To be honest, it's always been a hit or a miss with dealers for me. For the most part, however, the tech is more concerned with finishing off the job within the given timeframe than doing a quality job - which is often why I took my cars to the dealership in the first place. Now I just do the work on it myself.
I took my Grand Marquis to the Ford/Lincoln (Mercury) dealer last summer to replace the heater core. It was simply something I did not have the time to undertake and I didn't want to take it to just anywhere - given the total disregard to job quality, broken trim pieces are very common around here. Guess what - not only did I find nuts and bolts missing after the job was completed, but they turned the whole thing into a circus show.
The tech never connected the lighting control switch and I got a ticket 15 minutes after driving out the lot because I couldn't turn my [censored] headlights on. My auto dim rearview mirror wasn't functioning either, because the genius working on the car tore the wiring apart. And guess what - they wanted to charge me $90 at the time to "diagnose" what the problem was when it was evidently clear. A monkey could have told you what the problem was. Then the charge goes up to $90 for diagnostics plus $117 to solder the wires back together - $207 all together. My question to the service manager was "Do I look like an idiot to you?"
To make it even worse, my HVAC blower was only functioning on high because the resistor burnt up. The blower resistor and pigtail assembly was replaced less than 3 months before the heater core job. The service manager's response was "We don't know whether or not it was functioning before you brought the car". You ****ing **hole you, that's why you are supposed to thoroughly check everything before letting the vehicle in.
When the job was completed, the labor rate I was being charged was $891 instead of the $400 I agreed to and they took 17 hours to complete a 9 hour job! Had a word with the aftersales manager, who reversed the charges and canceled the blower resistor/mirror connector and headlamp switch charge so I'll give them that.
The other disaster was topping up the coolant. I supplied 6 gallons of Motorcraft Premium Gold Coolant mixed (50/50) with distilled water for them to top up the system. I told the service advisor AND I left a note on the dash for the tech. What does the tech do - refill with straight tap water. I was raging at the time and here's the extra bonus I got with the job:
1. The front passenger door trim was scratched, because the tech did not remove the dashboard from the cabin. When he shut the driver's door, the dash bashed into the passenger side trim.
2. The ashtray/cupholder was badly scratched.
3. The power adjustable pedal harness was loose and had to be secured.
4. The driver's side upper kick panel was missing its plastic screws, so the trim is hanging loose.
5. The driver's side knee protector was held in place with one bolt.
The last bit gets better. The whole service department complained to the aftersales manager because he dropped the charges from the $891 they came up with to the $400 we agreed on and they didn't get their bonuses for turning my vehicle to a nightmare on wheels.
I spent the next couple of weeks replacing scratched parts, replacing missing bolts and nuts and flushing the cooling system. The whole fiasco cost me well over $2,800. If I had to do it all over again, I've got three other vehicles I can use - I'll do the [censored] job myself however long it takes.
