Dealership: Yes or No?

Maintenance/Repairs
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21

Yup, that’s a perfect description.
Thank God my friend was smart enough to call me. I wish I had a lift in my garage. I could have actually shown her the underside of her car and its condition. Best I could do was reassure her, having been under the car myself, and suggest she get a second opinion. I joined her for moral support at the shop that gave her the second opinion, and I have to comment that he, an independent, was honest, straightforward, thorough, and excellent. And he took the time to talk with us about the car.

I have no doubt that the dealership’s modus operandi was under the leadership of a corrupt supervisor… perhaps even a corrupt owner. I cannot imagine any tech trying a stunt like this on his own.

By the way, the independent also have restoration underway that looked great. It was a full frame with the insides boxed and with drilled out outsides, a flathead with three two-barrel Strombergs that looked like it had just come off the assembly line, and a nice new fuel cell. The fuel pump wasn’t installed yet, but the brake system was. It had red steelies on all fours either new or restored. I didn’t see any body, but whatever it is the quality of the work on the rolling chassis was excellent without being overdone. I’d take my car to this guy without hesitation… except that he’s about 45 miles from me and works alone… which means I’d have to be able to leave the vehicle in most cases.

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22

I’ve seen dealer techs trying to pull that cr*p. Many work on commission m, so the more they sell the more money they make

23

Thanks for all the responses so far guys and gals. I noticed a few suggestions to “do-it-yourself” – I’m young (or is it old?) enough, at 32, to do an oil change, however, I would certainly need a lift in the driveway. I tried loosening the oil filter once and I nearly slashed my wrist in the process because I was laying on my back and it was difficult to conjure up any torque to properly loosen the filter. So, yeah, lesson learned.

24

I would just get 2 drive up ramps instead of a lift myself. They work great for changing the oil in my Focus. If you go the route of floor jacks, make sure you have jack stands as well. Also make sure they are both weight rated higher than what you’ll need them to lift.

25

With my wife’s Malibu, we watch for coupons from the dealership. It’s then actually cheaper to have the dealership do the oil change, and we get a free tire rotation and car wash out of it.
I do have to listen to the list of “recommended” services- most of which have already been done.

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26

I am young enough at age 74 to change my oil, too. Heh, heh. But, I bought Rhino Ramps. In Texas, the car port put the front of the 2002 Sienna right over the dirt, with enough space to reach under there. My 2009 Mexican Sienna is different, using a cartridge and not a can filter, so I bought the Rhino Ramps and that works out fine.

It takes me longer than a mechanic would take, but then I am sure it is correct.

When I am in Texas, I take my car to the Toyota dealer where I bought it, just across the city limits from McAllen in Pharr. I know the service writer, Alex, and he has known my son-in-law for years. Also, they do not try to sell me rebuilt parts which is per my preference, not that the 2002 has needed many parts. I got tired of angry mechanics spouting off because I said I do not want rebuilt parts, and Alex isolates me from that nonsense.

Most of the ten years that I drove the 2002 in Mexico, failures did not disable the car, so I would wait until time to go back to the States and have the work done there. Of course, the bad battery was an exception.

Once, Alex handed me a recommended service list over 1000 dollars, all to do with fluids. Brake fluid; steering pump fluid, and coolant. That was bad enough, but to make it worse I had them done a year or two earlier. Oh, and there was also $40 to adjust the parking brake, which is self-adjusting. I live in in the mountains, and there are few places where I do not set that brake when I stop.

Alex and I had a conversation, heh, heh. And, it hasn’t happened again.

Also, in McAllen, there are some great independent mechanics, but they have so much work they want you to leave the car until they get to it, and with only one car in a place like McA, that is not a choice. And, as I said, they usually try to shoe horn you into rebuilt junk.

The dealer almost always gives me a ride home, and gets me back when the work is done. The shuttle driver is a cool dude and he has been there for a long time, and knows the town very well. If they need to order the part, which is rare, they overnight it, and I stay home until the next day.

Do I pay more? I assume so, but in my opinion, I get more, too. So, in my case the dealer is a better choice. Now if I had a Big Three car that needed a lot of repairs I might change my mind. For the rare repair, I will pay the difference gladly.

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27

Those are two benefits rarely mentioned. Dealers of average size usually have a full time shuttle driver to take customers home, to a casino, a shopping mall or movie theater, no need to sit in the waiting area.

Dealers in major cities receive daily parts deliveries from large warehouses, if a special order part is needed it can be available the next morning.

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28

Suggest not to use the dealership shop for a 9 year old car. Unless you know for a fact you’ll get the kind of service you expect at the particular dealership, based on several prior good experiences. There’s likely plenty of very good inde mechanics in your area. But don’t use the internet to find them. Instead ask friends, co-workers, relatives, fellow church goers, fellow bar hoppers, anybody you have a trusted personal relationship with, ask them: who do they use to service their cars? Interview a couple of shops from that list who specialize in your make or at least Asian cars, then make a decision. Be sure to tell the shop which of their customers it was that recommended them to you. Gives you a little leverage. Best of luck.

