ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion My Truck Repair

#1-Stay vas far away from the dealer as posable. Even for warrenty work.My best friend is an independant mechanic, you NEED it, he'll fit you in. Small business "brotherhood"!
Get in with someone and you can form a relationship.
Not to mention the "pay me when you can". Plus he gets top billing for Electrical,pool service,plumbing etc. etc...

#2- Ranting is good and healthy!
#3- Service IS the bread and butter of the industry.
And a technician who can do service is totaly invaluable.

22 yrs, never been out of work, unless I requested the respit!

If that is a certain Chevy dealer that is across the street from AAA and near WalMart I understand, the Ford side of that dealership is no better, took a F150 into them that had a malfunctioning speedo, and tranny was not shifting correctly $700.00 later they told me I needed a new inst. cluster, (special order & $500.00) and still did not work, after taking it to another shop that the owner of the tranny shop who rebuilt it recommended, $63.00 for 1 hour of labor found the problem, a dirty connector on the speed sensor on the rear differental, that was my last dealing w/ that them & my cluster works just fine, thank you..

My rant over...

Dealers ... now, there's a good example where common assumptions are called into question.

Car dealers - even new car dealers - have several negative stereotypes. One of them is the assumption that they're expensive, and suited only for warranty work on your new car. This, despite decades of "Mr. Goodwrench" advertising.

Contrast this with survey results from Consumers' Union ... where dealers, as a group, did pretty well. Indeed, they did better than every other category, save the "I'm loyal to a specific one-man shop" category.

Now none of us are GM (some are actually turning a profit!), and we can't hope to run an ad campaign of the "Mr Goodwrench" scale .... but we have some of the same issues to deal with.

Does your advertising do anything to set you apart from all the other contractors out there? Or, does your message get lost in the shuffle?

Norcal-
No, it was the other one on the north end of town. We bought the car from them used and just out of factory warranty and about 90 days later the tranny blew while towing the boat to Oroville.
Fortunately they gave us a 3 month/3000mi used car warranty and also fortunately the underwriters of that warranty policy opted to replace rather than rebuild. No troubles with the tranny since.
That was what started us taking it into their service department. Soon after noises started developing in other places and we figured we would use them for that too. Mistake.
Being as my van is a 2004 E350 (bought used in Sacramento) I will heed your warning about u know who's service dept. as well.

Sorry about the thread jack Reno, I'll try to get this back on that track.

My dealer service experience was pretty much exactly what you would fear it might be. The attitudes of the service managers were mostly arrogant, as if I should feel lucky to have them looking at my car at all. Prices, when they did anything, weren't cheap. And while they got the tranny swapped without any perceptible disaster occurring, their technicians either can't or more likely won't go to the trouble it will take to isolate and properly repair a couple of very annoying (to me) noises. Evidently, this isn't the only dealer shop treating customers this way.
This is what stereotypes are built on.

Now I find myself wondering how they keep their bays so full of work. Is the image created by both advertising and the direct affiliation with the manufacturers enough to override an otherwise negative experience in the minds of the average consumer? Do people think "Even if they are a bunch of jerks they're still the only one's who can do this right"?
Or do most of their customers come from situations like mine, a warranty issue leading me to beleive that they might feel some degree of responsibility and want to make it right? And then not wising up soon enough, hoping they would get it right next time.
Or maybe my experience isn't typical.

As far as my own business goes I think it's already been said. Be approachable. In the case of small companies that in itself should provide a lot of positive grassroots advertising. I don't do any advertising other than some business cards left at a few locations and some logo shirts. What I do do is go above and beyond in explaining to my customers what I see as their solution and why I see it that way. I don't give them an attitude of "Hey, I don't write the codes" or "I didn't frame the house". Instead, when issues of structure or code are going to create issues of cost or compromise I do my best to explain why that is. In many cases they don't care to follow along but they do get the impression that I care that they are making informed decisions.
The time I spend talking to people is what I currently pay for advertising.
This has led to many referrals, most of by business actually.

It may not still be true but the last time I paid a dealer to do something and they screwed up GM made them treat me right. I am not sure I would have the same luck with the guy at the end of the street. Dealers also have the real tools, important these days when the "tool" is a computer that talks to the computer in your vehicle. The dealers should have all the latest software updates.

DEALERS BITE!!! Propriotory issues as you speak of.
01' van. needed an ignition modual. I knew this. Plain old common sence and logic.
3 days of return visits and $80 min. diagnostic charges x 3. Plus the $180 charge for keys.
4TH visit. I TOLD them replace the ignition modual (as I requested at the first PHONE CALL).
$173 peice. done... have had no problem since!!!!
I told them the problem. They soaked me!!!! Most are 1 dementianal andf bad to boot!!!! total: $453.73. To change it as requested... $243.

Any good mechanic worth his/their salt- has access to all but a few computer related equipment and programs.If registerd, No problems with the factory. On any issue.

Dealers are THIEVES!!!!! But a needed evil! Created by them.

Dealers. Last resort ONLY!!

Nicely said, leland.

However, it was the dealer who was there when I needed him. He was the guy I was afraid to visit. I had heard the opinion you voiced far too many times .... looking back, it seems most folks were just passing on what they had heard, rather than having any direct experience.

That's why I stressed checking your assumptions.

Yet, I didn't start this thread to damn / praise dealers. I started it to make us ask ourselves to consider how we - both individually and as a trade - look to the customers, and to address those issues.

Do the folks you want to serve start off assuming that you're too expensive - or that you're not interested in their 'little' stuff?
Or, do you keep getting calls for the sort of work you'd rather avoid ... while the work you want goes elsewhere?

In short, my repair experience has me looking at the way I run my business. Don't forget ... you're a customer too, and what you want from vendors might just be what your customers want from you.

What you sell and how you sell it, thats what we must convey.
No easy task, how do you sum up an entire industry into a few lines on a card,truck or big phone book?