Over at AskPatty.com Amy Mattinat has a great post explaining why you don’t have to service at your dealer. While I’ve built my career working in dealerships, I’ll be the first to tell you that there are some great independants out there. Amy is correct in pointing out that often a top dealership tech will leave and open his own specialty shop. These are the guys who you should be looking for, the shop that specializes in your brand of car. They are going to be the ones who are most likely to have the computer equipment needed for your modern car and the knowledge to use it correctly.

One thing I wanted to touch on is the use of aftermarket parts. One of the great things about the aftermarket is the incredible selection that is available. A good jobber may have brake pads at 4 different price points for any given car. Chances are that they will have 2 pads that are cheaper than the OE pad and one that is more expensive. Is there a difference? You bet there is. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who take their car away from the dealer based on price, only to return to complain that the brakes they had done cheaper elsewhere are noisy. Which of the above pads do you think they used? Sure, the cheaper pads are still safe, but they may not last as long and they’ll almost always make more noise.

Engine related parts, such as oil filters and ignition parts are built by a supplier to the OE manufacturer’s specs. Then, those parts are warranted by the OE manufacturer. The aftermarket parts may even come from the same production line, but depending on their intended price point they may not have been built to exactly the same specs. They will almost certainly not be covered by the same warranty as the OE product would have been.

Many years ago, when I worked for one of the traditional domestics, a customer’s van was towed in with a blown engine. The van had under 50,000 km on it and had received regular oil changes at the dealer, until the most recent one. The oil had been changed less than 1,000 km before by a major Canadian automotive retail chain & had one of it’s branded filters. Investigation found that the paper from the filter had disintegrated and had been sucked up against the oil pump screen, stopping the flow of oil through the engine. The oil starved engine spun a connecting rod bearing and threw a rod through the side of the block. Ironically, the major chain brand filter had been manufactured by the same company as built the OE filters at the time. The difference was in the warranty. Of course the vehicle maufacturer refused to cover the engine repair for obvious reasons. The retailer that did the oil change offered up a new filter! The retail chain’s customer relations department stated that the extent of their liability to the consumer was to replace the faulty filter, not to repair any resultant damage. After a legal battle that took close to a year, the retailer was ordered to install a used engine in the customer’s van. After a year, he got a used engine! Had the failed filter been branded as OE and had been installed at a dealer, the repair would have been covered under warranty and he would have had his van back in a couple of days.

This story is and extreme case, but it is a true story. This stuff does happen. That extra little bit of security is something to think about when having an independant install aftermarket parts on your car.

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about being prepared, comes today’s rant about the ignorance of some people. Many car dealerships up here in the great white north don’t have the benefit of a full blown drive through. As a result, the service advisor must head out to the parking lot to get the current mileage off each customer’s car, unless the customer has brought it in with them.
This morning, while dealing with a lineup of customers myself (due to a sick employee) someone commented as I walked past to go get a customer’s mileage that “I don’t understand why they need the mileage, it takes too long”. Of course when it was her turn to be served, not only did she not have an appointment, she didn’t know her mileage. No surprise there. Beatch!

End Rant.

There are several reasons that your chosen service center needs your correct mileage. Of course we need it to correctly advise you as to what service your vehicle is due for. Correct in and out mileage is also needed for warranty documentation if you are servicing at a dealer. The other, less obvious reason is for the protection of the dealership and the customer from unwarranted “road tests”. Let’s face it, on occasion we do come across less than honest individuals on both sides of the counter. I’ve seen employees (managers even) take customers cars for lunch, or even over the weekend. This is inexcusable and having correct mileages protects you from it happening to you. On the other hand, I’ve also had customers come in after a service and blow up because their car had been driven 1000 km since they dropped it off an hour ago. Right! Fast car huh? In that case, Fortunately I had recorded the in & out mileage personally.

Help yourself get good service, record your mileage on the way in and save the service advisor a trip. He will appreciate it & a happy service advisor is much more likely to be on your side.

