Thread: Never EVER am I going to a dealer again!!!

Its not so much if a mechanic has made a sstuff up (every body does sometimes), its how its handled and fixed, I know one indy here who offered to drive 400 odd km to rectify a front seal for me as he thought I was getting on the ferry the next day,
cheers
blaze

Originally Posted by Grumbles

I was waiting to pick up my Jeep whilst it was being serviced at a multi franchised dealership and watched a very distraught travelling retired couple remonstrating with the service adviser over the replacement cost of an Audi fuel pump. The car was just out of warranty and Audi wouldn't help with the cost - no good will - the pump was $12G.

They'd have a pretty good case to take to CAV. CAV look upon such a thing as having an "implied warranty". A fuel pump that failed at that point could be deemed as not fit for purpose. In any case, contact from CAV tends to focus attention.

Originally Posted by DazzaTD5

I
*Dealers in general dont pay very well, you pay peanuts and bananas and you only get species from the jungle. (Personal opinion, maybe I was really crap and thus got paid crap).

This is a very good point. What is often overlooked in debates around Dealerships is that very little of their actual profit comes from selling cars. Sure, the showroom is all nice and shiny etc, but by the time they have paid the rent, the floorplan for all the cars, the sales commissions, the insurances and all the other overheads there isn't a great deal of money in car sales. Thus, it falls upon the workshop and spare parts departments to bring in the wages. If a dealership charges $220 an hour, how much of that do you think goes the the bloke in the fancy logoed overalls?

Here's another thing. I think I have posted this elsewhere, but for a time I worked as a spare parts bloke at a Datsun dealership. So, I had my own copies of the job cards so I could dig up the parts needed. On a couple of occasions I counted up the total hours that could be booked to customer's cars on a given day ( this doesn't include problems, or breakdowns ) and divided by the number of mechs in the workshop. The conclusion? It was impossible for all that work to be done, by a factor of about 5, in that day, going by the hours allowed for each job.
Ok, allow that some mechs were fast. Also, allow that some items were "overlooked". The thing is, the customer was getting charged for the hours allowed, not the actual hours the car was actually worked on. I don't imagine anything has changed.

Originally Posted by johntins

This is a very good point. What is often overlooked in debates around Dealerships is that very little of their actual profit comes from selling cars. Sure, the showroom is all nice and shiny etc, but by the time they have paid the rent, the floorplan for all the cars, the sales commissions, the insurances and all the other overheads there isn't a great deal of money in car sales. Thus, it falls upon the workshop and spare parts departments to bring in the wages. If a dealership charges $220 an hour, how much of that do you think goes the the bloke in the fancy logoed overalls?

Here's another thing. I think I have posted this elsewhere, but for a time I worked as a spare parts bloke at a Datsun dealership. So, I had my own copies of the job cards so I could dig up the parts needed. On a couple of occasions I counted up the total hours that could be booked to customer's cars on a given day ( this doesn't include problems, or breakdowns ) and divided by the number of mechs in the workshop. The conclusion? It was impossible for all that work to be done, by a factor of about 5, in that day, going by the hours allowed for each job.
Ok, allow that some mechs were fast. Also, allow that some items were "overlooked". The thing is, the customer was getting charged for the hours allowed, not the actual hours the car was actually worked on. I don't imagine anything has changed.

Your forgetting one thing,many of those 'mechanics' are actually apprentices,getting paid somewhere less than $25/hr.

And with very limited ability,and virtually no experience.

But the customer is getting charged full rates.

It is a blatant rip off,and every dealer does it.Customers are paying for something they are not getting,which is probably against the law.

Sure,we need more apprentices and more training,but,as it is in our industry,they should be charged out at a lower rate.

In our industry we would never get away with it,apprentices are charged out at lower rates.

Originally Posted by scarry

Your forgetting one thing,many of those 'mechanics' are actually apprentices,getting paid somewhere less than $25/hr.

And with very limited ability,and virtually no experience.

Quite correct. About 60% were apprenticed, but a number of those were in their last year. Thing is, they weren't getting the supervision that true apprenticeship means, as the ratio of qualified to unqualified means that it would have been impossible, and the REAL qualified supervisor, the Service Manager, simply didn't have time, as he was too busy chasing budgets.

My observations on 2 occasions, first was at a Toyota dealer with a company supplied work van, I kept an eye on what was going on through the workshop doorway because I was waiting for the car. Service was done by a young apprentice and spent about 45 minutes working on the car, oil, filters, check brakes shake exhaust. Car was parked up at the side of the workshop for another 40 minutes with no one touching it. Another older tech then spent 10 minutes plugging in the laptop and checking for faults. A full 2 hours was charged for...Yep cheaper hourly rate than LR but...

Second, there is mechanics and there is mechanics. I had a 4.6 installed into a D1, ran like crap and my mechanic spent hours and couldn't fix it and cost me a fortune, another workshop had it sorted in less than a day. Same mechanic replaced the front seal behind the harmonic balancer about 5 times and it always leaked, the last time he said bad luck this is the last time I am doing it. Next mechanic did it once and it hasn't leaked in the last 4 years.

Originally Posted by johntins

This is a very good point. What is often overlooked in debates around Dealerships is that very little of their actual profit comes from selling cars. Sure, the showroom is all nice and shiny etc, but by the time they have paid the rent, the floorplan for all the cars, the sales commissions, the insurances and all the other overheads there isn't a great deal of money in car sales. Thus, it falls upon the workshop and spare parts departments to bring in the wages. If a dealership charges $220 an hour, how much of that do you think goes the the bloke in the fancy logoed overalls?.

This has been the business model for the last 30 odd years that I have been involved. The new cars make a loss used should break even or perhaps a small profit with finance and other add ons sales being the profit generator.

Often the other add ins have a bigger combined profit than the finance. The aftersales then make the profit for the dealership. You can use new car sales to forecast profit based on the percentage of cars that will come back for service.

Keeping these customers happy is the key to profit in the dealership

Selling a fixed price service plan is the carrot to increase the uptake in the service area who can then sell you what is not covered by the service plan.

All manufactures except Toyota and Honda make their profits out of the finance arm with the manufacture img being a loss leader for finance sales

Originally Posted by discomatt69

Second, there is mechanics and there is mechanics. I had a 4.6 installed into a D1, ran like crap and my mechanic spent hours and couldn't fix it and cost me a fortune, another workshop had it sorted in less than a day. Same mechanic replaced the front seal behind the harmonic balancer about 5 times and it always leaked, the last time he said bad luck this is the last time I am doing it. Next mechanic did it once and it hasn't leaked in the last 4 years.

On this: two things. 1, the engine conversion would throw most "technicians", although, having said that I have no idea how much of a "conversion" it actually is. 2, often in workshops I would find that a 'particular' job would be given to a 'particular' person, as they "always did them and had no problems". Well, of course they had no problems, because they "always did them". One wonders, how does someone else learn how to do them?

These days, we have "specialists", in other words people who choose NOT to do certain things. The days of a well rounded mechanic seem to be over.