29

What ever happened to those places where one could rent a lift, and, for a fee, get assistance from a mechanic? Seems that these places would be great for an apartment dweller.

Oh and VOLVO-V70: It’s taking me longer to get upright after being underneath a car. Must be that cold weather, eh? :slight_smile:

30

I believe that business model was a failure, although there might still be one or two in operation.

That was Tom and Ray Magliozzi’s original business model for their garage, but they found they ended up doing most of the work and tying up their bays with half-finished jobs, so they changed their model into the normal auto shop model. Obviously, liability would be a major issue, especially with amateurs doing the work.

As an apartment dweller, I currently have three options for DIY maintenance and repairs:

  1. My first preference is to do car maintenance when I visit my mother. I have a set of tools, ramps, and jack stands in my mother’s garage, and I visit her about once a month about 200 miles from home.

  2. I am fortunate to work at a place that does on-site vehicle maintenance, and although I don’t use their lift, I do use their warehouse with my ramps and jack stands. I don’t know how to operate the lift, and although I haven’t asked, I’m pretty sure my boss doesn’t want me to.

  3. I have a few friends and coworkers who would let me use their driveways for car maintenance if I asked.

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31

I just remembered an additional benefit to using a dealership for routine servicing, namely having factory recalls performed.

When I brought my car in for its last oil change, the service writer mentioned that there was a recall on my Outback, and that they could perform it that day if I had 15-20 minutes extra to wait.
I hadn’t yet gotten the recall notice in the mail, so he showed me the details, which had to do with installing a cover/shield on the bottom of the windshield wiper motor, in order to protect it from road spray–or something to that effect. So, rather than bringing the car back on another day just for that recall, or waiting a few months until the next service date, I opted to have the recall done then and there.

Roughly 30% of recalled cars never have those free repairs/updates performed, and avoiding dealerships is likely the explanation for that compliance rate.

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32

LAWYERS!!! I discovered a new to me roadblock to posting “Body seems unclear, is it a complete sentence”?

33

Is that an error message generated by Discourse? We web lackeys do not correct grammar.

34

When college-student-me didn’t have a place to work on cars I could sign up for an auto shop class in the local high school’s adult night school. That’d give me one night per week, 3 hours per night, for 13 weeks of access to their lift and assortment of tools and diagnostic equipment. And some valuable consultation time with the shop teachers. Another important benefit, since I’m afraid of welding and oxy-acetylene torching, I’d convince the shop teachers to do that for me, which made some repairs much, much easier.

I don’t think they have that kind of class here in San Jose area anymore. Kids not interesting in how to fix cars. The kids here mostly now want to learn computer programming and how to create social network software. But maybe they still have high school auto shop night school in other parts of the country.

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My original reply was LAWYERS! I was asked for the required 10 characters so I added !! and attempted to reply. That was when I got the I “Body seems unclear, is it a complete sentence”? There was an OK button which I tried 3 times and received the same question. When I tried “LAWYERS!!! I discovered a new to me roadblock to posting Body seems unclear, is it a complete sentence”? It worked. I don’t recall it being identified as a Discourse error message.

36

our mechanic started offering a shuttle service (currently a Ford Taurus) to get you to work or home and a ride back to the shop, I know of at least one other in town with a shuttle service as well. One of the many things that our shop stared doing after asking “what does the dealer do for you that we don’t?”

37

There was an auto shop class at my high school during the time I was there (circa early 2000s) and I absolutely would’ve loved to have taken the course if I had knew it even existed! It’s an absolute disgrace that such skills aren’t more precious now.

38

You’re right about that.

If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend the following book: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. The author makes a great case that not every intelligent young person should aim for a four year college degree and that the trades suffer when intelligent students who demonstrate an aptitude for a particular trade are steered away from blue collar occupations. From a philosophical point of view, I see this book as a modern sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, although I found Crawford’s book is a lot shorter and easier to follow than Pirsig’s opus, which tends to stray back and forth between philosophy text and narrative.

I’ve also recommended Shop Class as Soulcraft to young people who are starting college only because it is what their parents expect of them, but with little success. Recommending this book to young college students at a university is a counter-cultural action.

39

The sad fact is that schools have enough trouble staffing and having supplies a shop class for vehicles would be just to expensive to have. The price of diagnostic instruments for modern vehicles would be thousands.

40

The high school at which I was employed for 35 years had an auto shop class when it first opened, in the 1970s, and that class remained popular until the auto shop class was disbanded sometime in the '90s.
I agree that the cost of modern diagnostic equipment nowadays would be prohibitive for most high schools, but our big problems with that class arose when it became increasingly difficult to find qualified instructors.

I can recall one young auto shop instructor who did a shade-tree conversion of his '59 Caddy sedan into a convertible. When I asked him what he had used to strengthen the frame and the cowl area in the absence of the roof, he just gave me a blank look. That was my first indication that he wasn’t really qualified for the job, and after other signs surfaced, he was let go. After that, we had a brief succession of other equally unqualified instructors until the principal just gave up and converted the shop into a fitness center.

Luckily, the county’s vocational schools have retained their auto shop classes, and the county college has a degree-granting program that works in conjunction with both Ford and Toyota for specialized training and job placement.