This morning, due to an organizational misfunction, we opened late this morning and had about 10 customers lined up to drop off their cars when we opened the doors. Of those 10, 6 had never been here before. It was pouring rain and not a single one of those folks thought to bring their ownership inside with them. It may seem like a simple thing, but the ownership holds all the keys to who you & your car are. Of course you know who you are, but I bet you don’t know your car’s VIN number (clue, it’s that 17 digit number at the bottom left corner of your windshield). Your service advisor needs that number to enter your vehicle into the computer.

When a new customer and car is entered into the system, it takes close to 10 minutes for the average advisor. Add in 3 or 4 minutes for the advisor to run out into the rain to write the number down from the car and you now have a wet, agitated service advisor.

If you come into the dealership prepared, it will make the service advisor’s job that much easier and your visit that much quicker.

More tips on How to get good service

Ok, so I know that “they don’t respect my time, so why should I respect theirs”, but there are some things you should know. Due to the nature of the car industry, employees work very long hours. Often service advisors work 11 or 12 hours a day, 5 and sometimes even 6 days a week. Think about it, they are there when you are on the way to work and there when you come home from work.

I know that this is not your problem, but you can make things a bit easier for them. Most of us show up a half hour early to get things rolling to begin the day relaxed. If the sign on the door says “open at 7:30″ and you are impatiently walking around the waiting room or worse, going into the office at 7, you aren’t going to receive the warmest reception. On the other hand, think about the end of the day. Last weekend was our Canada Day & the 4th of July in the States. On Friday, we had told all of our customers that we were closing at 5 so that we could join the traffic to get out of the city to be with our families for the long weekend. One customer said he would be there by 5:30. He actually showed up at 6:15 and then wondered why the lights were off and we weren’t very happy to see him. I know that most people aren’t this inconsiderate, but I just use this example to illustrate that sometimes your own behaviour can dictate the quality of service you receive.

Just a little bit of psych work here. Be considerate of the hard working service advisor’s time and he will be more likely to be considerate of yours.

It may sound basic, but before choosing a service facility, get recommendations from other people who drive the same model car as you. What’s that, you don’t know anyone else who drives an Avanti? No problem. Thanks to the net, car owners clubs are now closer than ever. What does this mean to you? It means that most clubs have message boards for exchange of information, even for you Avanti Owners. Often that information includes cheers and jeers for car dealerships. Now remember, this is the virtual world, so sometimes you need to take some of the advice given with a grain of salt but usually people will steer you in the right direction. If others have had good experiences, chances are that you will too. The added benefit is that there are dealerships who actually support their owner’s clubs and offer discounts for club members.

Oh yes, if you find many complaints online regarding a certain dealer, it’s probably a wise move to stay away.

Over the years, the new car dealer service department has developed quite the reputation for lying, cheating, misdiagnosing and just plain old bad service. Of course, this reputation didn’t occur because all service departments are golden, much of it is deserved. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of great people working in the service industry, but there are almost as many losers as there are superstars. Why is this?

I’m a firm believer that the lack of training is the cause of most service department failures. Training should be a no brainer, but the reality is that most new service advisors receive little if any training. A Chrysler dealer I worked for years ago said that it takes 3 years of front line work to make a real service advisor, yet my training was “there’s your computer….now write work orders.” Unfortunately, this is the training that far too many newcomers receive.

The position of Service Advisor may be one of the toughest jobs in the auto industry. The advisor has to be an organizational whiz, know the different maintenance requirements for all vehicles he sees, needs to be an effective communicator and the combined qualities of a baby sitter and a shrink. Often a flustered, poorly trained advisor will blurt out the first nonsense that comes to mind when asked a difficult question rather than seeking out the correct answer. It is human nature. The advisor doesn’t want to look like he doesn’t have the answer so he makes one up. When he is caught, the consumer feels like the scumbag has lied.

The consumer ultimately bears the brunt of this lack of training and that’s inexcusable. So what is the consumer to do? How can the consumer get solid service advice? That’s what we are going to attempt to help with in this series. Some of the advice will be common sense, some will hopefully make sense and a fair bit may be flippant and tongue in cheek. The intent for all of it will be to help you help yourself to get the best service ever.