Stealership lol
- Thread starter Leo99
- Start date
Every time I see "stealership" used to refer to an OEM's "dealership", it raises some questions. Is THAT person actually in "the business" or just a customer? Certainly, dealership labor prices and parts prices can be higher than private shops, but the dealership is supposed to be "the best place:", so higher prices can be appropriate. Although some will discount high-volume parts for oil changes and such, by observation, but this is highly variable.
Those higher parts and labor prices usually go to pay the overhead of the operation, PLUS decent money to the employees. NOT to forget the "light bill"!
So the dealership will not sell you an OEM oil filter for $2.99? Whereas the auto supply will? Be a good consumer and spend your money wisely. If you can buy parts from an OEM jobber parts house, with OEM parts at discounted prices, so much the better.
Those higher parts and labor prices usually go to pay the overhead of the operation, PLUS decent money to the employees. NOT to forget the "light bill"!
So the dealership will not sell you an OEM oil filter for $2.99? Whereas the auto supply will? Be a good consumer and spend your money wisely. If you can buy parts from an OEM jobber parts house, with OEM parts at discounted prices, so much the better.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
I find our small town dealership service departments to be solid. They are good paying jobs for here - turnover is small …
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I'm not a fan of dealership mechanics. Took my Ford Ranger in for diagnostics and when I came to pick it up they charged me several hundred just to tell me the automatic choke wasn't working. I asked to talk to the mechanic and they refused so I took the rep out to where the truck was and popped the hood showing him the V8 I transplanted with a manual choke on an edelbrock 4 barrel. They never looked at the truck and it was parked right where I left it. I still had to pay to get my truck back. Chrysler painted my car and did body work after someone ran into me and the very first day the paint completely peeled off in big sheets going down the road and they refused to fix the work without paying again. When they painted the back side of the car they never sanded or even removed the wax, just painted right over the factory paint, no primer no nothing. I could give many examples but you get the point. Steelerships are a rip off and do lousy work. All of them.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Yep, I find that some are pretty good as they live on their local reputation. What we are running into is that one company owns a cluster of 6 or 8 dealerships of a brand, so they can do some price fixing on a local scale.
Often the service department pays for the rest of dealership to stay open, so I can see why they charge a lot, so I tend to go to an independent. So far my vehicles don't have too much complicated dealer only programming junk, and I will try to avoid cars that do, for as long as I can.
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I've yet to see any good results from any warranty work on my new vehicles over the years. They leave the stealership with the same and sometimes more problems than they came in with. I got a stop driving notice on my old truck the other day over the airbags and Chrysler said they would send a Mobil mechanic or pay for towing yet every dealership told me to drive the truck to them or just don't replace the airbags. Tried to have them replaced years ago but nobody had parts and wouldn't replace them. Same with my jeep when it was new and the key switch was recalled, ended up buying one myself and replacing it. Not one dealership would do the work. Same issues with another new Jeep that wouldn't start, dealership charged me to reprogram a key yet when I went out to pick it up it still wouldn't start. They swore it was fixed and running. I had it towed to a private shop and found that it was a wiring problem and they had already seen it on several other grand Cherokee's. Fixed it in a couple of hours for a few dollars more than the key programming and diagnostics at the dealership.
4wd
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Yes, shop in the city - service in the town (if warranty) …
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The ranger was many years ago. I bought it new with a 4 cylinder and while driving down the interstate it broke a piston top. Another dealership wouldn't replace the engine under warranty so I just bought a V8 and stuffed it in there. They claimed I was over revving the engine or something like that. At 80 HP it's hard to believe I had to keep it at a high rpm to keep up with traffic
. These dealerships live off of high dollar warranty work so anything other than an oil change isn't worth their time and ties up the bays. A mechanic only does what they tell him to do it's not because they aren't good at their trade. I don't blame the mechanic.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
A buddy just got a new Ranger Raptor in Houston - got it leveled and slapped on 35’s - really stunning truck. I keep telling him not to park that long door 911 too close and ding itThe ranger was many years ago. I bought it new with a 4 cylinder and while driving down the interstate it broke a piston top. Another dealership wouldn't replace the engine under warranty so I just bought a V8 and stuffed it in there. They claimed I was over revving the engine or something like that. At 80 HP it's hard to believe I had to keep it at a high rpm to keep up with traffic
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My donor engine was a Chevy 305, probably why they said get it out of here at the Ford dealership. I took it out of a camaro that somebody tuned and modified. I put 12" wide cragar keystone classics on the back and 9" wide on the front. I can't remember the tire size but it was the widest I could stuff under the back. That truck was so fast it was hard to drive on wet roads. The very first day I struggled to keep traction going through downtown Lexington Kentucky in the rain, every time the cam hit it would spin the tires at low speeds. I spent way to much money on that little truck but I was young then and just out of the Army. Jeep bucket seats, sunroof, Hurst floor shifter etc etc. My brother helped me with the solid motor mounts and cutting a drive shaft to fit. The good ole days of youthA buddy just got a new Ranger Raptor in Houston - got it leveled and slapped on 35’s - really stunning truck. I keep telling him not to park that long door 911 too close and ding it
I've heard many of stories about poor dealership service work, mostly back in the 1970s and 1980s before the OEMs incentivized the warranty customers answering their OEM-sent surveys to the customers. In current times, it is greatly to the dealership's advantage to do great work, to get techs which consistently do great work, and to have all orientations headed to taking care of the customer in all areas of operation. When a bad survey pops up in the GM system, the service manager is notified and requested to "make things right". Which opens a file that can be tracked. That is how it is supposed to happen, but if the serv mgr does not keep up with this, actively, if survey results continue "downward", the OEM can request that person to be replaced. I've seen that happen.
