Re: Dealerships vs independent shops & being presented with a laundry list of problems unrelated-to-the-main-issue.
Perhaps part of the problem is indeed the dealership owner is just being a little greedy and searching for ways to make some add’l income. But an argument could be made I think that the dealership owner is more attuned to keeping the customer happy with their car than an inde shop. After all, the inde shop doesn’t usually care whether you buy that make again or not. But the dealership does.
And everybody knows if your car fails to start on the day you have an important business meeting that morning, or if it shuts off while driving on the freeway, you won’t be a person happy with your car. And may take it out on the dealership by not purchasing from them again. This hurts both the dealership and the manufacturer.
So what I think is probably the explanation, the manufacturer leans on the dealership to go through an inspection check list for every car they service, and inform the customer if anything on that list looks like it might be in the process of developing a problem, so then the customer has the option to do something about it then, rather than when the car won’t start.
And I can envision a situation where the dealership does this at first for the above reason, to help the customer, but finds that this check list thing is bringing in add’l revenue, so the owner might “encourage” the shop techs to “recommend” leaner problems be fixed too, those that are on the border of being a problem or not. Revenue is revenue after all.
When eating out yesterday I ran into an old customer whose father owned a local new car dealership. For years I repaired his cars and trucks and those of 2 salesmen at the father’s dealership also. The story was they were given no break in the price and were actually treated more poorly than the general public. They all preferred to buy used cars and drive them as long as they were economically safe and reliable. The dealer was a fair and honest man who I have known nearly 50 years. There seems to be a rut that dealerships inevitably fall into to some degree. Just like independent shops fall into a similar rut. But then bankers and investment counselors and ministers also seem to fall into similar ruts.
I think it runs deeper than that, rod. Manufacturers routinely place multimillion dollar mandates on their franchise holders to try to prettyup the brand’s image, and in some cases to more closely oversee the franchise holders. A few years back the major manufacturers were demanding of their franchise holders that they implement million dollar plus computer systems to directly input into the manufacturers’ databanks. Some of the dealers sued, but I didn’t follow the case, so I don’t know the outcome. Some simply closed.
This past year they’ve mandated yet another multimillion dollar plus rebuilding of dealerships in my area. The Toyota dealers in Manchester and Nashua have both had to implement major reconstructions, and the Lincoln dealer is currently undergoing one.
In an effort to try to compensate for years of lagging sales, I believe manufacturers are placing very expensive demands on their franchise holders that they have no choice but to try anything they can to pay for.
I believe that the manufacturers are bullying franchisees to do things that drive up the revenues needed from their service organizations to pay for the mandates. It’s the only real part of the organization that the franchisee has sufficient control over the prices of.
Even the honest dealers are being squeezed now. And the service customers are paying the freight.
The car manufacturers dump a lot of costs onto the backs of their dealers be it comparative pocket change or something that requires a boatload of investment.
Some may have noticed that many GM dealers went through a building facelift not many years ago.
That’s not out of choice; GM made them do it at their own expense. The local Chevy dealer and GMC dealer renovated to the tune of 6 and 7 figures; the local Cadillac dealer just gave up the franchise.
Thinking that “old Bob at the Corner Garage 'cause he’s done me right for years” may be misplaced thinking. It’s ironic sometimes how some people will use an independent for decades and may never even be aware that they’re been screwed over countless times.
A guy I’ve known forever passed away in the summer of 2011 and he was successful in the auto repair business for decades as an independent. He stayed swamped with work (with his son involved) and there was no limit to the utter theft or outright hack jobs that were being done everyday.
Why did he stay busy? Because he was the type of guy one automatically liked when meeting him. He was the “good ole Bob…” type and even people who discovered they had been screwed or hacked would return to him for more. Some may call it masochism…
My partner loved our local Honda dealer because he could drop off the car on the way to work for maintenance without an appointment and it would almost always be done the same day. Several independents in the neighborhood had no idea how long anything took and would make promises they couldn’t keep. That was a mistake they weren’t given the chance to repeat. They might have been cheap and honest, but some of us want convenient and predictable just as much.
Dealerships around here have size going for them. The Honda dealer probably had ten times the business of any of the local independents. I suspect the Honda service writers are trying to generate business like everywhere, but we never saw much evidence of it. In a decade the only problem that 1994 Civic had was other people running into it. Oh, it needed a new muffler once. That’s about it. We’d still have a Honda if they sold the Civic hatchback here. We’re perfectly happy with our Hyundai and it gets driven so little it could easily be the last car we ever buy. And we’re not very old (just worn out.)
My partner loved our local Honda dealer because he could drop off the car on the way to work for maintenance without an appointment and it would almost always be done the same day. Several independents in the neighborhood had no idea how long anything took and would make promises they couldn’t keep. That was a mistake they weren’t given the chance to repeat. They might have been cheap and honest, but some of us want convenient and predictable just as much.
