I've got news for you Nate. If I screw up a car at my shop because I don't know what I'm doing, or make an honest mistake, I get to fix the comeback for free. Usually, in the dealerships I've worked at for the last 20 years, the inefficiency and ineptness are confined to the departments on the other side of two doors...the one to the parts dept. and the one leading to the showroom. You can't blame the guys in the blue shirts for the lies that the dude in the suit told you.
-- Old Crow '82 Shovelhead FLT 92" 'Pearl' '95 Jeep YJ Rio Grande ASE Certified Master Auto Tech + L1 TOMKAT, BS#133, SENS, MAMBM, DOF#51
Also do not forget buying tools( snap on,mac,ect) .Also boots that are needed. There are always new tools for new vechicles-without them sometimes the job takes longer.Also hope the shop helper drains the air tank of water(moisture) the night before! In New Jersey the shop rate is $90.00 an hour.Also anything under half hour is charged an hour.
Have sence,patience,and self-restrain,and no mischief will come.
Then your shop is very unusual. I've seen many situations where the customer is charged for both repairs regardless, and I've seen many situations where the shop offers to do the second repair (often much cheaper) for free while gouging for the first screw up.
Service managers and advisors can be a huge problem.
Right, you can't and you shouldn't. If you believe the lies from the guys in the suits, you've got other issues and you paid way too much for the car to begin with.
Jeepster wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Of course, you have to remember that the mechanic gets his salary the whole time he's working, whether he's working on someone's car (billable), taking a break, cleaning up the shop, calibrating equipment, taking sick leave, helping another mechanic, or paid vacation. And someone has to pay for a well-stocked parts department, training, manuals, tools, diagnostoc equipment, the building, utilities, insurance, taxes, etc.
The mechanic's take home salary is only a small portion of what you're paying for when you go to the shop.
Well, that's not so in most dealerships. The tech gets paid when he is working on a paying customer's automobile. Tech doesn't get paid to clean the house, train the new guy, road test for hours to duplicate an impossible concern, etc..
Few people comprehend or care about the overhead of running a repair business. It is much more convenient to just whine about the cost. Like anything else, if you don't want to pay someone to do, gear up and do it yourself.
Do franchised dealers get this information for free, perhaps due to some oddball quirk of warranty law, or does the dealer also have to pay for this stuff?
One could make the argument that the dealer pays for this material in the form of the money that changes hands between them and the maker...
I have some difficulty grasping the logic that the manufacturer should offer this information for free, although I can agree that it should be available, including service bulletins, for reasonable cost.
I've run into two types of independent shops that tend to be consistently better than dealers.
The first is the specialty shop, and in every case I've run into, it was owned and operated by a very senior mechanic and/or service manager from a dealer. Have even been referred to these shops by the local dealers for particularly oddball problems. e.g. the Volvo specialist down in Torrance Ca, owned by Peter, a former mktg manager of Volvo, who has the original Car of the Year trophy for the turbovolvo on his desk.
The other is the specialty high tech shop. These are typically owned and operated by folks with masters degrees in mech engineering [or better] who run the shop for the love of it. And tend to be cleaner than the typical hospital surgery. Tend to specialize in blueprinting, etc. etc. and are almost always higher priced than the local dealers.
Then there are the in betweens, which in my experience have varied from really surprisingly good [oddly enough all of those level have had good relationships with the local dealers] to just flat out incompetent and occasionally ripoff. Not surprisingly, most of this bottom feeder class tend to badmouth the local dealers.
Yeah, one of the things is the generally deeper pockets of a large shop or dealer. A small shop may be nice, but the owner may not have the financial flexibility to go the extra mile when something inevitably gets screwed up. A dealer will usually have those deeper pockets, plus a reputation to worry about, and more likely to take or partially take the loss in a marginal situation. At least it seems to work that way for me, but then I try not to be rude to folks who get near my brakes on a regular basis. But then am not bashful about asking the service manager for a referral positive or negative] to an independent for oddball or unusual stuff.
But then the local dealer offers coupons such that oil and filter changes as well as lubes are cheaper than the Oil Ape places... so why risk some doofus damaging the vehicle that won't have the skills or finances to fix it.
Hah, try picking up one of the new California enhanced smog law test stations that can handle dealer grade volume.
Well, everyones but yours, where you kept insisting I said something that I never would... >:-) I happen to get along with my dealers quite nicely. Helps in difficult situations, helps in trading in the old car, etc. etc. Plus my cousin was a huge dealer [which says not much].
Only had one dealer I'd never go back to. Something about having your wheel fall off at 50 mph on a California freeway just sorta grinds your knickers into a knot a bit more than an independent shop just busting a head bolt.
I'm not sure how highly I'd rate gas station service mechs. Granted some may be good, but what the heck, I've been one of those myself at a station out in the middle of Utah. We did service mainly because the other shop in town was a well known ripoff place, and did our best to limit our involvement to getting the customer from Green River to their normal mechanic in one piece.
i cant see how knowing how to do something justifies sticking it to those who dont. im lucky in two ways....i rarely keep a new vehicle much more than a year so im always under warranty, and there is no vehicular repair i cant do myself anyway. i feel sorry though for those who cant and must rely upon dealerships to repair their vehicles out of warranty. i feel sorry for everyone with the triton v10 head out of warranty that had to pay for an entire new head because the dealership was incapable of building up the head and tapping new plug threads or paying a machine shop to do it for them (v10 was bad for blowing plugs out of their holes taking the threads with them). it happened on my brothers but he had an extended warranty. i feel bad for everyone whos paid $200 in labor costs to have an alternator swapped when i know one person that got theirs swapped and installed at autozone for FREE (labor). i could go on but im bored with this now.
On 14 Jan 2004 09:41 AM, Paul Calman posted the following:
Most of the residents stay there for considerably longer.
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On 14 Jan 2004 01:41 AM, Old Crow posted the following:
Sure I can. When I take my vehicle to a dealer, I am entrusting it to an entire organization. If something gets screwed up, it makes no difference to me who did it. If you don't want to be painted with the same brush, work someplace where your boss isn't a liar.
My reputation is all that I have and if I find myself working someplace which does not meet my ethical standards, I will leave. I'm not saying it is easy, but it might be necessary sometimes.
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