Lauren is a senior ICU nurse at a Melbourne Hospital. Intensive Care Units are not for sick people. They're for people teetering on the edge between life and death with a tendency to the death side. All the gang in the medical caper are heroes and heroines but the teams in ICUs around this virus-ridden country of ours are right up there and on the front line of keeping COVID-19 victims ready to do a Boris with all the risks to their own health.
Lauren has to drive the 70km from her home to the hospital and back at all hours of the night and day. In the place where if you have a go, you get a go and where we're all part of Team Australia, clearly Mazda didn't get the email.
Seventeen readers and friend, you won't be completely shocked to hear Mazda won't reimburse the purchase cost of her 2013 Mazda 6 diesel station wagon or replace the vehicle following repeated failures, going into limp mode on and off freeways over the past 12 months. The dealership and Mazda Australia replaced the engine at no charge in February 2019.
"Since then the vehicle," father-in-law Andrew writes, "has failed on six occasions, necessitating return to the service department at considerable inconvenience and expense. They have been unable to identify and fix the problem in a timely manner, having replaced the turbo sensor last Friday, road tested for 90km on Monday and, according to the service manager, things looking OK, more problems have arisen."
Of course, Lauren went to the Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal in September last year and aren't they right on the job. The hearing about Lauren, the ICU senior nurse who has to risk her life not only when she's on the tools (ventilators and resuscitator bags) but on the drive to and from the place where medical miracles happen, and Mazda, the manufacturer, is on in September.
Look, as we'll see over the coming weeks, Mazda is the worst of the bunch, but there's plenty of carmakers passing off dangerous lemons as the dream Zoom Zoom (or in this case Doom Doom). But, even this cynical, seen-it-all correspondent of yours has to say, trying to screw an ICU nurse (pay around $60k a year) ranks among the smelliest examples of corporate greed for a very long time.
Hopefully, sometime this year we will see the ACCC and Mazda court case play out. Rocket Rod's ACCC will have Vinesh Bhindi's outfit in front of the beak over allegations it denied customers with serious vehicle issues their legal rights under Australian Consumer Law.