Dealership Trust

[moose13]

Not the point. There shouldn't be damage in the first place. That's the concern here, that a simple, cheap install will turn into a giant headache. Whether it costs anything is irrelevant.

If you don't already, get to know the kind of goofus that gets put on the "simple" jobs.

For me it's just a peace of mind thing. I have a dealer I definitely trust, but I'd rather do stuff like a battery because I know how meticulous I will be.

My dad put it best when he was teaching me how to dock his old ski-boat. He would only let me practice when it was just him and I because: "if something bad happens to anyone on board, I'd rather be angry at myself than you."

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[ctandc72]

And with all the technological updates in most cars, independent shops will fade away. I’ve got a guy that I trust 100% that came from a high end dealership. He’s been in business a few years now but sees the writing on the walls. I’m thinking he’ll be of retirement age around the time the industry changes completely.

Maybe it's a West Coast thing.
Here independent shops are growing. Good ones can do everything the dealer can do, besides warranty work, and their prices are almost always lower.

I take my cars to a shop for state inspections. I've known the owner(s) for 20 years. They know I wrench on all my own stuff. They just moved into a larger shop 4-5 years ago (6 bays) and they are booked constantly. I always end up in the shop talking to him when I go get state inspections.

Because of this, they recently teamed up with another shop that specializes in Europeans cars (BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Jaguar etc) and they refer all work on these brands to them.

There is something to be said for building a relationship with your customers. I know people who have been bringing their vehicles to these guys / gals for 40 years. Now their kids and grandkids do the same. When customers, who don't feel comfortable working on their own cars, find a shop that does good work, charges a fair price, explains everything to them and treats them well............they don't tend to shop around.

 

[pyrophilus]

I took my car to a local garage to get NYS inspection. The shop I used past u years is gone (shutdown), so I drove around until I found a random shop 10 min away from my house. They told me I had leave the car with them for an hour. I said fine, stood outside waiting for my wife to pick me up.

I left and two hours later they called me say they finished (two hours for inspection!?!?!?)

I picked up the car, and after I made the left out of the shop, I drive down the street, make a right hand turn, and I hear a click, like the sound of strut bearing binding.

But I had binding strut bearing, and my dealer replaced it under warranty...

So I drive that way for 2 weeks driving in a lot of rain. I finally put my car up on jackstands and check the front passenger wheel. It is loose. I suspect worn bearing which is weird because I have driven two other s550's for the past 8 years and this is the first time I have busted bearing, and this car is less than 3 years old.

I get a new hub assembly, go to remove the axel nut, and the nut is completely loose. I try to tighten it and it took 3 whole turns to tighten it back up! I wonder if the shady shop loosened the axel nut???

I married the dust cap when I took it off, so I can't check to see if there were signs of it. Being removed before. Anyway, I can't prove anything, so I decide to just eat it and change the hub by myself...

The axem nut being so loose for w+ weeks caused the bearing split, so the rear outer race (hub side) was stuck on to the spindle. Moreover, water seeped in through the back of the broken bearing seal, causing the race to rust weld itself on to the spindle/knuckle.

So i decide to just get a new knuckle...

Thank God the strut bearing replacement was done by dealer tech, so everything should be alright... nope!

I tried to take the strut lower bolt nut off (strut to knuckle), and I tried 4ft crater bar on my 1/2" breaker bar and dropped all my weight on it at 90deg (so effectively 180x4 = 720 lb ft of torque), no budge... I ended up breaking the 1/2" drive off the end of my craftsman breaker bar.

I get another. Reaker bar, put on the cheater bar, and then while holding a wall, stand ON the end of the cheater bar and swing my weight up and down until the nut finally gives.

I am guessing the dealer tech just used his pneumatic impact gun on the strut mut which probably was like 900+ (or even higher) lb ft torque.

The nut is supposed to be torqued at no where near that much torque.

So I go to driver's side and try removing that nut (still factory assembled). That nut gives with no problem.

So... long story short. I HATE lerring other people work on my car. The tech may know 600% more than me regarding fixing everything around the entire car, but for a strut removal , disassembly and reinstallation, he seemed to have ignored all torque settings and just tightened the hell out of all the nuts.

There IS a reason why the engineers placed specific torque settings of the fasteners...

So no, the hub assembly would have been covered by my warranty, but I really, really dislike my car being fixed by others because u feel like they never put anything back together with care.

Don't even get me started about interior panels...

 

[NDALLAS40]

Why am I like this?......My battery was dying on my 2018 350. I purchased the new 350 in April of '20 so that started the warranty clock. I know I could have taken it to a dealership and received a new battery for free. However, I purchased a new one and put it in myself.......Am I crazy????

