Ron Jon Cape Caribe Coffee Pot Switch Burns Up

A friend staying at the Ron Jon Cape Caribe Resort (timeshare) in florida just had a switch on a coffee pot burn up and send sparks across the room when turning it on. Whats more is that the GFI outlet didn't trip nor did the breaker. These places must be built pretty poorly.

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@hilton garden inn fail! Called

@hilton garden inn fail! Called for shuttle 30 min ago. Said would be here 15 min. Called back he hasn't left. Will lave in 5 to 10 plus the

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@airtran charges different than the sign says which doesn't say that it is 39 for overweight. Not 15 plus 39. Liars!

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@airtran is terrible. Just charged

@airtran is terrible. Just charged 54 dollars to check a bag because it was 63 inches. If it eas over weight it would have been 39 more

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Why GM needed a bailout...

While I've heard way too much news this year about the economy (apparently most didn't foresee the cyclical recession coming -- every 10 years), Economic Stimulus (Help me big government we didn't plan for this), oh and any other main stream media story that really doesn't affect our lives that much. I still wanted to put a thought out there based on a recent visit to a Chevy dealer for service.



I have driven a 2008 Chevy Impala for a little longer than a year. In that time the brakes have been resurfaced by Chevy dealers three times. The first time at less than 2 months old. The car would shudder when breaking. The second time closer to 6 months old, again shudder when braking. Again now, the brakes have been shuddering but not that much for a few months until I drove down some hilly areas. Now they shudder all the time.



I made a 2:30 appointment to get an oil change and have the brakes looked at. I had a friend coming to get me at 2:45 so I waited out front since it was nice out. When I left the car had not been brought inside yet.



I heard one sales guy trying to pressure a woman into buying a used KIA and she finally got away from him. Not without him leaning on her door as she was getting in the car. No personal space.



Saw another sales guy walk out to an impala on the lot and tell someone over the phone "I have one just like it in black and I drove it to boston the other day, got 30 miles to the gallon". Then he proceeded to say "you'd look good behind the wheel of anything but this would be even better."



Who would shop at a place like this. I was glad that no one stopped to ask me if I they could help with anything while I was standing out front.



Back to the car, called at 4:55 to ask if they were keeping it over night. The guy said that he didn't know anything about my car and would ask. Came back on and said that the wheels were just being put back on and they would wash it up and it would be all set.



Went up to the dealer to get it, they tell me that the brake rotors were resurfaced -- mind you -- resurfaced for the 3rd time? The regular mechanic I'd go to if it weren't for warranty stuff never resurfaces rotors, says it takes too long for the cost savings. Another family mechanic will resurface them once (but when they do they have them turned on a lathe). I have no clue what this dealer did. But they work better, hopefully for a lot longer than a few thousand miles. GM now had to pay again for the warranty work -- 3 resurfacings when they could have just replaced the shoddy brakes put on at the factory. Admit wrong doing or just try to fix it till the warranty runs out -- clearly GM's policy.



They also said that there were blue spots on the rotors from where they had gotten hot. Then they told me that I must ride my brakes or ride them while going down a hill. I reassured them that I knew how to drive and didn't ride my brakes.



I suggested that it was a design flaw and that GM hadn't designed the brakes to properly coo. Which now I have to hope that the brakes don't catch fire and burn up the car because some engineer didn't design the cooling of the brakes properly.



Past vehicles I've had never had brake problems, Ford Taurus needed brakes every 40 or 50 thousand miles (this has held true across 3 different model years for over 600,000 miles). Audi A4 still had good brakes at 50k when it was traded in. So really I'm not sure what on earth GM messed up so bad that I've had to have 3 dealers attempt to fix them under warranty.



Between brake issues, alignment issues, less than stellar sales guys, finance guys discouraging you from buying a car, a dealer that waited 40 days to send a payoff check to the bank, so on and so forth, its really no surprise that GM needs a bailout. But I'm stumped as to why the government is on the hook for this company. After the experience I've had in the last 16 months with Chevy I'm stumped as to why anyone would buy one. A LOT would have to change before I'd test drive one, much less purchase.



I'm not saying that I want to see companies fail, but I'm saying that a bailout from the government might not fix any of the problems that actually exist at GM. Its not fuel efficiency -- which is the only thing most media seems to talk about. GM auto division has been losing money for years. GMAC was profitable and keeping the other part afloat. For a while the truck making division was very profitable and offset the losses from others. But when truck sales plummeted and the price of trucks fell through the floor, and the GMAC arm started to not be so strong, suddenly the whole shops in trouble.



My only fear is that these quality issues isn't just with GM but rather with auto manufacturers and manufacturing in general.

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Shame #jetblue #jfk mgr for making a senior cry when she asked if there was a comp for a 7 hr delay.

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Bed Bath Beyond - Wine Bar Pacifica - Terrible

We found this small piece of furniture on BedBathBeyond.com that we thought would go great for a little piece to have in the corner with some wine glasses and something nice on top.



Ordered it about a week ago, and it arrived today. The box was really quite damaged - apparently Bed Bath & Beyond doesn't ship items with packaging they just throw the item in the truck. Macy's however has shipped everything in a box even if the item comes in a box - so you have some extra packaging.



After the pictures were taken of the box, we opened it up and started putting it together. The directions are just horrendous. A diagram with no lines showing you what goes were, nor anything about what order to do anything. I've put together my fair share of put together furniture and this is by far the worse! The furniture from http://www.ikea.com/ has awesome directions with neat cartoons.



We found out that one of the drawer fronts was broken - where you have to attach the screw - so we set that aside. Continued putting it together - the back of the drawer has no pre drilled holes - so you are kind of guessing on getting it all lined up.



When it came time to attach the side to the base - the cam locks are made out of such cheap metal that when you turn them (so they lock into the wood) - the cam locks bent instead of going into the wood. These are definitely the cheapest quality cam locks ever - I highly doubt they would have held up even if you could get it together.



So now I have a partially put together Wine Bar Pacifica that I have no clue what to do with, I will never be able to get it back into the box. So I guess I'll call them tomorrow and see what they want me to do with this hunk of junk that they sold us. The packaging from this by the way was excessive and made with lots of that cheap Styrofoam that gets the little white bits all over your house.



Overall this experience has made me think twice or maybe more before ever ordering any sort of furniture from Bed Bath & Beyond. Frankly the really cheap stuff from Christmas Tree Stores has been of way better quality than this.

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Chevy Dealer Charges $41.18 for an air filter

Just got back from the local Chevy dealer where they charged $41.18 for an air filter - $6.30 of that was labor. I asked the dealer about it and he said that they are $25 in the parts store and inflation has raised the price of everything.



I went to the parts store - it is $17.79 and it probably costs the dealer even less. A K & N reusable lifetime warranty air filter was $48 and change.



Its no surprise that Chevy needs bailouts when dealers are over charging customers for things like air filters.



I called the dealer back and told him what I found out - he offered a free oil change next time around. Which does more than make up for the overcharge, but I would rather see them just not overcharge every single customer they get.

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Apparently no one in new york state knows how to plow a road by 3 in the afternoon.

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