Have you called your friendly, neighborhood
corporation lately. Your phone will answered by a recording made by a female actor with a cheerful
contralto voice. She'll ask you what language you speak? You push a button. Push another button for customer support. Push another button, and another, and the cheerful contralto will lead you through the options until you figure out your option doesn't exist and then she'll try and summon an actual, live, human being, who are apparently scarce even when there are five billion of us. You will be put on hold where you will be told about the "unusually high volume of calls" (it's a weekday) and then listen endlessly to a commercial where the cheerful contralto will remind you how lucky you are to be dealing with the corporation which has you on hold.
Customer service? Yeah right! Didn't used to be like that. Let me take you back to another day, when I wore diapers and the world was a lot simpler. My grandfather was a salesman. He started selling pots and pans in 1919 to pay for college (he was an orphan) and by the end of his career was vice-president in charge of sales for a small children's book publisher. He liked big, powerful cars, particularly Chryslers. His idea of a sensible family engine was a 440 and that was at age 73. In 1956 he was at the top of his game, a top salesman earning a top salary, travelling some, but less and less.
Back in the day salesmen travelled, and they travelled by car. The interstate system had begun during the Eisenhower administration, but back in the day a two-lane road was a national highway. Four lanes was a major luxury, motels were locally owned, McDonald's was nowhere and a salesman on his route took twice as long as the same journey would today. You had to carry samples and books are heavy. And like I said, Grandad liked powerful cars so he could pass when he wanted to. His ride of choice at this moment was a '55 Desoto Fireflite. Top of the line, Hemi V-8 with two-four barrels, push button activating the first Chrysler Torqueflite automatic transmission. Power seats, power windows. Tail fins to the skies, thanks to Chrysler's stylist, the great Virgil Exner. It even had air conditioning.
Understand that air conditioning was very, very rare in the 1950s. Most homes weren't air conditioned, which is why older homes came with screened in porches. Sometimes people would sleep out there to get away from the heat. Air conditioners weren't very common in cars until around 1970. My father's 1969 Dodge Dart hung the AC exhaust below the dash, because there were no provisions for AC ducting back then. Now that doesn't mean perpetual suffering, as cars today were. You had little windows that rotated at the front of each door. Turn one of those in on you, get up to speed and you could be decently comfy even on a hot summer day. In the mid-sixties Mercury offered cars with a power rear window, to make sure the air flowed through efficiently. When you pulled the 'Vent' knob (really a drawbar) of a '53 Chevy a whole scoop rose up at the base of the windshield. Any hot-rodder will tell you that's a grand place to grab a lot of air, because that's where a lot of scoops end up.
But that wasn't enough for my Grandfather, so he ordered his with air conditioning. It might have been the first car in Akron so equipped. The unit was built by Carrier, and resided in the trunk. Right behind the back seat ran an electrically driven compressor, fan and heat exchanger-- the stripped out guts of the unit cooling your bedroom. What a boon for a salesman on the road, who travelled for hours every day and was expected to smell good when making a call. Only the air conditioner didn't work. It worked for about ten minutes then quit and nobody knew how to fix it. Not the mechanics who knew every intricacy of a Carter four barrel. Most of the dealer's mechanics hadn't ever seen an air conditioner before. They pulled out their shop manuals and tried their best. They even had the local Carrier rep over to advise them. No matter what they did it was no dice. It would work for a couple minutes then choke up and blow hot air.
So one day Grandad found himself passing through Syracuse, New York, which is where Carrier used to be located before they shipped the factories out to China. He made his sales call and then decided to drop in on the plant. Maybe someone there could help him.
Things were a bit different in the 1950's. He pulled right up to the gate. When the guard came over he told him about his problem with the air conditioner. The guard came over, calls were made and Grandad was instructed to pull his DeSoto into a garage in one of the plant buildings. An engineer came out to inspect the car. A couple more engineers and a plant manager came out. A half hour later a smiling engineer came over and told my Grandfather it was fixed.
He spoke the truth. The air conditioner was pumping out lots of lovely, cold air. The problem was simple. We all know that air conditioners drip water condensate. A vent tube for the condensate had been provided, but it had been clogged during the undercoating process. Because the water couldn't drain, it froze preventing air exchange and sending hot water into the cabin. All it needed was to be unplugged, something the dealer's mechanics did not know because they'd never seen an automotive air conditioner before. My grandfather drove away happy, and in cold comfort. A service bulletin was issued so mechanics would know what to look for.
When some corporate web site talks about 'old fashioned customer service' put them to the test. Drive up to the plant with our broken down X34282Dv3 and see what they'll do. Odds are they won't send an engineer out to see what's wrong.
For a quick look at DeSotos of that era see: http://showcase.netins.net/web/tdp/desoto/fl.html
A slide show of DeSotos http://www.desoto.org/modules/gallery/slideshow.php?set_albumName=1950-1961
Here's a nice '58 http://www.58-adventurer.com/
Here's a desoto history http://www.allpar.com/history/desoto.html
A history of the '55s, which Betty Grable drove. The '55 pictured at the top is just like the car in question: http://www.duricy.com/~desoto/desaga/destuff.shtml
Shaogo tells me that refrigeration manufacturer Hoshizaki gives good phone tech. And recently I received old school customer service from Insinkerator. So there is hope.