That’s a very good point. There’s a decent segment of the market for whom the price of a service is maybe #3 or #4 on the list of qualifications. Is the shop convenient, clean, do they wash the car for me, is it ready on time and is the price at 5:00pm the same price that was quoted at 10:00am?
Then there are yo-yos who only want the cheapest they can find, because they don’t know or care better. Recently I had a guy drive in in a Nissan Rogue and ask how soon he could get an oil change. It was late in the day and we were all caught up, so I said “In about 10 minutes.” Then he pulls out a stack of coupons and says “I’ve been trying to get a $20 oil change but all these places say it will be tomorrow.” “Well, we charge $34.95.” “Well, I can’t pay that much.”
And we’re not very old (just worn out.)
Sounds to me like a sign of a life well lived!
man, so many good jokes there. but I would likely offend some one by accident. guess I ll stick to making fun of middle aged , white Anglo-Saxon protestant hetero males.
Not so fast @wesw . I don’t think offensiveness and humor are mutually exclusive. In fact I think they often go hand in hand. I think the funniest things are those that come at someone else’s expense.
How low will television producers go to get ratings? JackAss has pushed beyond the limits of acceptable humor in my opinion. But cable television’s movers and shakers seem to have hired Beavis and Butthead to head up the programming department.
When I was at the dealership, my longtime service writer always had me describe exactly how bad a leak was, for example. On a scale of 1 - 10. 10 would be a fast leak, with large puddles on the ground. 1 would be sweating/seepage, in other words, not a big deal and keep an eye on it
There was another service writer whom I dealt with infrequently. He wasn’t very polished, but he was blunt and to the point. Some of the customers really appreciated it. But some didn’t. Apparently, they wanted “special” treatment
Anyways, this blunt guy was often looking out for the customer’s bottom line. In a few cases, he told the customers to go to Costco, to save money on tires. In another case, the customer’s cam went flat. The bearings were in fine shape. The engine just needed a cam, and nothing else. Anyways, the price for the factory cam was astronomical. He sourced a high quality aftermarket cam, for a fraction of the cost. It fixed the problem, and everybody was happy. Except for the service manager . . .
He was fired several years after those incidents. This was during of the recent recession of a few years ago. The company was downsizing. They had 2 locations selling the car brand, but consolidated into 1 location, so many employees were let go. The reason the writer was let go, was because his “numbers” were weak.
There were some interesting factors as to whether a mechanic got fired, during the downsizing. The really young guys with no experience were let go, because they hadn’t yet proved themselves. The guys who weren’t savvy with the scanner and finding information were also let go. Older guys who couldn’t or didn’t want to adapt to new technology were also let go. I barely survived the cut. A few weeks after the downsizing, I got my current job as a fleet mechanic.
I actually liked the blunt service writer. He didn’t beat around the bush, and you knew where you stood with him.
You’re going to like this next part . . . when I announced that I was leaving, I asked the shop foreman to call up such and such, to let him know he’s got a job again. I’d like to think that when I left, it allowed one of the very recently laid off mechanics to get a second chance. I don’t know what happened in the end, though.
@db4690 I once worked for a guy that was a real hard-ass, blunt and to the point, but like you say you always knew where you stood with him. He was also pretty demanding and had high standards, and as such not everyone could work for him.
On one or two occasions, when we had a new hire that clearly wasn’t up to par, the owner knew he was going to let him go but took the time to make some calls and find him a couple of job leads, so he wasn’t just sending a guy out into the cold. I thought that showed some character.
In my early years I worked at two different “gas stations” as we called them then. They both did all repair , minor or major except for automatic transmissions or engine rebuilds.
The first one was owned by a great guy, liked by customers and employees alike and honest in his dealings with everyone.
The second was sweet to his customers faces even while he was cutting their fan belt and short sticking their oil and cheated his employees every chance he could.
I never had any fault with the Mopar dealerships I dealt with for many years but am disgusted with both Toyota dealerships I have dealt with recently. The one I bought my car from was paid by Toyota to rotate the tires every 5000 miles. The lug nuts are supposed to be at 76 foot pounds and yet every time they tighten them almost to failure, I tried to remove them with my torque wrench bot it only reads to 150 pounds. Had to use my 18" breaker with a 3’ pipe over it. The last time I went back to the dealer to make them loosen and retighten them and- you guessed it- they did exactly the same thing again.
I tried another dealer for the 15000 mile service and the service writer came out to the car and told me they replace the cabin and air filters at this time. I pointed out that they hadn’t looked at the filters and Toyota was paying them to clean and and reinstall the cabin filter and the cabin filter was supposed to be done at 30000 miles.
I tried this dealership again at the 25000 mile mark that was just for tire rotation and again he tried to sell me filters. I informed him I had replaced both of them the day before and when I got the car back the tech had marked them both as dirty. They get $30 for each filter and $30 labor for each. That is a quick $120 for doing something that doesn’t need to be done.
