Why not the dealer?

The local ford dealer and the quick lane he owns have sent enough stuff away fixed that wasnt fixed i fear going near it. I work in a quick lube that expanded into other services when the economy tanked in 08 so anything that needs done i just do.

When i was rebuilding the trac loc in my 8.8 the rebuild kit through the dealer with employee discount (friends work there) was 60 more then the same kit from frpp online.

My number 1 reason for avoiding dealer service is trust.

I was considering getting into the business a few years ago and started talking to who work in it. The dealerships local to me have a lot of good people stuck in bad processes. The incentives are skewed toward sales over customer service. Things that should act as controls like CSI scores are flawed and/or misused by the management.

Warranty work at the dealer, nothing else. I've dealt with my small shop mechanic forever. He understands when I'm broke and works with me. And he's a lot more creative in his thinking.

gearheadmb wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Why do you ask? Do you work for a dealership, or is this curiousity?

Curiosity- we were presented with some data today, and thought it would be interesting to see why so few people use dealers. It's a very low rate. Not that it's surprising, but very interesting.

There is a desire to fix that, but I'm not sure if the "why's" are that well known, and more importantly, how to fix all of that. Which is a question that I will ask later.

Didn't read everything;

I use the dealer for my Mazda; the service manager is on here, he built the cage in Steve's RX2, and is an all around good guy.

I do the work on my wife's T&C, it is new but the local dealer is high pressure, has no sense of urgency and generally acts like a stereotypical dealership.

Everything else is at home or indie, I don't like explaining the mods I've made or why I made them.

In reply to RX Reven':

Being made to feel foolish- that's a great one. Big one to add to the list.

One that bugs me is that their recommendations don't match the OEM- like on my Fiesta- the oil change intervals are something nice and long, and the dealer puts the standard 3000 mile change that is very old school. Bugs me.

I also had a dealer tell me that the symptoms I was seeing was wrong. Uh, yea, I do know what I'm seeing- but that was 20 years ago...

chandlerGTi wrote: Didn't read everything; I use the dealer for my Mazda; the service manager is on here, he built the cage in Steve's RX2, and is an all around good guy. I do the work on my wife's T&C, it is new but the local dealer is high pressure, has no sense of urgency and generally acts like a stereotypical dealership. Everything else is at home or indie, I don't like explaining the mods I've made or why I made them.

No reason to read it all- I appreciate all of the input! Thanks!

alfadriver wrote: There is a desire to fix that, but I'm not sure if the "why's" are that well known

What value does a dealer provide that an independent cannot? What value does an independent bring that a dealer cannot? Answer those two questions and you got a good start. Customer experiences are additive. Every single contact is a chance to lose or gain preference with a customer. Customer Experience is my current vocation..

alfadriver wrote: So 40 or so min into it, the leading reasons are (not in this order) Cost upsell truthfulness convenience trust of who is there. Keep it going. (edit- getting the parts is a different question I want to ask, so for now, just look at service)

5 hours in, and mostly the same reason. Add in the dealer made you feel foolish- terrible to feel intimidated, worse to be ridiculed.

Feel free to just repeat issues. Theoretically, one could assign an degree to how bad. But I'll leave that to whoever reads this.

BTW, Bob- feel free to use this info, too. It's good stuff. And not terribly brand specific.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote:

alfadriver wrote: There is a desire to fix that, but I'm not sure if the "why's" are that well known

What value does a dealer provide that an independent cannot? What value does an independent bring that a dealer cannot? Answer those two questions and you got a good start. Customer experiences are additive. Every single contact is a chance to lose or gain preference with a customer. Customer Experience is my current vocation..

Theoretically, the experience is being addressed. Not that I totally believe it, but we are being told it is. But the value equation needs to be addressed right away- to me, even if you get a good deal on some simple work, all of that value goes away if the dealer tries to upsell you on stuff, or tell you wrong things are bad. Even saying "no"- one can say that you are happier with a $30 charge instead of $20 to avoid that.

BUT, I'm not a specialist. Just an engineer.

Type Q wrote: My number 1 reason for avoiding dealer service is trust. I was considering getting into the business a few years ago and started talking to who work in it. The dealerships local to me have a lot of good people stuck in bad processes. The incentives are skewed toward sales over customer service. Things that should act as controls like CSI scores are flawed and/or misused by the management.

