After making the trip to Ohio and driving through a good bit of snow and road salt, its come to my attention that I need some new wiper blades for my car. The only thing is, I’m not sure what size wiper blades I need (I know, I know. I’m a total car maintenance idiot). I checked the manual and didn’t see it, so I decided to look online. From the main Suzuki web site, I found a link to Suzuki Pit Stop, their official site for maintenance related info and manuals. Of course, I didn’t find anything useful there either, but what I did see was a healthy dose of lame. Not only do they charge you for access to the online version of the owner’s manual (for only 30 days of access no less), they charge you to look at technical bulletins about the car! I’m assuming that the technical bulletins detail causes and fixes of common problems with a particular make and model, judging from titles like “Squeaking Noise from Steering Gear” and “Incorrect Fuel Gauge Reading”. To me it seems like that would be as if Microsoft decided to charge for access to security updates, and also charged just to read any details about a particular security hole. So yeah, that seems pretty ridiculous to me. I wonder if that’s a common practice in the auto industry?

Comments

Comment by Neal on 2004-12-20 22:12:33 +0000

That is sucktacular. On the hopeful side, if you go to AutoZone or a similar car-parts store, they’ll know what kind of blades you need. They’ve got a little database of their own. But really, that’s some crappy customer support.

Comment by Phil on 2004-12-22 13:03:22 +0000

Yeah. I got my new wiper blades this year at Wal-Mart. They’ve got a little book tethered to the wiper blades rack that tells what size and type you need for whatever make and model. It’s pretty nifty.

And, yeah, I’m a car maintenance idiot too. Oil changes every 3,000 miles. That’s pretty much about it.