Interesting logic. Your guy who was superior to any Nissan dealership mechanic was a Nissan dealership mechanic for 30 years? I wonder where he cut his teeth. If he went back to the dealership would he then be less superior?
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No. More superior. Most if not all dealerships MAYBE have 1 or 2 master mechanics if any at all. There might only be one master mechanic in a given area. Many dealer mechanics don’t stay there years and years. They get training and work there for a few years then move on to better paying jobs or start their own business.
Or move on to jobs where they’ll get treated with respect and receive better benefits and job security
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fwiw . . . I enjoyed many aspects of working at the dealership. There was good camaraderie and I really liked working on the vehicles and learning valuable skills
But inept management and idiotic warranty department practices that almost always resulted in the mechanic losing out convinced me to seek greener pastures
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That’s the key, employee retention. Remember dealers are like any other business in any other industry, some are well-run, some are not. I see dealers that have techs that have been in the same location for 30 years, I see dealers that don’t have a single tech with more than 2 years tenure. It all depends on management.
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And a lot of the old family dealerships have been passed down to the kids that run them into the ground and then these lawyer groups buy them up and everything changes, long time mechanics then leave…
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Yeah every dealer is different. When the trans failed in my olds, I had it towed to the dealer. They apologized for it going out at 70,000 miles. I said don’t apologize, that’s 170,000 miles. It already spun around once.
Then I had 1500 miles on my Acura and wrecked a tire. They said it would be four days before they could get me in to put a new tire on. So I bought a tire from their parts counter and had my tire shop mount it same day. That’s why I now use a different Acura dealer. Four days to mount a tire on a new car they just sold me? Fool me once as they say . . .
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That’s poor management and bad customer retention, imo
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I stumbled across this YouTube video of a 19 year old using a fake ID to purchase and steal a car and I immediately thought of you. I remember that you posted this thread about this very matter.
How long ago was this thread posted?
OK George and anyone that may be interested. I chaired the NADA meeting last Tuesday evening and asked your question of the participants (16 of them). Virtually all of the participants said that while they have used “sharp business practices” at times, that is a minor offense compared to what customers have tried (or succeeded) doing to them at times. The most frequent complaint had to do with trade-ins. Although the dealers all said they had the best used car manager the business, each one had stories of customers trying (and sometimes completing) trying to trade in cars that were basically junk including flood cars with washed titles. Another common complaint was warranty fraud. Everything from “after you changed my windshield wipers now my transmission is no good, I demand you fix it under warranty” to people claiming they did their own scheduled maintenance without an an iota of proof. Another area of attempted fraud was the finance department. A common scam is a customer trying to buy a car with someone else’s drivers license and credit score. the general tone was summed up well by a GM who concluded the meeting by saying "most of these customers are worse than Ali Baba and the forty thieves.
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Identity fraud is a big problem for car dealers.
In 2006 I was working for a large dealer, after losing 5 cars in one year they hired a security team to train the sale staff on how to identify fraud, track down stolen vehicles and to patrol the lot.
In recent years the general manager sent an employee email stating a member of the sales department had stopped a fraudulent transaction and that they had experienced 1 million dollars in vehicle losses the prior year.
Only took 70 replies to get on topic.
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incredible!
The Subaru dealership from which I bought 3 Outbacks was owned by an elderly man who had been the best foreign car mechanic in the area in his younger days. (He even knew his way around Citroens better than the mechanics at the Citroen dealerships!)
Circa 2012, the old guy died and the dealership passed to his son, who had previously been the used car sales manager. What transpired over the next couple of years was an incredible number of staff changes in the service department, apparently because of the way that he treated the mechanics, the service writers, and even the service manager.
After a couple more years, he sold the dealership to a guy who owned a Jeep dealership in the area, and it seemed like things began to stabilize at the Subaru dealership. But–fast forward a few more years–and the former owner of the Subaru dealership (son of the original owner) was arrested and convicted of burglarizing many houses, and for possessing narcotics and an arsenal of unregistered guns.
He spent several years in the NJ Penitentiary. You couldn’t make this stuff up!
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Reading Tocqueville again I learned the 1830 name penitentiary was based on institutions to develop penance for the misdeeds of the clientele. I guess 20 years in a small cell might do that, or might simply drive the person mad.
I’m no student of prison systems but have long held that punishment for violations is a stupid idea. Restitution and simply keeping someone off the street to protect the public makes far more sense.
Oh, did I go off topic? Sorry Nevada. I think they teach auto repair there though and upholstery.
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lol … thanks for sharing what you discovered! Very interesting.
I was quite surprised at the adverserial tone taken by the dealership owners and GMs, and we’ve seen here many times the lack of love that customers have for dealers.
It probably only takes a few interactions with entitled Karens and Kens to ruin your overall attitude, especially on big ticket items.
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If you’d experienced the shady customers that frequented the dealership I worked at, you may not be that surprised 
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Any business that has to deal with the public will have many stories of people trying to get something they should not get.
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