Obsessed? So is America. But where's our customer service??

It is commonly known that people and automobiles eventually become attached to each other. The purchased car begins to grow on the owner and it is inevitable that the owner has sentimental feelings for a piece of metal and plastic. However, is it that strange? Like our homes, cars are expensive. Cars are chosen with great thought before a decision is made because owners realize that much like a home, the majority of their income will be devoted to payments for the car. It is not always the case that owners make the smartest decisions as to which car they choose. This inconsistency is further supported by the hundreds of jobs available for car reposessers in Washington, DC alone (http://www.careerjet.com/repo-jobs.html). Nevertheless, the saying "home sweet home" has a strong correlation in terms of the veneration and importance that a car means to its owner. Some call it love while others call it insanity, but the incredible amount of devotion owners invest into their cars supports the statement that America is a nation of car enthusiasts. After all in 2007, there were over 254.4 million registered vehicles in the U.S., according to a depart of transportaion study. Considering there are currently an estimated 310,673,613 million people in America, that means over 50% of the United States population owns vehicles and that is just 60 million shy of the population (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html).

While reading the Wall Street Journal, I came upon a question and answer section regarding car problems that an ordinary person might have. Problems consisted of a dying battery, the decision to purchase a new car for a new baby and advice as to whether the owner should dump his beloved Jaguar. These are normal problems, at least in America, but the logic to the solutions some of these owners created were anything but conventional. The owner with battery problems reasoned, " I just unscrew the dial to disconnect the battery at night and it no longer discharges" (Welsh, "Cars: Me & My Car"). The owner had figured out that if he disconnected his 12 volt battery during the night, the battery would not end up being "dead" in the morning. The solution was certainly creative, and I was more than impressed by the ingenuity. Nonetheless, I am left wondering what I would have personally done in that situation. Would I have risked every night opening my car hood and then delicately proceed to disconnect the wires from the battery with the knowledge that one slip up could send my whole entire to body into electrical shock? Probably not. Americans have for decades been inventing novel methods to sustain the life of their beloved automobile. I remember watching the movie Matilda where the father proceeded to circulate saw dust through the engine manifold to reduce the amount of miles on the odometer. Media and exposure to cars then produces this perception and almost reality that everywhere an American turns their head, there is a conversation or commercial about cars. It is almost seems compulsory to our behavior and adds to the notion that Americans are not only defined by an inherent desire to gourge their faces with food and develop diabetes, but also incorporate cars and the automobile into their daily lives. The final question in the article for the Q&A was whether an owner should dump his Jaguar for a new vehicle. This particular owner purchased his Jaguar in '98 and the odometer reads over 160,000 (Welsh, "Cars: Me & My Car"). Most cars usually require an increasing amount of attention and service after 100,000 miles, but the owner in question here has kept his vehicle for over a decade and has outrageously surpassed the 100,000 mile life span of a car. Now, you might be wondering why this is such an important topic and that is because every car that my family has owned no matter how well it is taken car of has not lasted more than 120,000 miles. The figures clearly indicate this owner is taking great care of vehicle and may even be obsessed. However, be it obsession or love, the important fact about both cases of owners is the attention auto makers in the U.S. should heed to this trend. As a prospective car buyer, besides speed, technological innovations and safety features, I would like to know whether the car company cares about me, the owner. Our capitalistic society dictates the companies care more about profit than people, but I would rather purchase a vehicle that has been desgined for the car buyers in mind. This leads to the greatest and personally what I think of as the most important facet of car companies, customer service. No matter how much auto makers innovate and update their factories to reduce the number of employees that work their, the increasing number of machines and computers that take over the work force directly correlates to the increasing number of customers the company inevitably garners from sales. It is a contradictory relation since auto makers are trying to reduce the human factor in their factories to stream line operation while increasing their customer base. So I am finally left with one thought and that is since factories are bringing about the extinction of car factory workers, shouldn't they begin focusing on customer satisfaction and service more than developing a new seat to reduce back strain? Tell me what you think.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=2175009941&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1289403375&clientId=31806
http://www.careerjet.com/repo-jobs.html
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html