Dealership theory debunked

[Tony Radford]

I've always followed the premis that the only benefit from taking a car to a dealership for service (particularly an older vehicle) was their service department's exclusive access to the manufacturer's knowledge base. For me, this premis has been proven to be false. A month or so back, my '98 Dodge Dakota died near a local mall. There happened to be a Dodge dealership a mile or so up the road, so it was most convenient getting them to arrange towing and to perform the commensurate repair. The problem ended up being a failed fuel pump, which they immediately replaced. Per standard protocol, they searched my vehicle for any other repair opportunities that might exist and in doing so noted a leak around the brake M/C. Reluctantly, I gave them the OK to proceed (it wasn't that old and the brakes were working fine).

The following morning, I couldn't help but notice that I had almost no brake pedal. I limped back to the dealership and sat around for half a day until they determined that the new M/C was faulty. Since it was an aftermarket part (Dodge part was days away), I had to pay for the labor to replace it. Fine. The next morning I was greeted with another case of "soft pedal". After three more visits, the mechanic staff was completely stumped. Since the brake system would start working normally after a few dozen pumps of the pedal, I insisted that it had to be trapped air to which their emphatic reply was always "no air in the system". Their solution was for me to leave the truck with them overnight so they could diagnose the problem while it was at its worst. I told them that what they would find is a soft pedal and a M/C reservior that is topped off with fluid. Despite my dismay regarding their ineptness at solving what should have been a simple problem, I figured I would have to do so when the opportunity presented itself.

Fearing I would kill myself (or more importantly someone else) combined with the fact that I couldn't allow my wife or daughter to drive the truck since it required pumping the system up prior to need (really makes you aware of what's going on in front of you), I dropped it off at a local Christian Brothers repair shop that's within walking distance of my office. After a brief description of the events that had transpired to date, they went to work locating and purging a significant amount of trapped air in the system and thus returned my brakes to proper working order. The technique described on the sales receipt involved opening a series of valves in the ABS system and manually bleeding the system followed by an overall power bleed. Whatever. The system works great - finally. I got some pleasure dropping the receipt off at the dealership so they could learn the proper procedure for bleeding the brakes on one of their products.

Needless to say, I'm down hundreds of dollars and lost time as I waited for the work to be performed, not to mention the replacement of a perfectly good M/C. Oh well, lesson learned. My sales slogan for the dealership is "You can buy better, but you can't pay more"! Rant over - moving on.

[blykins]

That's awesome.

What was the dealership's reply when you showed them the receipt and informed them again of the trapped air?

[D-CEL]

Tony,

That is a good rant! I had a similar encounter with the Dodge dealer in Thousand Oaks CA. West Oaks Dodge. Now out of business (Who knew? lol)
In 2004 I bought a brand new SRT4 Neon. Fun, fast and cheap commuter car. I liked it except for a recurring check engine light. On the second dealer visit, I made the service manager aware of the short in the wiring harness that was being discussed on several of the SRT forums. The info was promptly discarded. Over the next 18 months I was told everything from “a bad spark plug” to “We are going to replace all the valve-train, cam...” (To that I said “No thank you, it runs fine, its just a check engine light, don’t take the motor apart”). On my fifth visit for the annoying but non- performance or operation preventing issue, I calmly said to the service mgr “ If I have to come back here again for this, I’m going to Lemon law this thing”
The day I picked up the car from its sixth and final visit, the stated fix was “Replaced firewall wiring harness”
That very day I email a lemon law attorney all of my paperwork.
It took about 9 more months, but I got every penny I spent back , less $600.00. I had the car for over 2 years, put 43000 miles on it and it cost me $600.00. After I received my check, I had to drop off the car at that same dealership as they now owned it again. I met with the sales manager and handed him the keys. He said “Thank you” and that was it…? WTF? If it was my dealership, I would have had a bunch of questions, How, why, what could we have done better, something. But that was really the issue, they didn’t care and in the end it cost them the whole car.
I much prefer an enthusiast work on my stuff (if it’s something I don’t want to do myself). I find their motivation is completely different and the results much better.


Jason

[Tony Radford]

I'm sure things like this happen every day, but not to me. My biggest issue in all of this is that my brakes were fine before they touched the truck. All of my woes were created by them. When I handed the service writer the receipt and explained what it was, he just responded with an apathetic look and a thank you. The dealership on the other side of town (where I originally bought the truck) would have handled it differently. After a few failed attempts at fixing a car I bought there years ago, the dealership owner worked on my car himself until the problem was identified. What is the saying "the fish rots from the head"? How true.

[avanti-176]

I have found that most dealerships these days, either are not willing to, or capable of diagnosing problems. They all seem to just be "parts changers"...just throw new pieces at it until it goes away.
They also seem to have a problem acknowledging that the customer may actually have an idea as to how cars function, I really hate being "dismissed" when I try to explain what I think may be going on.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

My parents had a similar deal some years back with a Licoln about a year out of warranty....check engine lights and similar stuff on the dash as well as the car just killing while going down the road for no reason.
They brought it back to the dealer where they bought it for repairs, they began changing parts to the tune of 2 grand in parts/labor, problem still not fixed, till finally one mechanic in the shop ran some electrical tests on the car, come to find out,it was a bad hundred dollar ignition switch!!!!!!!!!!
they refused to refund the money for the non-needed repairs or remove those parts...........
Needles to say, that dealership lost a bunch of future customers for life..........

