Stealerships...
 

I have a local mechanic who I trust completely to do only the things we ask for. My son (who is currently enrolled in UNOH diesel Tech), and I know quite a bit about the older Ford, and German cars that we own, and can generally narrow down what is wrong. We don't always have the time, or space to fix said cars.

I would never take a car into a stealership, and let them start "fixing" what they determine is wrong.

My MIL bought a new Mercedes 320 about 10 years ago. She just does not deal with mechanics and they can sniff out a "mark" like her. All her life her husband took care of the cars himself until Alzheimer took him away.

Anyway she would always ask me to drop the car off for the service. I did not want to get in the middle of working on her car myself. I dropped the car off at the dealership and left my phone number to call me when done. It was in for just an oil change and 24,000 mile inspection. My MIL's first name is a magnet to crooks. With a name like Bertha they know she is not young. The dealership called and said the front brakes were shot, and the struts needed to be changed as well. I just held my temper and said do NOT do any of that. Just the oil change. I know the car has a brake pad monitoring and she was in no danger.

When I got the car home I did an inspection. The pads were almost new. She drives like an old lady. Very casual stops. She sold the car after 60,000 miles and those front brakes were still on there with pad left to go. She sold it because she could not find a mechanic in her small home town that really likes to work on them. She drives a Nissan now.

I've known well, dealership practices since I was a kid in the late 60's - my much older brother got his start in a local Chevy dealership as a mechanic at that time.

My belief is their business model is essentially unchanged. The difference today is all the administrative costs added in the service labor hour now. Adjusting for inflation the retail cost has almost doubled in 25 years and the technician makes less per hour today.

At some point something drastic will drive the service side of the industry down the same route as what Carmax has influenced on the sales side. It can't come soon enough.

I’ve never taken my car to the dealer, even when it was new and under warranty. The exception being if I had a warranty item or recall notice. I’ve done everything myself and kept records and receipts.

When my daily was getting up near 200,000 miles I had to take it in to the dealer for a tail light recall (I hate going to the dealer for anything). When I went to pick the car up later that day the Service Advisor asked me who had been taking care of the car (because they had no records on it). He stated that they never see them so well taken care of or drive so nice at that mileage. I wanted to tell him the reason it’s in such nice shape is because I kept it out of dealership hands.

I simply told him I’d been maintaining it all along. I personally think dealers can sometimes do more harm than good.

I also totally avoid stealerships. An example of why is a tire pressure monitor on my wife's car that stopped working. Out of curiosity, I thought I'd take it to the local stealership to ask them about it. They wanted $100 just to look at it to start with, then some outrageous amount to replace the monitors on all four wheels even though I told them it only involved one wheel. Then I took it to an independent place. They wanted $114 to replace all four. After that I took it to Discount tire & told them to rotate the tires & check out the tire pressure monitors, because the caution light had gone on. I go the car back and the bill was zero.

I do all the work on my two cars. My wife's last car was a 2008 Infinity, G-35x. She had it for 9 years and put 36,000 mile on it. In that time only one bulb in the headlight cluster went out, and she went through two batteries. She had the dealer do the oil changes. They charged he $35 and used Mobile One oil and Infinity oil filters, then they washed the car. The raw cost of oil and filters was not much less than what they charged. I was not upset to not have to do it.

Now she had a 2017 Macan. I won a free oil change at the dealership at the dealer's LeMans watch party, so that is take care of. At the rate she drives summer of 2019 I will need to do an oil change. I can work that into my schedule.

Service advisors. I did take my Mustang to the dealership while still under warranty.
Since I don't drive much, basically annual oil & filter, tire rotate. I brought the Mobil 1, so the tab was usually $24. Hell, why get out the floor jack & jackstands?

Anyway, one service the manual did call for was a cabin air filter change. Get this..the service advisor told me that my car didn't have one. Uh, yes it does, and youtube is full of how to videos on this. So, I just let it slide, went to my local Napa, bought a filter & changed it myself. One of those 10 minute things..

Later, the usual "how was your service" email from Ford. So, I replied, saying I was told my car had no cabin air filter. Some days later, I got an email from the service advisor saying he'd "done more research" and discovered my car did have such a filter and he'd be happy to sell me one for $23.65 and install it for free. Napa price? $11.

Of course, no Porsche dealership would dream of the shady practices shown in the video, right?

