I’m having my mom’s headliner replaced next Friday
Talk about “adventure in anxiety”
The appointment is set. Friday morning at 8:00AM we drop it off and choose the fabric and go over the details. Then we supposedly pick it up in the afternoon.
The shop got really good reviews on yelp, and a neighbor had recommended them some time back. But I take yelp reviews with a huge grain of salt. Because it’s been reported numerous times that yelp pays to get the names, addresses, phone numbers of bad reviewers, contacts them, threatens them with all sorts of ugliness, and “persuades” them to either remove their bad review, or change it to a good one
If I like the outcome, I’ll consider using them for my headliner
I just brought up the headliner, because it shows that even I am anxious about having little control of the situation
I lack the skills to redo the headliner myself, and I’d prefer to have a good job done, versus watching a youtube video and possibly making a mess of it.
It’s the lack of control that bothers me. I don’t know how carefully they’ll remove the grab handles, sun visors, etc. in order to get to the headliner, which will apparently also have to be removed.
wouldn’t want any pervasive rattles under the headliner AFTER the repair . . . there aren’t any at this time, FWIW
wouldn’t want to have any of the components get damaged during removal
@thesamemountainbike, I can only speak for the dealers that I’ve worked for but they all gladly serviced old cars and for me personally I 've never had an issue with it.
It could be that some are hesitant to accept older vehicles because of the potential parts headache; or lack of parts. Generally around the 10 year mark most car manufacturers consider their cars obsolete. This in turn makes the acquisition of some parts a real battle.
The regular maintenance and wear and tear items can be had in the aftermarket but many parts are a dealer only item. Once apart the dealer may then be faced with a car in pieces and not a prayer of getting that part unless someone goes salvage digging.
At a Subaru service school I attended once the instructor flat out stated that Subaru was embarking on a policy of revamping their models about every 6 to 8 years and that once a new version was introduced the prior ones were considered obsolete. This of course meant headaches getting parts for 8 year old cars and Subaru is by no means the only one that does this.
They just happen to be the one that stated it bluntly to us.
There was a study just a few years ago out of Cornell university about these social media review places like Yelp. Businesses PAY people to post good things about their business and trash the competitions. At one point there were more paid reviews then real reviews on things like restaurants and hotels.
OK4450, I thank you for your insight. My experiences are limited to those of a customer at only the local dealerships. The local guys don’t seem to want to bother working on older cars. If my theories are at all accurate I can understand why, but it does make it hard for the owners of older vehicles. On the other hand, that benefits the private shops.
If a person with an older vehicle can find a good independent shop , I would think they’d be many dollars to the good by getting repair work done there . That being said , I have nothing at all against the good technicians that work or have worked at dealerships . Seems we have some very good ones right here on this forum .
I truly believe that the vast majority of mechanics are honest and truly try to do good diagnosis and proper repairs. I also truly believe that the overwhelming majority of the problems come from company/management policies and practices. I include in that belief dealer shops, private shops, and even quickie lubes. I don’t believe the kids at jiffy lubes make their mistakes intentionally, I believe they’re just being asked/forced to do things that they lack the skills and/or training to do and forced to do them in unrealistic timesframes. The business model of jiffy lubes is the root cause of the problems, not the poor kids.
the overwhelming majority of the problems come from company/management policies and practices
Managing the customer’s car repair experience is like herding cats. In many cases it can’t be done. The shop just has to diagnose what needs diagnosing and fix what needs to be fixed. There’s some subjective judgment needed as to the order is all, based on their experience of the kinds of problems they’ve seen before on similar vehicles.
There’s a column in a magazine I read called “To the rescue” where the magazine hires a super-experienced shop to fix a problem one of the reader’s has had and not able to figure out. In some cases the car has been off the road for 5 years due to the problem. Sometimes the shop quickly discovers it is something simple and the car back on the road the same day. Like the car is just out of gas, b/c the fuel gauge is inaccurate. And sometimes the owner comes in to the shop the next day for a progress report to find the engine and transmission out, and the pistons arranged on the work table. It just depends. Like herding cats.
@thesamemountainbike, you are dead on correct about the majority of problems coming from company/management policies and practices.
Wrestling cars can be a frustrating mind drain most of the time but when you pile on the very onerous flat rate pay system and mind boggling stupid management practices it’s a miracle that any mechanic stays in the profession more than a month before moving on to something less stressful and more lucrative; like working the drive through at a fast food joint…
At a large multi-line dealer where I worked both as a mechanic and shop foreman I can honestly say that my stress levels were 10 times higher as a foreman compared to turning wrenches.
It wasn’t the customers or dealing with them; it was wrestling with the beyond moronic owner and service manager almost day in and day out over policies that made no sense at all.
Just when I thought they couldn’t do anything any dumber they would prove me wrong and top dumb with dumber.
The same thing when I worked for Nissan. The shop was fantastic and the service manager was superb. He retired and the guy that took it over was a total moron. The shop hummed along like a Swiss watch until he took over and then every day became a Three Stooges movie.
The moron service manager eventually quit and managed to get himself elected county commissioner where he continued the movie…
He had 6 miles of highway ripped up for resurfacing and then decided to leave it a ragged, posted 30 MPH mess. It stayed that way for 8 years until he left office and the next guy finally fixed the problem.
You should have seen some of the snafus in the shop…
His first speech on the day he took over service after moving from his position as the F & I guy up front had him saying, “I don’t know why I’m here because I don’t know anything about service. Oh well, I start a new career about every 7 years”.
As for the OP on this thread, pages 5 and 6 pretty much reveal what we said all along.