Incentives for compliance can get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a medium-large dealership. In one case several years ago, our management looked up and discovered our guys had not completed the required training in one area. The last test of the year was in a week, so two salesmen were put on a plane to that testing location, put up in a hotel, so they could take the test. No questions asked, just do it. So that part of the financial incentives were saved.
As to the dealership service department, they operate at the direction of the OEM's service operations. All TSBs must be followed to the letter. Which might not be "fixed" to the customer. The OEM is paying the bills, so they get things done their way. BTAIM Now, not to say that if a tech knows what is going on and wants the customer satisfied, they might sneak in some different stuff, claiming the normal warranty time to fix it. Customer satisfied, but if it is found that they did not "repair as directed", that could mobilize the "warranty fraud" word. So the orientation is to do "what we can" inside of the factory's directives.
A private shop, by comparison, does not have to follow the factory directives at all, doing what they can to keep a customer happy and coming back to them. MUCH mofe "lee-way" in what they do, too. Some "non-OEM-approved" tweaks or computer "tunes", too.
We had one customer who had continual transmission issues. We did all of the OEM updates to no real "fix". After the vehicle got past any OEM warranty miles, the customer had a private shop install "a tune" that fixed all of the issues. He was happy. Which raises the question of "Why could the dealership not have done that?" Which gets into another subject all together! Which can get into the original EPA emissions and mpg certification issues.
In the case of the "over-reved 4cyl", that sounds like somebody repeating something somebody else (they trusted, or from some TSB) said. NOT knowing what they were saying. I guess they have not seen any of the pictures of engine failure from low speed pre-ignition, during the warranty period?
Price controls of "dealer groups"? Not going to say it does not happen, becuase I know it CAN. I also know that GM (and probably others) monitor what a dealer sells vehicle for daily. At night, the "day's business" is downloaded to GM computers. Parts sales, warranty claims, vehicle sales. So they can monitor all a dealership does, basically. If they see some "flaky" things, that can trigger some flags to monitor there. AND . . . usually it is the profits from the parts/service operations that "carry" the sales departments' operations. Although sales numbers govern many other things in the operation. It all works together! No doubt, "the market rate" is a consideration of what a new vehicle will ultimately sell for. They all know this and what others are selling similar vehicles for (from reports and from what customers tell them).
In modern times, you go to the OEM website to "Build and Price" a vehicle. Then get the list of "matches" or "close matches" in inventory at dealerships within a certain distance from you. Then get your best deal from "where ever". Similarly, if uou go into a national dealer group (as in AutoNation) to look at used vehicles, you see their complete inventory and possible shipping charges to your location. These can be great shopping tools! Just like going into RockAuto to look for parts and prices.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
Incentives for compliance can get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a medium-large dealership. In one case several years ago, our management looked up and discovered our guys had not completed the required training in one area. The last test of the year was in a week, so two salesmen were put on a plane to that testing location, put up in a hotel, so they could take the test. No questions asked, just do it. So that part of the financial incentives were saved.
As to the dealership service department, they operate at the direction of the OEM's service operations. All TSBs must be followed to the letter. Which might not be "fixed" to the customer. The OEM is paying the bills, so they get things done their way. BTAIM Now, not to say that if a tech knows what is going on and wants the customer satisfied, they might sneak in some different stuff, claiming the normal warranty time to fix it. Customer satisfied, but if it is found that they did not "repair as directed", that could mobilize the "warranty fraud" word. So the orientation is to do "what we can" inside of the factory's directives.
A private shop, by comparison, does not have to follow the factory directives at all, doing what they can to keep a customer happy and coming back to them. MUCH mofe "lee-way" in what they do, too. Some "non-OEM-approved" tweaks or computer "tunes", too.
We had one customer who had continual transmission issues. We did all of the OEM updates to no real "fix". After the vehicle got past any OEM warranty miles, the customer had a private shop install "a tune" that fixed all of the issues. He was happy. Which raises the question of "Why could the dealership not have done that?" Which gets into another subject all together! Which can get into the original EPA emissions and mpg certification issues.
In the case of the "over-reved 4cyl", that sounds like somebody repeating something somebody else (they trusted, or from some TSB) said. NOT knowing what they were saying. I guess they have not seen any of the pictures of engine failure from low speed pre-ignition, during the warranty period?
Price controls of "dealer groups"? Not going to say it does not happen, becuase I know it CAN. I also know that GM (and probably others) monitor what a dealer sells vehicle for daily. At night, the "day's business" is downloaded to GM computers. Parts sales, warranty claims, vehicle sales. So they can monitor all a dealership does, basically. If they see some "flaky" things, that can trigger some flags to monitor there. AND . . . usually it is the profits from the parts/service operations that "carry" the sales departments' operations. Although sales numbers govern many other things in the operation. It all works together! No doubt, "the market rate" is a consideration of what a new vehicle will ultimately sell for. They all know this and what others are selling similar vehicles for (from reports and from what customers tell them).
In modern times, you go to the OEM website to "Build and Price" a vehicle. Then get the list of "matches" or "close matches" in inventory at dealerships within a certain distance from you. Then get your best deal from "where ever". Similarly, if uou go into a national dealer group (as in AutoNation) to look at used vehicles, you see their complete inventory and possible shipping charges to your location. These can be great shopping tools! Just like going into RockAuto to look for parts and prices.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