I think TypeQ is bang-on here. Even if you can get past the trust issues, the dealer service centers are part of a big centralized system that's not working from the customer side but is making money.

Convienience. My town doesn't even have a stoplight, let alone a dealership. If I had something with a warrrenty it may be different. Also, the nearest Honda dealer makes Hennessy Honda of Woodstock look honest.

alfadriver wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote:

alfadriver wrote: There is a desire to fix that, but I'm not sure if the "why's" are that well known

What value does a dealer provide that an independent cannot? What value does an independent bring that a dealer cannot? Answer those two questions and you got a good start. Customer experiences are additive. Every single contact is a chance to lose or gain preference with a customer. Customer Experience is my current vocation..

Theoretically, the experience is being addressed. Not that I totally believe it, but we are being told it is. But the value equation needs to be addressed right away- to me, even if you get a good deal on some simple work, all of that value goes away if the dealer tries to upsell you on stuff, or tell you wrong things are bad. Even saying "no"- one can say that you are happier with a $30 charge instead of $20 to avoid that. BUT, I'm not a specialist. Just an engineer.

It's not super easy.. Trust me.. The First step is empowering your lowest level employees to be able to make decisions right on the spot(within reason) to address customers issues. Hire good people, empower them, watch the results....

That said, I relied on the dealership to replace the starter on the wife's car when it died 300 miles away on vacation. Herb Chambers in Massachusetts has earned my trust and my business if I need something when I'm out that way.

I've had my WRX since it was new in 2012. It's never been to a dealer or a shop.

My miata I bought new in 2005. It went to a dealer to get a new fuel pump when the one that Mazda knew was bad failed and stranded my wife 7 hours from home. This was covered under warranty. It's never been to a dealer again or any other shop.

I did take my old 2001 E-150 to a dealer once to have the belts changed and rear emd serviced. I did that since I was new to the area and figured the dealer was safe.

Trust level from the dealership varies widely by dealership, in my experience. The local Honda dealer is very quick to try to upsell questionable service items on our Odyssey, but the Audi dealer has been straightforward and honest. One might argue that at $175/hour labor rate the Audi dealer doesn't need to upsell stuff, but... :)

The Chevy dealers that I've taken the truck to on occasion have been good as well, but I don't have a particularly long baseline for comparison on it.

I use the dealer for my Porsche Cayenne. They're no more expensive than the local indy shops now that the indy shops have started charging book time. I get a 10% PCA discount on parts/labor at the dealer so the labor rates are the same too.

Then send me home in a brand new Cayenne and hand wash mine while its there.

Done deal.

z31maniac wrote: I'm starting to think many on this board expect to have a negative experience and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... When you go in these complaining about the price of 1 jug of coolant and never spend any money there, what kind of reaction do you expect? Build a relationship. Complain all you want about how it should be, but when you do regular business with them, I've always had great service.

I honestly try to go into any business with an open mind, as I know how variable it can be even from location to location within a chain. However, whatever my expectations might be have nothing to do with them using the wrong oil, telling me that the car needs the oil changed every 3k miles regardless of what the computer AND owners manual (engineers) state explicitly to the contrary, that the rear diff needs replaced when the sound is coming from the transmission and there is a well known tech bulletin for just such a sound coming from the transmission, that my pad have "only" 40% left and they just happen to have a complete brake job 'deal' going on right now, that the dangerously ineffective brakes are "normal", that the dangerously ineffective brakes are the ABS on a car that didn't have ABS, and when they try to convince me that my car that doesn't have ABS has ABS.

Why should I put any effort into actively pursuing a relationship with somebody whose actions show that they obviously don't 'respect' anybody who doesn't first get into bed with them?

I just paid the Lexus dealer $719 for an oil change, brake service and fluid, and air filter. I got a new es350 loaner, car wash and a cup of coffee to go. No new parts except the filter. They put on my summer wheels " no charge". NOT doing that again. I wanted to do the service there to maintain the warranty with no hassle, but that pricing was ridiculous. 4 hours of labour at $125/hr. I felt like a huge chump while paying.

alfadriver wrote: Theoretically, the experience is being addressed...we are being told it is.

That's the funniest thing I've read all week! Thanks for the laugh!! Let me guess: It involves banners that read "Is this good for the company?" that dealerships will put up in the break room encouraging the mechanics, service writers, sales staff, and 1st level managers to consider with every decision they make? Maybe they've hired some outside consultants for all the dealerships, that for the sake of argument, we could collectively refer to as "The Bob's"? Yeah...This has success written all over it.

