Dealer swing and a miss......

[Zee09]

I think the sales staff and the financing departments of a dealership offer the biggest screwing.

They have absolutely no clue on what they are selling but will speak with authority that they do. Totally disgusting.

Then if they can tire you out with a long purchasing ordeal no doubt they will try to sneak in a deal that only benefits them regardless of what you hammered out earlier.

They will switch interest rates and banks and try every way they can to swindle you..

I don't care how many purchases you have under your belt. They can screw you just as good as a newbie to the car world. Never walk in overly confident.

 

[JTK]

Yep, you can bet the only 'GDI cleaning service' they would do on such a new, low mileage vehicle only involved a spray can of something. The brake fluid change was probably sucking out the fluid reservoir and refilling. Probably less than $20 worth of products and materials.

Makes you wonder how many people per day go for these.

 

[nomas]

Dealerships are great for deciding what they want you to have, versus what you ask for, and have raised providing excuses for poor workmanship to an art form.

I took my '05 Sport Trac to the dealership for transmission service at 30K and 60K, and I specifically asked for fluid & filter replacement. I found out at 90K, when I had Kwik Kar perform the transmission service, that I should've asked the dealership for the old filter, because it was very obvious that it had never been changed. Dealerships want the low hanging fruit....a fluid drop & refill, and charge out the @$$ for it. They don't want to do actual work.

I've since encountered GMC dealerships balking at the notion of dropping the Canyon's pan to exchange the filter, feeding me the line that the filter should be good for 100K miles. I finally reached a dealership that had no issue dropping the pan and giving me what I want, so the Canyon went there for its 60K transmission service. When I got the truck home, I immediately crawled underneath to find that the fill plug was missing.

They can all pound sand. I now go independent for maintenance on items I can't do in my garage.

It's a good thing it wasn't the drain plug ...

 

[CKN]

Dealerships are great for deciding what they want you to have, versus what you ask for, and have raised providing excuses for poor workmanship to an art form.

I took my '05 Sport Trac to the dealership for transmission service at 30K and 60K, and I specifically asked for fluid & filter replacement. I found out at 90K, when I had Kwik Kar perform the transmission service, that I should've asked the dealership for the old filter, because it was very obvious that it had never been changed. Dealerships want the low hanging fruit....a fluid drop & refill, and charge out the @$$ for it. They don't want to do actual work.

I've since encountered GMC dealerships balking at the notion of dropping the Canyon's pan to exchange the filter, feeding me the line that the filter should be good for 100K miles. I finally reached a dealership that had no issue dropping the pan and giving me what I want, so the Canyon went there for its 60K transmission service. When I got the truck home, I immediately crawled underneath to find that the fill plug was missing.

They can all pound sand. I now go independent for maintenance on items I can't do in my garage.

The trans filter is good for at least 100,000 miles. The service you requested (filter change) is a BITOG "money flush". BTW-show me a transmission that failed because of the filter.

 

[WylieCoyote]

The trans filter is good for at least 100,000 miles. The service you requested (filter change) is a BITOG "money flush". BTW-show me a transmission that failed because of the filter.

Do what you want. The filter was trashed at 90,000, and that's not how I prefer my vehicles to be maintained. Transmissions won't fail because of the filter, because there's a bypass, and I'm hoping you know that. They fail because of dirty fluid, and gets dirty when it bypasses. So, at what point can the filter be blamed? Hard to say.

If you come back and say that it's ok for them to bypass, you're going to get laughed off the forum.

Go get a job as a technician at Heritage Buick-GMC. You guys think alike.

 

[SevenBizzos]

LOL. While in for warranty work, my Hyundai dealer told me I was in desperate need of an oil change and cabin filter. The interesting part was I changed both five days prior and had only put on 100 miles since. What POS cars those are that need an oil change after 100 miles.

I'm now closing in on 200k and haven't been back since.

 

[CKN]

Do what you want. The filter was trashed at 90,000, and that's not how I prefer my vehicles to be maintained. Transmissions won't fail because of the filter, because there's a bypass, and I'm hoping you know that. They fail because of dirty fluid, and gets dirty when it bypasses. So, at what point can the filter be blamed? Hard to say.

If you come back and say that it's ok for them to bypass, you're going to get laughed off the forum.

Go get a job as a technician at Heritage Buick-GMC. You guys think alike.

It's OK for an OIL FILTER to go in to full by pass-there you are talking (usually) 5,000 to 7,500 miles. Your motor long-term will not blow up in one OCI. But yea-it wouldn't be good for a transmission to go in to full bypass because the fluid isn't changed frequently. But still-changing the filter-IMHO before 100,000 miles is throwing some money out the window.

 

[97prizm]

Service writers are on commission and dealerships stay afloat via service.

