Big business takes on small business - and loses horribly

The bigger a company gets the more inefficient it becomes.  I suppose you could say the same thing about a government, but since they are basically just huge companies I guess I just did.

When you have this many cogs you don't even need a wrench.

Case in point - my dealings with Nissan.

I already posted about the car having a defect that caused it to be sidelined.  Here are the details:

September 16th - The brakes went out.  The car then went to my mechanic where the problem was identified.  He told me this was not fixable and I should plan on selling the car for scrap.

September 19th - The Nissan dealership has the car towed from my mechanic to their lot so they can perform the necessary repairs at their expense.  They informed me that they would work to fix it and should have it back to me by the end of the week.

September 26th - I have heard nothing so I call them to get a status update.  The damage was a little worse than they thought so the repair won't be done until the end of this week.

October 3rd - Again, no word.  I call back in to find out the car may not be fixable.  They'll have someone from Nissan call me to discuss the problem in the next 24-48 hours.

October 14th - Apparently, in Nissan's world, 48 hours is the amount of time it takes for the sun to rise and set 11 times.  At least they did call, I guess.  Now, they tell me that a Nissan specialist has to go see the car to determine if it can be fixed or not.  They should get his report in a week and will call me when they have it.

November 8th - Nobody at Nissan owns a calendar.  I guess they bought the Microsoft package that didn't come with Outlook.  I finally got my call almost two weeks late.  The car cannot be fixed.  They need me to send them a bunch of information and then they'll call me a day or so after they have it to discuss their offer to buy the car back.

November 9th - I send them everything they need, and then some.

November 22nd - I forgot about the time-space continuum difficulties they have, so I actually expected them to call sooner.  Shame on me.  They finally call me with an offer - another two weeks later than expected.  They'll email me the terms today and once I sign the acceptance and send it back they'll let me know within  a week what the next step is.

November 23rd - Their email came through, was signed, and returned promptly.

December 7th  - They called back to schedule an appointment to get our check and return their car.

December 15th - Everything is done.  Just one day short of three months.

Let's take a quick look at the numbers.

My mechanic told me in 15 minutes the car was not fixable.  His cost was nearly $60, and he only charged me something because I told him Nissan would be picking up the cost.

Nissan took nine weeks (90,705 minutes more than my mechanic) to tell me the car was not fixable.  They paid for my mechanic's expense, a rental car for me for twelve weeks, all of their own mechanic's time, the bill from the body shop that tried to fix the problem for them initially, and their specialist's time (and presumable travel costs to and from the area since he was not a local guy).

I could've watched this movie 840 times between when my mechanic diagnosed the car and Nissan did.  Coincidentally, Nissan must have been involved in the making of the movie because the runtime is actually 108 minutes, not 88.

 Seems like quite a waste of time and money.  Either that, or I have the best mechanic in the world.