Work Ethics

[Bruce Allert]

This post can be applied to our 914's but it didn't happen to one. It's mostly a vent towards workmanship and the G-A-S attitude towards ones finished product.
I manage the maintenance dept. for a campus here in the PNW area. This includes managing our fleet of 17 vehicles, most of work I sub out to the garage from where we purchased the vehicles.
A van was brought to me with a bad vibration. We suspected a U joint. I took it into the garage, told the service rep about the vibration and left it. Picked up the van with a $1000 bill that said a ball joint was bad, brakes were bad, wheel bearings were loose & trans needed fluid changing. (this is the good part) the tech wrote on the repair order that he could not feel anything wrong when he test drove it so he put it on the rack and "shook it down". In doing so he found the loose ball joint, loose wheel bearings, bad brakes etc.
Oh yes, they called to inform me of all this but failed to tell me that the tech didn't feel what I'd expressed as a vibration. Had I known this I'd have gone down to give him a ride & litterally pointed it out. The last entry on the repair order was, "I took it for a test drive and it seemed to be ok". If he didn't feel it to begin with how did he know it was ok?
I had a talk with the service mngr. & asked him the same question but got no reply. If I turned out this kind of work I'd be ashamed to present the bill to my customer.
I work with mutiple different contractors and have found that the ones that work for large companys do less for the money than the ones that own their business.
I could go on but this is enough. I'm sure y'all have come into this multiple times too. Thanks for listening..... I feel better now.
bruce

[Zeke]

Don't get me started. I'm in the home improvement business (replacement windows). In a recent survey, the no. 1 thing that fails to saisfy customers is home improvement contractors. It's tough going in to someone's home with that much bad feeling from the get go. Consequently, I install every window myself to gain back some of the customer confidence. Like I could find a competent installer to start with. Hah!

Oh, and high on the survey list are auto mechanics. Try to find a guy who owns the business and does ALL the work personally. BTW, also high on this list are car salespeople. No kidding?

I'm sure this is why so many of us here on the board do our own work on our 914s and other cars. Can you even imagine taking a 30 year old car into a dealership to have service done? I don't think many of the poeple in there were born when these cars were new. Well, I could go on, but this will get out of hand.

[John2kx]

The main reason I picked a car I could work on myself like the 914. The day I have to take one of my new cars into the dealership rates right up there with slidin my a$$ into a dental chair.

John

[derek_sf]

my brother is a benz mechanic at one of south floridas largest dealerships. you would not believe who they hire to work on your expensive car. the stories I hear about what some of the techs do is amazing, some of which include losing nuts/bolts inside motors and closing them up that way. LOL.

[John2kx]

The straw that broke the camels back for me was during a routine oil/filter change on my Lexus 400 SC. I noticed when I got home, the engine protection pan was hanging kinda low and found several screws missing. Took it back to dealer and they put it up on lift. I decided to see what was going on and strolled my happy A$$ back to shop and found mechanic removing screws from rear brake line mounting clips to use on the front pan !#$!@#$$. Kid was about 19-20 years old and could not could come up with one reason why he was taking parts off rear of car to fix what they screwed up vs. ordering new parts since they did not have those "hard to find" screws in stock.


John (finished with the new car guys and shops)

[tryan]

maybe i am just tooooo old.

if you want it done right, do it yourself or SUPERVISE.



we should start a dealer horrorstory thread.