David

[elmariachi]

Just because one dealership service department does bad business doesn't mean they all do. The expectation needs to be set up front as to who they are dealing with. Both our Toyota and Benz service writers are well aware that I wrench on my own junk and they have both seen the Cobra. They known not to bull**** me, and I get a nice debrief call any time our cars are in for warranty work or manufacture-paid service. I have micro-managed the very few instances I have ever paid someone else to work on our stuff and have never had an issue where I felt misled, ripped off or unfairly treated. But give a car dealer an open repair ticket and you better bring some anal-eze.

BTW, the American Express card is the best insurance policy against getting taken advantage of. You get ripped off and you can prove it, they simply won't pay.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

[QUOTEBut give a car dealer an open repair ticket and you better bring some anal-eze.
][/quote]

The last 4 vehicles I bought were 2 Fords and 2 Toyotos.....great service from those dealers when "I" brought a vehicle in......One day my wife was in town and the check engine light on her car came on, she was blocks away from the dealer, so she drove right in, car still under warranty....They ran a scan and found after all of 22,000 miles the cat converter was "stopped up", replaced it at no charge, but told her her brakes were shot and she needed new front brake pads and new rotors, not knowing any better she said o-k....she had to pay the 300 dollar bill right there,they told her that was not covered under warranty......The brakes were fine and working perfectly on her car up to that point.......
well, the next day I was there and demanded to see the old pads and rotors,I knew there was nothing wrong with them, when they couldn't produce them and after a very,very heated discussion, they refunded the money for the "brake job".........or should I say screw-job......

David

[mpanten]

I dont understand how any repair place can charge you for a diagnosis then charge you for the actual repair labor, or even parts for that matter when they were the ones who misdiagnosed. Am i the only one who would refuse to pay?

[Jac Mac]

I did my mechanics apprenticeship in a country garage, worked on everything from garden tractors to big trucks, VW's to V8's, left the day my apprenticeship finished & went to work at the nearest Ford Dealership, I reckon that in the four years at the Ford Dealership I taught them more than I learnt from them, never forget the day the Boss called me in to his office & accused me of 'Back Yarding' by doing repairs on an air compressor for myself......... The 'Air Compressor' was the motor out of a VW that had stripped it cam gear, the VW was a car used by the firm that ran the local paper, sitting on the hoist right by his office it had stripped the timing gear while in the lube bay when they attempted to restart it, I had whipped the motor out, chucked it on a barrow & wheeled it round to my work bench when he happened to 'discover' my efforts........ Ever seen a Boss/ Manager with copious quantities of egg on his face....

[wrench87]

dealerships are just like anywhere else it all depends on who works on your cars, the problem is the way they pay the techs (flat rate) its all about making money and not the quality of the work, most of the management gets paid on how much the shop makes. you can actually bleed the hydraulic control unit for the abs system with the drb scan tool it takes less then a minute.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Around here, all the dealerships pay their mechanics commission......

it's good and bad, good cause it gives them an incentive to get the work done........

bad, cause it also gives them an incentive to get it done as fast as possible to move onto the next job,time is money to them, also,encourages them to "find" other "problems" with a car to log more labor hours on it......

When I go to a dealer, I always talk to the mechanic about the problem and what they plan to check and do, after a few minutes they usually realize I know a llittle something about cars and don't try to BS me..........
Now, my wife is a different story, they have told her so much BS and she didn't have a clue what they were talking about and they knew it.....

David

[Rick Parker]

Wrench87 is dead on. One of the big problems is that few of the techs take any pride in the work. Granted it is not difficult to anylize most issues anymore with all the computers, with rare exception they plug a scanner in the diagnostic port, read the codes and head for the parts counter on your dime. If they do not read all of the potential causes before parts start being changed you're going to have comebacks and multiple parts being installed in search of a fix.. The environment at a Dealership Service Dept has changed. With the advent of electronics they can make more money quicker (and get you back on the road) by exchanging a part rather than by attempting to repair an existing one, consequently that is what all the OEM's have shifted to, also acknowlege that with the huge increase of electrical accessories and electronics (who can get along without their Power windows, Navigation Systempocomponents that the parts themselves can seldom be repaired at a Dealer level (nor would you want them to be). Manufacturers (retain) make larger margins by selling the parts and the dealers do to. Dealerships are expensive businesses to operate, I am not making excuses for shoddy work to any of you, it comes down to the guy holding the wrench in his hand, and how thourough he is at HIS job. I've worked in Dealerships for my entire working career, in what we call the front end (sales dept). I make it clear early on with any tech I come in contact with that I understand what goes on with the working of the vehicles, and by doing so they seldom attempt to feed me a BS Sandwich. Ive seen some very good techs that made very good money and had few complaints and I've certainly seen the bad ones too, they float from one dealer to another. Unfortunately the bad one have to work on "Someones car", just make sure it isn't yours. It's unfortunate when you experience the latter.

[Alex Donghi]

boy the stories I could tell.... many yrs ago a buddy called me to tell me his fiat wouldn't go over 30mph and would I look at it Ok he shows up and the engine is filthy so we get some gunk and clean it The dealer told him he needed a valve job 2k on a 4k car??? so run compression all cylinders at 165+-3. try timing its ok can't figuer it out tho so its late he goes home calls me a few days later and wants to dump it car's got 18k on the od. so i says let me look at it again he comes over and the engine is filthy again????? Well I pull the dip stick and oil is to the hilt. I end up taking 3 to 4 quarts out with a sucker usually used on my boats. Car ran great. The same a holes that wanted 2k for a valve job had just given it a oil change/service a few weeks earlier.
they never dumped the old oil just added 5 qts