More than enough stupid to go around

I always told my staff that if they had a really complicated explanation for something that could just as easily be explained by assuming that somebody was really stupid they should go with the stupid explanation every time. 99 times out of 100 that would turn out to be the right explanation.

We've got these three valves located between the tag axles that I sort of understand the function of and it doesn't really matter what they do for this story so we won't go into that. What does matter is that they are leaking. And they've been leaking for a long time now. To the point where they leak all our air out in about 8 hours. I don't think they affect my brake application air but they need to be fixed nevertheless. We have to do a BC safety in order to register this beast in BC and I want the valves replaced before we do that. I was pretty sure I'd have to order them from Prevost mainly because I didn't want to risk breaking one of them taking it out and then not being able to find a replacement immediately.

So two weeks ago when we got to Regina I got on the phone to Quebec and ordered 3 new valves plus a rebuild kit. I'm not sure why I need the rebuild kit since these are likely the same valves the frenchmen bolted to the chassis 28 years ago and I don't expect to still be driving this thing 28 years hence, let alone do I imagine that I will remember by then where I have put the rebuild kit. Anyway, I ordered the parts and I told them to ship them to Regina marked "hold for pickup" with my name on them. I figured maybe 4 days to get across the country and I had ordered on Monday so on Friday I called the bus in Regina. Nothing. Nothing on Saturday. Nothing on Sunday. And again nothing on Monday.

Somewhere in there I started to get worried so I phoned back to Prevost partly to make sure that they had actually been shipped and also to see what shipping instructions they had used. They assured me that the shipment had gone to Regina with my phone number on it. They even provided me with a weighbill number from something called Expedibus which was the Quebecois carrier that had taken the parts to Montreal where they got interlined with Greyhound.

Armed with the weighbill number I started out on the web to see if I could trace the parcel. Not a hope so I phoned STC Express - "we can't get into Greyhound's system - you'll have to phone them". Somewhere along the way somebody told me that the Expedibus weighbill would be the trace number all the way west. I phoned about 5 different numbers for Superdog and got less than nothing out of each one. Generally I waited on hold for about half an hour listening to bullshit about how important my business was and then when somebody finally answered all they would tell me was that I was phoning the wrong number and I had to phone somewhere else and start all over again. I didn't handle this part of the process well.

Finally I gave up. It appeared that the parts were likely lost but nobody seemed to give a damn so I told Marilyn that I was going to wait until the last day we were in Regina and if they hadn't arrived by then I was going to phone Prevost and turn it over to them. After all, if I don't ever get the parts it will be a cold Friday in hell when I get around to paying for them. As it turned out I couldn't force myself to wait until Friday so I phoned the frenchmen on Thursday afternoon. Somebody named Mathew said he would look into it and phone me back. Later that night I retrieved a voicemessage saying that they could take up to 10 days to arrive so I should just be patient. Monday to Thursday a week later would be at least 10 days by my math so that didn't make me happy but I had to wait until this morning before I could phone back.

This time I got Martin who had actually taken my original order. I explained my problem yet again and he put me on hold for an interminable wait yet again. When he came back he told me he had talked to Expedibus, they had traced the parcel and it was in Toronto but it would be in Regina on Monday. That would make a full two weeks after the original order but hey, at least we knew where it was. There was no way I could wait in Regina through another weekend so I left and worried my way to west of Moose Jaw trying to figure out how I was going to deal with getting this famous parcel shipped from the bus depot in Regina out to Calgary or even to Chilliwack.

I had parked at the rest area at Caronport and was about to get moving when my phone rang. I could see that it was Quint calling from Nipawin and all of a sudden I thought "you don't suppose?". Sure enough, Quint was standing in line at the bus depot in Nipawin when he happened to notice "Evans" written on two boxes on the shelf. Then he noticed that the boxes also said "Prevost Parts". So being the helpful soul that he is Quint inquired and sure enough there sat my parts. Obviously without a phone number on them because, if they had a phone number it would have been a local Nipawin number and the bus depot would have called me. And obviously shipped to the wrong bloody location. When I eventually talked to the woman at the bus depot she said "no - there's nothing on them except Nipawin for an address".

So this is a great big thank you to Quint. And an equally big F.U. to the idiots at Prevost. This makes two shipments in a row that they have screwed up royally. I used to tell people what a wonderful parts service they ran but never again.

If you've read this far then you must be a real bear for punishment. If you're not ready to go to bed or feed the cat or cut your toenails then I'll bore you with another Prevost story.

The first winter we had the bus we took it to Lake Havasu and then over to L.A. For some reason we had planned to fly home and then back to L.A. to pick up the bus so when we ran into some mechanical difficulties I got a reccomendation for the service manager at Prevost in Mira Loma and we ended up leaving the bus there for them to work on. I was pleased with the work they did - not so pleased at having to write a big cheque - and we continued back home.

When I first phoned Prevost in Quebec it was on a Sunday afternoon. I needed some part for the bus and there was a toll free number handwritten into the parts book so I phoned it to see if it was good and somebody answered. She took my order, apologised that she couldn't ship parts on Sunday and then when I tried to give her a credit card number she insisted on setting up a charge account for me. I said "how do you know I'll pay it?" She said "You have a Prevost so we will set up a charge account." I don't use it much but occasionally I order parts, get a bill and pay them so it wasn't a complete surprise about a year after the trip to Mira Loma when a Prevost invoice showed up in the mail.

The contents of the invoice were surprising though. It was for some innocuous repair - I think maybe a start switch and installation - amounting to well under $500 - maybe $265 or something like that. The repairs had been done to a 2 or 3 year old H3. I'm guessing now but that bus would have been worth somewhere close to half a million bux. The serial number was on the invoice but I didn't need to look at it to know it wasn't our bus. So I phoned Mira Loma, told them what had happened and they said they would fix it. I offered to pay the bill if they would guarantee that the keys would be there when I flew in to pick it up but they wouldn't take my offer. And I forgot all about it. Until a month later when the statement came from Quebec.

Long story short, after about 3 calls to Quebec over the course of 3 more months I finally lost it and wrote a long letter to the North American service manager for Volvo. When that letter hit his desk I got a phone call from him followed by a phone call from Quebec followed by no more statements.

Like Forrest Gump says - stupid is as stupid does. And I still haven't got my parts.