Failure to disappoint as expected

Sometimes, despite the apparent prevailing opinion of the masses, a product or service turns out to be quite satisfactory, or disappointing. That is, sometimes everybody says it's going to suck but it turns out to be pretty good; and sometimes (okay, often) everybody says it's great but it truly sucks.

Here's three such stories:

1. Sprint mobile phone service: It's good!
I live in the sticks, or at least nearly as far out as one can live in Rhode Island. Verizon Wireless service, which I had, is spotty out here. T-Mobile, which my wife has had for a few years, is entirely useless outside of city centers. Recently, my needs changed and I was out of contract and my phone was pretty well worn out, so I decided it was a good time to investigate different providers.

I looked into the available plans and pricing for all of the carriers available in RI. T-Mobile had the best pricing, but their service was useless at home and on the country roads I used for getting everywhere. I decided that Sprint seemed to have the type of plan I needed. I borrowed a friend's Sprint phone and drove a couple hours along the western portion of RI, mostly on routes 94, 102, and the last few miles of 138 near the CT border. I was amazed; I only managed to lose the call twice, once in a deep valley surrounded by short steep hills where I would never expect to get any kind of signal for anything, and once heading into another valley where Verizon doesn't get a signal for miles.

Against all advice from my wife (her best friend had terrible experience with Sprint's customer service) and online reviews (which said the network didn't have good coverage), I decided for sure on Sprint.

After digging deeply to decide which was the geekiest phone that would work for me (I like features and technology, but phones I carry are exposed to some pretty rough service) I decided on the cheap, antennaless, media-playing Samsung M500 (the same model I borrowed from my friend that kept a signal everywhere). I signed up for the plan and services that I wanted.

Shortly after, a bit of a scandal popped up where Sprint was terminating customers for calling customer service too much. It sounds good to me; if you're having that much trouble with their service, why wouldn't you want to have them terminate your contract early so you won't have to pay an early termination fee? Anyway, users in discussions on digg.com almost universally hated Sprint.

Well, it's been 3 or 4 months now and they've been great. They deliver what you ask for (and sometimes more) without charging you for every little thing like Verizon Wireless does. I constantly test things that I never could do on Verizon Wireless and find no extra charges on my bill. I've called a few times to add and remove services and change my plan and get technical support, and they've been nothing but great. The Samsung M500 has done everything I wanted even though I didn't think it would. I can put real mp3s and videos on a microSD card and it actually plays them. I can use the built-in web browser to browse the web as well as you might expect on a tiny screen, and I can even enjoy streaming media.

2. SomaFM streaming net radio: It's good!
I enjoy their Boot Liquor channel. I decided to see if I could get it on my phone, and found that SomaFM had a WAP-specific site which worked on my phone but lacked Boot Liquor. I emailed them and within a few hours they had added Boot Liquor to the WAP version!

Please listen to them. They've got some great indie and non-mainstream music.

More importantly, please support the fight against insane royalty rates. The mainstream music industry wants to charge internet radio huge rates, insanely more than satellite radio pays (and broadcast radio apparently pays nothing).

3. 2002 full size pickup trucks: Toyota vs. GMC -- Approximately tied; disappointing for the Toyota, surprisingly good for the GMC. I'd give the edge to the GMC for, believe it or not, reliability.

My dad and I both have 2002 full size pickups that we bought new. His is the Toyota Tundra Limited 4x4, mine is the GMC Sierra 1500 SLE 4x4. They're equipped almost the same; the Toyota has a luxury interior while the GMC has a more blue-collar interior. I recommended that he get the Toyota because of their strong reputation for reliability; then I chose the GMC for price and comfort (interior layout, soft ride, smooth engine/transfer case). They are rated for almost the same load. My previous GM was a piece of crap and I was afraid to commit to another, but I couldn't resist; they just make vehicles that I want to buy.

The GMC has always been heavier and seemed more capable of heavy work, while the Toyota has always been faster and handled better.

He drives the Toyota abusively on the road. I drive the GMC often less abusively on the road, but I take it off road every chance I get, where I'm very rough. We both carry heavy loads on a regular basis; he carries loads slightly over the rated weight somewhat often. I don't, but I do run extremely overloaded somewhat less often. I also tow a 6000 pound 26' camper.

Here's the tally about 5 years and 170,000 miles later:

Toyota:

Malfunctions:
Repeated seatbelt problems -- drivers seatbelt not working properly.
Broken leaf spring.
Front wheel that fell off at speed due to manufacturing defect (which was recalled, apparently they scratched a ball joint during manufacture).

Unexpected damage from normal use:
Bed front and tailgate bent from shifting load. Tailgate also cracked at corner from same incident.

Wear and annoyance:
4wd electronic transfer case originally required you to slow to a low speed and it took a long time to engage, and then made a bit of a "clunk" as it engaged. These days, you have to be stopped, and it makes a big "clunk".
Engine noise and vibration. It was smooth and quiet when it was new, but now it's pretty rough.
Power: Still fast and responsive.

GMC:

Malfunctions:
Engine oil leak. Leaking gasket was replaced under extended warranty at nearly 120,000 miles if I remember correctly (from complaint registered before 100,000).
Wheel bearing worn out early. Made noise until it was replaced.

Unexpected damage from normal use:
There's a small rip in the drivers seat where I kneel on it when I'm reaching over to the passenger side.

Wear and annoyance:
4wd is still smooth and quiet, and can still be engaged at any speed (even on the highway), and the "Auto 4wd" still engages intelligently.
Engine still quiet and smooth.
Power: Seems a bit less powerful than when it was new. Doesn't seem to balls its way up hills with all the torque it used to have.

