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.