I also found it interesting to hear that service advisors can be working on commission. This I didn't know.

Ive been out of the dealer game for a long looooong time ( thankfully ) but I was under the impression , that all service advisors were on commission . Our service manage used to ride those guys so hard, that they never lasted long. There were a few who really made some $. They were sleazeballs .

I’ve had a couple of jobs done at the dealers in the past year or so .
Some jobs just make sense to get done there .

When the independent specialist is actually charging MORE than the dealers because they “only use genuine parts” , or even if the price is negligibly less it makes sense to get the dealers nationwide warranty on it ...

The biggest problem is people are of “the stealers” mindset , and automatically presume an independent has better pricing .
Even buying genuine parts from online specialists is sometimes more expensive than the dealer parts dept would charge.

As for the REAL topic of this thread , I guess they realize straight away I’m a car guy and I’m pretty straight forward in what I’m employing them to do , insofar as interrupting when they mention “free inspection” to say they’re wasting there time but if they want to do it that’s fine ..

My local porsche dealers knew me from buying parts for projects before I ever took a car to them , so we were on the right foot straight away and it’s a pleasure having them do the odd job on my cars .
Free courtesy car and detail would probably sway it anyway , but the fact the service guy gives me the same discount the parts guy has been giving me for years makes certain jobs a no-brainer

I purchased 2 P-cars from Bellevue Porsche (Bellevue, WA), and had them serviced there. 100% happy.

I have had a couple VWs, and tried having my cars serviced at their dealerships. They are lower than pond scum. Lying, greedy vermin.

Service writers are paid a set dollar amount on each billed labor hour cumulative for the techs assigned to them. IE: Advisor "A" is paid $2.00 per billed labor hour. Multiply that X total hours in a pay period. They are paid commission only.

Since they are commission only - they are frequently more corrupt than the techs working on the car.......also to be successful a 11 to 12 hour workday is common

That’s their choice .
Just like it’s my choice to say “no bull**** , just change the oil in my diff” .

Most of them are ex-mechanics .
Most mechanics are car guys .

Go in there as a “customer” and you’ll be treated like a customer just like the sales guys treat people in the showroom as a customer .

If you mention PCA , you’ll get a discount , and if you mention Pca they know you’re a car guy .

It’s not hard .
It’s not like you’ve had a Kirby vacuum salesman in your living room for 2 hours trying to “close” you .
It’s a simple transaction between 2 people who are into cars ...

Kinda weak ‘expose’. Aside from being hard to get past the long ‘O’ sound used for ‘ou’ it’s a lot of opinion and frankly simpleton stuff most people already knew.

It’s a sleazy industry. Yep.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Most car guys and gals can filter through the BS. It’s the folks that don’t know any difference and are lied to (and get taken), that’s despicable.

The dealerships and indy shops that provide honest service will benefit at the expense of the sleazy ones. Take for instance my Edmonton Lexus dealership. What do they provide?

- they tell me what service is required and what it will cost before starting on any work.
- if a part is defective and needs to be replaced they will show me on the car before work is started. eg. leaking shock absorber.
- they offer free breakfast at the local Holiday Inn.
- they offer to wash my car
- masseuse on sight
- free courtesy car or a ride to and from my home.
- they open door for me when I go in.

My Mazda dealership tells me there is a recall notice when there is none just to get me in for servicing. My Miata is on an every four month schedule because of "adverse conditions". My Nissan dealership would not honor the rust warranty.

This is not rocket science to determine who are the bad guys and good guys.

I have a friend that writes stealship service, his advice is to stay away. He's a great guy. Last I heard, he can't find a competent mechanic willing to eliminate oil in the intake on his supercharged mustang.

Matt, send your friend this link. No mechanic needed, very much plug & play for these...pretty much a must on supercharged 'Stangs. I have one on my normally aspirated 4.6. Empty it every oil change.

https://www.jlttruecoldair.com/ZenCart/index.php?main_page=page&id=30

I had to take my Nissan Versa to have the transmission fluid changed at the dealership,
{CVT, requires propitiatory Nissan trans fluid, there is no drain plug on the trans, etc.}
Asked them to check the brakes and suspension (was making funny noises).
$240 for the trans service (worth it IMHO).
Found nothing wrong with the brakes/suspension, I was impressed.
Carson Nissan.