Thought I'd share my experience with the service shop of Petron along D. Macapagal Avenue. It was December 26, a drizzly day as most of you probably know. I had reported for half a day's worth of work at the office and discovered that my wipers didn't work when I was ready to drive home after lunch. I had gassed up at that Petron several times and it was the nearest service shop to my office (located along Roxas Blvd.) that I could think of at that time. So off I went, driving as best as I could without wipers in the light rain.

I got there without any problems but I was unpleasantly surprised when I was told that I had to pay a diagnostic fee of 360 Pesos, even if they were unable to fix the problem. I was desperate; I had to get back to Q.C. and I couldn't think of any other nearby place I could go to, so I agreed. So the service receptionist assigns a tech to troubleshoot. The guy starts pulling fuses here and measuring with a multitester there with no results. To make a long story short, he failed to find the trouble and decided that the motor was shot and advised me to buy a new one at Evangelista. Somehow, I wasn't very convinced.

I left and drove in the drizzling rain, without a wiper, all the way to Rey's Electrical in Cubao. Not fun!! It took them about 5 minutes to fix the problem: poor grounding. The wiper arms were also installed wrongly but that was another problem altogether. I also had them check why the courtesy light on the driver's side door wouldn't turn off. Found that one of the wires had been stripped and was making contact with the body. Fixed in another 10 minutes. Total cost: 120 Pesos.

Lessons learned:
1. Go with the tried and tested. I had been intending to go to Rey's but wrongly decided to try the Petron gas station at D. Macapagal because I didn't like the idea of driving all the way to Cubao in the rain. Which I ended up doing anyway!
2. Check EVERYTHING in your car after having it repainted. Turned out the two problems (among others) were caused by shoddy workmanship by the paint shop staff . But that's another story.