Can it be? The GMC has been more reliable than the Toyota, as well as more capable. I can't argue with results. It could be just an odd combination of luck, or it could be that decades of experience causes the "American" company to build better big V8s and work trucks. A year or two ago, Toyota sent engineers to Texas ranches to see how work trucks are really used; perhaps they learned what they needed to improve.

After such good experience with this GMC, my next truck will also be a GM full size, although I'll give consideration (for the first time!) to the Dodge for their new lifetime powertrain warranty, which will actually mean something to me as someone who maintains his vehicles well and doesn't get rid of a vehicle until it's all used up.

It's late and I'm tired. I'll go back and edit this post tomorrow to add links, and format it for easier reading.

More on the TV listings channel

Here's how the challenge-response cycle went with Cox:

Dear Mr. Onanian:

Thank you for your inquiry. Cox is committed to providing the best
customer service possible.

We do apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused you.
Unfortunately, in order to expedite your request, we would need for you
to verify the account information. Please provide the name and address
as well as the last four digits of the account holder's social security
number or four digit "unique identifier". Due to our Privacy Policy, we
are required to elicit this information prior to accessing or making
changes to our customers' accounts. Please respond directly to this
email with the necessary information and we will do our best to assist
you.

We hope that we have been able to provide you with the information you
requested.

Thank you.
Tonya
Cox Communications Online Customer Care Team

If you need additional information on other Cox products or services,
please visit our web site at

http://www.cox.com

I doubt any human has read or will read my complaint, but just in case:

I'm not asking for any changes to be made to my account. There's nothing
about my account that needs attention. It's the "TV Guide Channel" that
I'm asking be changed; it has become useless for reading program
listings or finding out what's on. Yesterday there was a time in which
it went down from the usual 2 line display to no display at all, just
text that says the listings would return in an hour. I didn't complain
when it went from full screen to half the screen; I didn't complain when
it went from half screen to 3 lines; I didn't complain when it went down
to two lines. Enough is enough!

If there needs to be another channel with informercials and "reality"
shows, that's fine, but don't let it crowd out the channel that displays
the program listings. I'm not paying every month for infomercials and
"reality" shows; maybe some people are, but I'm paying for the shows I
like, the channels I like, and a channel with program listings.

Now if I want to know what's on tv, I have to check http://zap2it.com. I
don't think that it's unreasonable, as a paying customer, to want a
channel that scrolls TV listings on the full screen as part of my basic
service.

Dear Mr. Onarian:

Thank you for your inquiry. Cox is committed to providing the best
customer service possible.

We have received your recent email and once again, we apologize for the
TV Guide channel issue. We have not been advised that this is a
widespread problem. We will be happy to send a technician to your home.
Please respond directly to this email with the most convenient days and
times and we will do our best to assist you.

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank you.
Madelaine
Cox Communications Online Customer Care Team

If you need additional information on other Cox products or services,
please visit our web site at

http://www.cox.com

Dear Madelaine,

Thank you for the quick response.
I don't know what you think can be accomplished by sending a technician.
There is no technical difficulty. If it's not a widespread problem, then
that means either that everybody has failed to complain, or that I'm the
only person who ever uses a tv channel to find out what's on, and
everybody else goes to other sources (such as websites and newspapers).

Perhaps I've sent my complaint to the wrong recipient; I'm trying to
complain about the content provided by Cox. Who should I contact to make
this complaint in a productive manner?

I've taken some photos of what it currently looks like, and edited them
to approximate what it has looked like at other times, in order to
better communicate what the problem is and what solution I would like.

1. Many years ago, there was a channel that just displayed TV listings.
It looked something like this:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ronanian/TVListingsChannel/photo#5091947276860791890

2. This is what it looked like when it first stopped being full-screen;
the top portion of the screen was usually commercials:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ronanian/TVListingsChannel/photo#5091947289745693810

3. This is what's currently left of the TV listings channel. I don't
want to see "reality" tv or commercials while I try to find out what's
on other channels:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ronanian/TVListingsChannel/photo#5091947285450726498

4. On July 25, 2007 at 8:05pm, I tried to look at the listings, and got
something like this -- just a small bar telling me that listings would
return at 9pm. Is this the future of that channel? Is it just going to
be another full-screen junk channel? Is this an attempt to crowd out the
consumer who wants to use the TV to find out what's on TV without having
to look somewhere other than the TV?
http://picasaweb.google.com/ronanian/TVListingsChannel/photo#5091947289745693826

When there are only 2 lines of listings on the screen, as is currently
the case, it is necessary to scroll them slower than if they take up the
whole screen. That makes it very annoying to try to see what's on,
because there's distracting motion and sound above, the listings take
_forever_ to scroll by, and you may still not get enough time to read
something before it scrolls off the screen.

I hope that the people who make these sort of decisions will find out
that customers want it back the way it used to be.

Thank you for your attention,
Richard

Dear Mr. Onarian :

Thank you for your inquiry. Cox is committed to providing the best
customer service possible.

We have received your recent email. We are afraid that we are unable to
pursue and/or resolve this issue, via email. We recommend that you call
383.2000 to speak to a Video Technical Specialist who will be better
able to advise you.

We hope that we have been able to provide you with pertinent
information.

Thank you.
Madelaine
Cox Communications Online Customer Care Team

If you need additional information on other Cox products or services,
please visit our web site at

http://www.cox.com

Of course, I've been too lazy to call and complain to the Video Technical Specialist, who I sincerely doubt is the right person anyway. I wonder if I'm the only one who even knows that there exists (or used to) a channel that shows program listings, and that's why I had such difficulty expressing my complaint.