On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 05:34:57 -0400, aemeijers
wrote:

On 8/12/2011 11:17 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

wrote

Interestingly, the dealership I was taking my car to, told me to take it
somewhere else because they would be too expensive for an exhaust
system. They
were sure right![*] So I did, and have been ever since. ;-)


With rare exception, dealers cost more than a good independent shop. I
really hate going to a dealer for service and only use them for warranty
work or the occasional deal they may offer on oil changes. Of course,
once they get you in there they want to sell other services.

As a forinstance: Dealer I bought my last two cars from says you should
get the fuel injector cleaning every year @ $129. Two cars would cost me
$258 a year. I've never had an injector problem in many years of driving
so I'm thousands of dollars ahead of taking their advice.

I've never had what I consider to be a good experience with a dealer
service department. Multiple do-overs on simple work, wall jobs for
recalls, having to leave it all day for stuff other places do while I
wait, attempted up-sells, high prices for labor and parts, 'waiting on
parts' while they did high-profit jobs instead, and in one case they
broke my windshield and denied they did it. And this is multiple
dealers in several states over 30+ years.

I avoid them if at ALL possible.
I always had a loyal following wherever I worked - and my dealership
had an EXTREMELY high retention rate for the 10 years I was service
manager because I DID NOT allow that kind of thing to occur.
My service department was the ONLY dealer service department in the
Waterloo/Wellington area that was NOT a flat rate shop. All my guys
were paid straight time. No incentives. No Flat Rate Bonuses.
I paid them enough to make it worth while coming in to work in the
morning - and they got paid the same if they were fixing a customers
car, a company used car, or the hoists/workbenches etc, or cleaning
the place, etc.

They were ALWAYS busy.
And both our absorption rate and retention rate were the envy of
every dealership around - big or small.

You guys who know about such things - how does 130% retention rate
over 3 years sound??
Yup - we serviced, at leazt 3 times a year, 30% more (of our
brand)cars than we had sold over the last 3 years. Plus the used cars
we sold, and other customers who brought their off-brand cars in for
my guys to service.

This WAS over 20 years ago - but even THEN, it was good.