I don't have a relationship with any local dealership as I purchased my 350 from an out of town dealership. I just don't trust them in general......

LOL. I haven't read all of the posts and comments, but the thread title caught my eye immediately. I've always considered those two words mutually exclusive.

 

[hdaniel85]

Hit and miss for me, the dealership I take my Raptor to is also the dealership who services my GT350... nothing but nice things to say about them with my Raptor... however, my GT350 story has been an absolute nightmare. I will still bring anything to them under warranty, however, any small things will be done by me from now on.

This wasn't just a 1 time thing either, it was multiple issues and once they've lost my trust they probably won't get it back.

 

[NGOT8R]

Every dealership, regardless of the make of vehicles that they service should be required to study this thread and then be told, just as Gene Hackman told his crew on the USS Alabama in the movie Crimson Tide.




From the top down, every dealership needs to be tasking exceptional care of customers, the same way that they want a dealership to take care of them and/or their families.

I’ll bet if the lazy techs receive a cut in pay for subpar work, they’ll figure out really quickly that it pays to be a good tech if you want to be compensated fairly. Unfortunately, the rotten apples are the ones, who make the whole profession look really bad.

 

[Milton]

A lot of it has to do with the culture of the dealership itself. So many small to mid-sized dealerships have been bough out or absorbed by large auto groups (that own multiple dealerships / multiple makes etc) that of course things happen that negatively effect service and customer satisfaction.

I was in the car business years ago. I have good friends who have been and some whom are still in the business (business, sales, parts and service side) and I've heard some stories about management and ownership that a lot of you probably wouldn't believe are true.

Think about the service writers and the service managers. These are the "first line" interaction with customers. The entire experience can live or die based on this interaction. Now realize that most of the service writers (and in some case service managers) are NOT technicians. This effects a customer's experience with service more than most people probably realize.

Service writer schedules jobs for techs with not enough gap between jobs. So that 10am appointment? The service writer only gave the tech an hour and a half to finish the 8:30am job - but the job is a 2 hour or longer job. Happens all the time. Who gets the blame?

"Sorry sir / ma'am, the technicians are backed up today."

Yeah, they're backed up because the management pushing service quotas and wait times for appointments (and other metrics for service that don't always agree with reality) are pushing service writers to leave customers with unrealistic expectations.

This effects more than you know behind the scenes. A customer schedules an oil change at 8:30am. He is waiting for the car. When he comes to the counter that morning he asks the service writer "Can they rotate / balance the tires as well and can they take a look at ..." Most times the service writer says "Sure."

Now the entire schedule for the day is effected.

Then you have cars that are being waited on for jobs versus cars being dropped off. So if a customer is waiting on a car, there job might be pushed by the service manager and the car that's sitting there waits.

Now look at the different experience levels of technicians.

In reality, the tech changing your oil or rotating / balancing your tires is likely not of the same level of experience / skill as the tech doing more complex (thus more expensive / more profitable) jobs.

As former tech - you want to get a good idea of a dealership's culture in the service department? Stand outside the shop and watch the attitude of the technicians. That will tell you a lot.

I'm not accusing anyone on this thread or anywhere of this - but attitude matters. One of my good friends started as a tech with a BMW dealership. Then went to Porsche. Then service manager, then started his own shop that specializes in BMW, Mercedes, Porsche etc. All his techs are former dealer techs. Some of the stories he has told me over the years about customer interactions at the dealership are absolutely ridiculous.

Just my 2 cents.

Flat rate and warranty times are the cause for bad service

 

[oneheadlite]

...NO dealership trust here.
I took my '98 Chevy ZR2 in for a rattle in '99. When I got
it back, I had a front end out of alignment because some 'quality'
mechanic drove over a curb trying to replicate the rattle.
I could NOT convince the SM that my truck wasn't out of alignment
when I brought it to them.
A couple other stories about dealers, but I won't go into them.

Same kind of tale w/my Harley dealer over an oil leak.

I've read too many tales on here and on the challengertalk forum about
mechanics 'joy-riding' our cars.

It'll have to be bad before a dealership touches my car....................

 

[fmc_smt]

And when the indie f**** it up where doese it end up ? As I have said before. No all dealership are the same . Do your do diligence and find one you can work with .

 

[460Fred]

Same kind of tale w/my Harley dealer over an oil leak.

Wait….You had an oil leak in your Harley?

 

[oneheadlite]

.......yea.............. thissn'
Go figure.........................

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