Until the manufacturer has meaningful control of the core business practices at the individual dealership level, nothing they do will be able to significantly change anything from the customers perspective. Yet as long as some borderline fraudulent numbers on a chart in some report show an improvement, I'm sure that won't stop them from sitting back in smug satisfaction of a 'job well done' either.

Woody wrote: The other thing that bugs me is that dealers will sell genuine parts for less through their online parts sales than they will over the counter. I can buy Genuine Toyota parts cheaper from a Toyota dealer in Texas and have them shipped here for less than I can buy them at my local dealers.

The local dealership is selling to you at list. The online dealership is selling at cost or slightly over.

Funny how that works. Calling as a shop, my cost for parts from the Mazda dealer is the same as me ordering parts as a civilian from Mazdatrix. Almost to the cent. So Mazdatrix is either making little/no money on parts sales or they are buying at DEALER cost and selling at counter sales cost instead of counter sale list. Given that Mazdatrix (and other online sales places like Jim Ellis, who are awesome to deal with) are still in business, it is probably the latter.

Also the parts are WAY cheaper, for a Mazda, if you are a Mazdaspeed member...

SWMBOs X-Terra goes to the dealership for pretty much everything. The reason is two fold, first they actually do a good job there and I rarely have issues with them either not completing, up-selling without actually showing me where the issue is and the tech data to back it up, or completing the work incorrectly where I need to play "whats that noise" after the service. The second is that we have an understanding that I can break (I call it upgrade) my car all I want but she would rather have reliable OEM.

The MS3 absolutely never goes anywhere near Mazda for service. I like their parts department and regularly buy whatever it is I broke this month from them but the service department left a bad taste in my mouth after a failed attempt at a 30k service and an argument involving the installed catch can. Currently the car is too heavily modified to expose the engine to anyone who could potentially be required to report it to California CARB and start asking questions about EO numbers and the diameter of the catalytic converter.

When I bought my TDI in 2003 I was told it came with "free state inspections". OK. Sounds good... 2004 rolls around and I take the car over there. Later in the evening, after the shop is closed, but the dealer and cashier are still open, I pick it up. "That'll be $39.95 for the emissions inspection."

"What? They said 'Free inspections??'"

"That's just the safety inspection. The emissions inspection isn't part of that."

"The car is a DIESEL. It doesn't GET an emissions inspection!"

"Sorry. I just take the money."

So in order to get my car back, I pay money for something I didn't need and vow never to set foot in Colonial VW ever again. And I haven't.

When I bought my TDI, VW dealers had a horrific reputation for working on TDI's. Mainly because few techs ever received the proper training to work on them. I read endless stories of owners who took their cars to a dealer and got it back worse than when they dropped it off. I bought my car knowing that I would be doing all work on it essentially from day-one. Fortunately, my car has been better than most and has needed little more than regular maintenance.

Brian wrote: Convienience. My town doesn't even have a stoplight, let alone a dealership. If I had something with a warrrenty it may be different. Also, the nearest Honda dealer makes Hennessy Honda of Woodstock look honest.

docwyte wrote: I use the dealer for my Porsche Cayenne. They're no more expensive than the local indy shops now that the indy shops have started charging book time. I get a 10% PCA discount on parts/labor at the dealer so the labor rates are the same too. Then send me home in a brand new Cayenne and hand wash mine while its there. Done deal.

Well, there's book time and there's book time.

At Saturn 15 years ago, the hourly rate was $100-140.

Our current (indie) hourly rate is $85-105. We're a RepairPal member (we get a surprising amount of work through them) and we're consistently at the very bottom or lower than the "local range" feature on their site. This is surprising because our local competitors are in the $50/hour range so we were thinking that we would be in the middle/top of the local range. On the other hand, we also get the cheap shops' "comebacks", which sometimes turn into repeat customers. But some people just shop by price and don't care about the quality, those people aren't good customers so there's no sense in catering to them, they always return to getting poor work done by the cheap places. There will always be someone cheaper, and "the bottom" is not the place you want to race to.

Bu my word... $175/hour at Audi? No wonder when we recently gave a maintenance quote for an A4 at $2500-ish, we were told "Oh wow you are a lot cheaper than the dealer!"