I spent my day in a session with a large assortment of retail auto industry types today. I had the pleasure of sitting with an attractive young lady who has a reputation for being a fearsome service sales person. She thought that the above options should be added to the bottom of a standard repair order.

This could be fitting for just about any sales industry!

Let’s face it. Life is a rush for all of us. We have doctor’s appointments, kids to pick up and meetings to attend. It’s hard to be without the car, so we book the car in with the expectation that it will be completed in almost no time at all. Then, when the car isn’t ready when we thought, we panic. Perhaps worse, we show up unannounced in the service department and make a fool of ourselves when we lose our temper in public.

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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.

As a Service Manager, I’ve seen my share of stupid things. Often, some of the brightest guys make some of the most outlandish blunders and with this in mind I had a nice giggle at the story recounted by Joe Sherlock.

Brainless Mechanic: A friend sent this to me. I don’t know if the story is true or a joke. Or both. The writer is from Mississippi: When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door.

As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. “Hey,” I announced to the technician, “It’s open!” To which he replied, “I know - I already got that side.”

If things have seemed a bit quiet in The Garage over the past couple of days, it’s because life has been pretty hectic around here. I’ve been asked to leave my post as Service Manager at the Nissan store & move to the Mazda store our dealer group owns. It seems that the service department there is having some problems and they are hoping that little ol moi can help solve them. It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s also going to be a lot of fun learning the ins & outs of the new product line.

I’ve already started scanning e-bay for a beat up old miata to turn into a lapping day warrior.