour hours than income earning work coming in, will they have spare mechanic time to do house calls for "free" work. There is plenty of administration, training and business development for a small garage owner to do alongside managing the day to day operations.

Our local garage has been very helpful to us in the past but we were putting three cars through their workshop every year for MoTs and services. These days only OHs car goes there, we are not as good a customer as we used to be.

could you get them to quote to replace the battery and ask if they will pick the car up? if they are close by they may not charge you for collecting it.

GDB2222

Spirit wrote: »

You are not a "customer", you are an enquiry. It is not "free" and there is an opportunity cost. An hour of labour is an hour of labour, and their aim is to sell all of the available hours they have. Only if they have more labour hours than income earning work coming in, will they have spare mechanic time to do house calls for "free" work. There is plenty of administration, training and business development for a small garage owner to do alongside managing the day to day operations.

Our local garage has been very helpful to us in the past but we were putting three cars through their workshop every year for MoTs and services. These days only OHs car goes there, we are not as good a customer as we used to be.

could you get them to quote to replace the battery and ask if they will pick the car up? if they are close by they may not charge you for collecting it.

I agree completely.

On a purely practical issue, the garage would almost certainly prefer to bring the replacement battery with them and fit it on the spot. That should cost something like £30-50 plus the cost of the new battery.

If PN can get to Halfords, it's only £10 plus the cost of the battery. In my experience, most car shops will fit a new battery for not much money, so that may be an alternative.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

But I'd pay them for their time ... so not free to me.

The problem I am having is speaking to anybody that can actually make sense.

What I want is to pay for somebody to come here (No more than 400 yards for the garages I've phoned so far), at a time of their convenience (no rush), to give it a jump, then stick their meter on it, to tell me if I'm likely to need a new one and then sell me one if (probably) appropriate. Then I'd pay for that.

Trouble is getting anybody to have that conversation with.

There's no money in it for them, unless you pay a large amount for coming out and testing the battery. How much are you offering to pay for that?

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

KF, round the corner, do a free winter check of that and more ....

It's not that I am unwilling to pay - I am unable to ascertain any costs of doing anything. The "industry" is not presenting me with solutions.

As a clueless customer, unused to "what normally happens" it should be their "job" to say "Ah, what we normally do is... and it'll cost you ..."

It's not a test I want as such; I want the car started, battery tested or sold a new one or something.

They should know what's their norm, the norm, what usually happens.

In 35 years of driving I've probably bought one battery in the past, at the most. So this is a rare event for me, so have no idea of how garages work, what they usually do etc.

They probably don't get lots of callout enquiries. The AA and RAC do those.

You could join the AA, wait a few days, then call them out. They'll do the test and jump start you. You'd need an at home membership, which might be £40-50. They also carry replacement batteries, for which they charge a lot!

Your local garage won't have a battery in stock to bring along on the off-chance. If you order (and pay for one) they'll order it in and then bring it along to your place. They can probably get it within a few hours.

There are lots of services that will supply and fit a battery at home for you. For example, http://www.etyres.co.uk/uk-car-batteries/

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Well, they could bring a battery. They could suggest that they'd bring one out and fit it if mine's dead. They had the choice of having that intelligent discussion with me, but these days garages seem to be staffed by phone-answerers who don't know the exhaust from the fag lighter

If somebody just said "It's probably dead, I can bring a new one and fit it and that'll cost you £100" I'd do it. But being unable to have any conversation with anybody you get stuck on the phone speaking to people unable to actually make conversation.

They can't just bring a battery, as there is a whole range for different cars. They don't have them in stock.

You said: "If somebody just said "It's probably dead, I can bring a new one and fit it and that'll cost you £100" I'd do it. "

In that case, why not just ask for that? It's the "test it/ jump start/ diagnose/ bring along a battery on the off-chance" that is probably putting them off.

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

My fil did too. With hindsight, the extent to which we didn't realise it was happening was quite scary. The outcome would have been the same, but if we could have realised and got help earlier it would have been so much better for everyone.

I'd love to see a cure for alzheimers. My fear is that becaue it involves the brain, which is the organ which humans are least advanced in working on, that it is further down the line than we think. I'd love to be wrong, but not convinced I will be.

I suspect with A it may well be that 'cure' is not possible but that prevention may be - except that is incredibly hard to trial.

PasturesNew wrote: »

I am a member, through my insurance. Covered for home fixes, but not home starts. £95 they wanted to just come and do a jump start.

I'd like to find somebody like etyres, but unless you know what you're looking for you can't find it. Just tried their website and I'm not sure exactly which model mine is from their dropdown. I'll give them a call.

The price they gave for the model I randomly selected said £86 for the battery.

I am on the phone with them now - he's just checking if they fit in my area.... he sounded a bit nervous/unsure of that though.

EDIT: They use a sub-contractor here. Earliest would be tomorrow.

Now he wants to check if they can get the battery - and then he gave me a price of £106, £20 more than the website seemed to suggest (although I couldn't pick my actual model). Trying other models of my car all come up with the £86 online price.

He's now offered me a price of £96. So I agreed and paid.

He'll be here tomorrow.

I was going to say you can join the MSE reccomended full service breakdown cover for £40 pa or even go for a Nationwide Current Account, £10 per month but loads of other insurance as well as car breakdown and if you switch then you and a friend who refers you (like me) get £100 each and you get £75 cash back as well.

I was aso going to suggest you look in the Yellowpages.com for mobile mechanics who would probably come out and fit for about the same as Halfords would charge for a battery cos they would source it elsewhere at half the price.

However all suggestions are now too late as you are sorted.