Many of you know that I usually recommend avoiding dealers except for buying and service covered under the new car warranty. I have said that there are some dealers who are not too bad. Today I had another experience with the dealer I have had good experiences.
The seat belt buckle on the driver’s side caught in the door as it was closing. I ended up with a driver’s door that would not budge, and not fully open or closed. I had called my insurance company and they were going to send someone out. I was close to the dealer while on an errand so I stopped by. They checked it out found that they could fix it with just the right nudging. No charge.
I will stick with my policy of not identifying good or bad dealers or mechanics (I might have just been lucky or unlucky so I don’t want to give out the name for good or bad, but they are located in south west of town. I will be taking a trip to the coast this week end and now I will not need to climb out via the passenger seat.
Sometimes something like this just needs a different pair of eyes to look at it and solve the problem. It is nice that a dealer service department did a courtesy like that. In my area, it seems as though the only courtesy the dealership service departments will extend to anybody is to tell you their address so you can bring your car to them, and they will charge you for anything. I had a Jeep once with a factory security system featuring a starter kill function. It accidentally got armed, and I needed to know how to disarm it since it wasn’t mentioned in the owner’s manual. I called the dealership and simply got “I dunno, but if you bring it in here, I’m sure we can figure it out” There are helpful people out there everywhere, you just have to find them. Too bad for me they don’t seem to be at the dealerships around here.
No such thing. They are just trying to win your confidence for the long con
I’ve had very good luck with my local Honda dealer. They’ve always diagnosed the problem the first time, prices have always been reasonable, and a couple of times they’ve done stuff for free. There are good dealers out there, just depends on who’s running them.
My Chevy dealer service dept. was excellent, while the Lexus service dept. drove me away. Go figger…
This attitude that a good dealer service department, or a good mechanic is only “good” if they do things for free is scary. If there is a problem with your car that you can’t figure out how to remedy, then shouldn’t you expect to pay for another persons expertise. Mechanics go to work to make money, not to be good Samaritans. Also Kizwiki, there is no such thing as the “long con”. We want to please customers so they come back, just like any other business, because we need to make a living too.
To find the good dealer takes a little time investigating.
Do the locals choose to go there as a first choice ?
Do the locals go there for anything and everything ? ie; routine oil changes, tune ups, flat repair, tires, alignment, as well as heavy work like engine/trans replacement, timing belts, axles, body work etc.
Do the locals bring a lot of cash pay ( not warranty ) work there ?
I use the dealers under warranty and have been happy. Out of warranty they throw lots of work that may not need to be done hopefully to bait you one item.