I think that if they paid service writers a fair hourly rate they might get less turnover and people willing to pay for needed repairs. The problem is that there are people who REALLY need parts fixed but decline as they think they are being taken advantage of.

 

[UncleDave]

As a kid i had a service writer job and it was all about what was in the manual.
There was so much catch up maintenance to be done and worn out parts you could show clients on the rack we never had to lie about stuff.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Never had this experience at Honda, I make some shop talk with the service writer, he knows I'm in the industry, I don't get BS'd.

 

[PWMDMD]

While I have no love for car salesman or finances managers I have never experienced anything like that having purchased from Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Subaru, Acura, and Audi.

The sales price never changed, the finance manager accepted me declining all of the add-ons, the interest rate was always the best available and never changed.

 

[PWMDMD]

I agree with the salespeople not knowing crap about their products. Give me about 20 mins with all the stupid vehicle brochures and there is very little a customer could ask me that I wouldn't know. Give me another week of fielding questions from customers and there wouldn't be anything I couldn't answer. Maybe that's why I don't sell cars.

 

[Dave Sherman]

I hate it when the service writers get all pushy about maintenance services. I caught one once. Took my Saturn in for something to fix under warranty, service writer starts pushing fuel filter replacement at 30,000 miles. Yes, it did have a replaceable inline filter in the fuel line, and the interval in the owner's manual was 60,000. He insisted that "because of the road salt here in Ohio, there's more rust to clog the fuel filter". Oh, that's rich. Asked him if he was referring to the car's gas tank, or the tanks at the gas station. Car's gas tank. Asked him how rust on the outside of the gas tank gets inside the tank, and there was a deer-in-headlights look, but insisted they see lots of clogged fuel filters due to rust. Oh, how many? No answer. Then asked him how the car's PLASTIC gas tank rusts because of road salt. He shut up at that point.

 

[JustN89]

I think that if they paid service writers a fair hourly rate they might get less turnover and people willing to pay for needed repairs. The problem is that there are people who REALLY need parts fixed but decline as they think they are being taken advantage of.

They'll think they're getting taken advantage of no matter what. Seriously. Read what he said in his post: "Dealerships stay afloat via service".

While it's not the case at every dealership, it's very common for low volume dealers, especially in smaller towns, to survive based on their service department. On any given month, my dealership lost money on the actual sales price of the cars we sold. However, F&I to a small extent, and service to a much greater extent, were what drove us to profitability and kept the lights on.

Now, how many times do you think that the customers thought they were still getting ripped off on the sales price when they bought a car? Easily half of the time. The reality doesn't matter much to folks; they're going to think that their being taken advantage of regardless. I've shown actual invoices to customers on what we paid for a new car, and how we're selling it to them for that price, or less, and they still argue that the price isn't good enough. Now, the dealers aren't absolved from blame here- the reason for this is because customers were conditioned to being ripped off by dealers for decades. It also doesn't mean that people still don't get ripped off- there's always going to be the uneducated car buyer who comes in with $10k negative equity and the only way to get them into a vehicle is to put them in a truck or SUV that there's zero chance they can afford long term, but has enough profit margin and incentives/rebates to absorb the negative equity.

However, a lot changed in car buying with the proliferation of the internet. It's not a common occurrence (at least, before the Covid car market hit) for dealers to make thousands and thousands of dollars on the sale of a car. Now, dealerships are still a business. They're not a non-profit operating to make sure everyone's Honda or Chevy stays on the road for years and years to come. They need to make money somewhere, and the service department has become an instrumental way for them to do so.

 

[measureman]

I had a 2010 Elantra.
My wife took it to the dealer for a $39.95 oil change special.
She called me and said they wanted to change the cabin air filter for $90!
I told her no way.
The filter is around $15 at Advanced auto and takes 10 minutes if you take your time to change.
But some people don't know this or don't want to do it themselves.

 

[1 SX]

There’s a Hyundai and Kia dealer near me that offers an intake induction service. It’s like a fancy CRC intake valve deposit cleaning where they hook up the hose through a vacuum line and run a bunch of cleaner through it, they use BG products at this particular dealer. It’s about a $200 or so service (last I looked) and includes a bottle of Techron for the gas tank. In my opinion it’s a waste of money.

I actually paid for that service lol. It was on the 2.0t. Can’t say that I remember feeling a difference, except maybe my wallet..

Edit: sorry for the bump. I have no idea how I got to this thread 😂

 

[odie]

Part of getting old .

 

[odie]

I actually paid for that service lol. It was on the 2.0t. Can’t say that I remember feeling a difference, except maybe my wallet..

Edit: sorry for the bump. I have no idea how I got to this thread 😂