Ask a Service Manager anything...anything at all.

[itcaptainslow]

berlintaxi said:

ollie plymsoles said:

Can I ask why they always unplug the dash cam when the car is in the dealership?

Why do they always re-tune the radio to some ste station?

Could simply be the battery has been disconnected in carrying out the work-even to replace the air filter on some cars you might have to.

Either that or we're taking backhanders from commercial radio stations and trying a bit of subtle promotion, your call

[itcaptainslow]

xjay1337 said:

itcaptainslow said:

The tone of your post clearly indicates you've got a dealership chip on your shoulder, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer anyway. Just think about what you've written-if the dealership doesn't know, they advise it. Mainly because some customers (maybe you!?) would then look to blame the dealership if it failed and they hadn't been told

We advised if the cambelt was due on age/mileage AND if there was no evidence it had been replaced. In the absence of a service book, record on our system (only if it was done by a dealer in our group), how exactly were we supposed to know if it had or hadn't been done? The customer could have just bought the car, be unaware and we could have just saved them from writing their engine off...

There's no tone at all. I have no chip on my shoulder at all.
Just something that happens often and is annoying for a great many people.

Yes, I would buy a 100k car used from a private seller and take it to the manufacturer under a warranty recall and complain if the engine broke.

Ok, answer me this - in the event of a cambelt being quoted, they propose/quote a FULL list price (let's say £600) when the group of dealerships offers fixed price Cambelt changes for £399 online? What is the logic there?

It's either;

A/ The vehicle involved isn't included in the fixed price offer-a Xantia V6 wasn't in ours due to extra labour & parts costs

B/ The advisor didn't know about the offer (yup-believe me it happens-the communication by some manufacturers is poor!)

C/ The advisor couldn't be bothered to price it properly for whatever reason. I admit on one or two occasions I've overpriced work massively to get rid of the customer in a diplomatic fashion, simply because we knew they/their car or a combination of would be more trouble than it's worth.

[itcaptainslow]

threadlock said:

Ninja59 said:

ollie plymsoles said:

Can I ask why they always unplug the dash cam when the car is in the dealership?

My BMW dealer never do! In fact the SM actively encourages owners to keep them running.

Having spoken with him at length his viewpoint is what do we have to hide. We do a good job the customer is happy and everything is clear. Any issues then it is clear cut what we did and did not do properly.

The opposite of my fears happened last time I took the Jaaag in for a service. The e-handbrake throws an error once every few months that an engine-off/on reset fixes. I asked the main dealer to take a look. All I got from the desk jockey when I collected the car was "We couldn't find anything wrong with the handbrake" which left me feeling as though they probably hadn't bothered doing anything.

My dashcam was running and when I reviewed the footage out of curiosity I discovered they'd spent about an hour and a half experimenting to try and fix the source of the problem. They didn't charge me for this time and didn't tell me what they'd tried during their diagnosis (which involved dismantling the centre console and trying other handbrake switches).

I've long had the suspicion that a couple of warranty claims in the early days of my ownership were not fixed at all (one fault persisted despite a spectacularly expensive claim for an alarm component) and that this particular dealer shouldn't trusted, but this episode perhaps suggests otherwise. I just wish they'd be more open and transparent with their customers. Some of us are interested in our cars!

Your post there illustrates perfectly the value of a car literate advisor who knows what they're doing!

Unfortunately, partially due to the squeezed wages, long hours, stress and sometimes poor working conditions, they're hard to come by.

[itcaptainslow]

KTF said:

Many manufacturers sell service plans if you buy a brand new car. These are often at a fraction of the price of paying the for the services individually to get people to sign up.

Do you actually make any money on these? If not, is the difference topped up by the manufacturer as I cant see the dealer making a loss on the work?

The new car ones are usually subsidised by the manufacturer to keep cars in the dealer network.

The dealer group ones are somewhat different-I worked for one group that used to sell a three year plan, for any car, for £249. Take VAT off that, then work out how much we had left in the pot to service the car. The labour rate used to barely cover the cost of the tech's time.

The response from management was "upsell". Yeah, right, flog brakes, tyres and goodness knows what to a customer who bought the car from us, used, six months ago? That'll go down well...

I didn't like working for that group!

[itcaptainslow]

Drive Blind said:

why are dealers unable to properly wash a car after a service?

their forecourt is full of immaculately washed cars yet mine after a service looks like a blind chimp has cleaned it with a dirty tea towel.

If they can't do the basics I have little faith they've done anything else properly.

Last twice in for a main dealer service I asked for it not to be washed. They ignored this and made a crap job of cleaning it.

It comes down to cost. Pay peanuts for valeters, you'll get untrained, minimum wage bods trying to smash things out as quickly as possible.

I've often said in a premium/prestige dealer there's a gap for a detailer-it's also a good upsell opportunity. I'd pay for that versus having my Lotus' paint ruined by the dealer when it goes in for work (I tell them explicitly not to wash it!).

[itcaptainslow]

gottans said:

How do you respond when a customer's car gets damaged?

I have been in this unfortunate situation and quite frankly the response was just unreasonable right from the start despite being very polite about it. Anyway I only see one side of it so what does happen internally?

We had a system of checking cars in for damage, so any claim was easier to deal with.

Internally-I'd look at CCTV etc and speak to any staff members involved. If we damaged it, fair enough, we'd get it repaired. If we didn't, then no, sorry Sir, I can't cover that.

It's also a balancing act-if it's a 50/50 with no proof either way, if it's a reasonable customer who is loyal to us-I'll invest £50 in a smart repair to keep their custom and the peace. If they're a knob, I'd take the punt on losing them.

[itcaptainslow]

steve-5snwi said:

This probably isn't the case for a main dealer, but do you find until you have worked in aftersales that you really don't understand just how badly people treat there cars ? We have had a couple of MOTs this week where we have had to put between 1 and 3 litres of oil in cars prior to testing them.

Goodness yes! You won't believe the neglect people dish out to cars! I almost wanted to open the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Cars...

[itcaptainslow]

jamoor said:

I asked this in the other thread but I'd like to know your opinion.

Has anyone in a franchised dealer group that you know released that their businesses will become obsolete soon or are they too short sighted to realize?


Also, what's the obsession with upselling, doesn't anyone realise it only seeks to harm business in the long run?

Upselling itself doesn't harm business. What does harm it is unethical upselling of unnecessary work, or poor upselling of things the customer perceives unnecessary without showing them why. They then go away with a poor opinion which quickly spreads.

The business isn't doomed, far from it, but it will change with the change to hybrid and fully electric vehicles. It's a case of how well dealerships and manufacturers manage this change.

[itcaptainslow]

Rat_Fink_67 said:

itcaptainslow said:

Drive Blind said:

why are dealers unable to properly wash a car after a service?

their forecourt is full of immaculately washed cars yet mine after a service looks like a blind chimp has cleaned it with a dirty tea towel.

If they can't do the basics I have little faith they've done anything else properly.

Last twice in for a main dealer service I asked for it not to be washed. They ignored this and made a crap job of cleaning it.

It comes down to cost. Pay peanuts for valeters, you'll get untrained, minimum wage bods trying to smash things out as quickly as possible.

I've often said in a premium/prestige dealer there's a gap for a detailer-it's also a good upsell opportunity. I'd pay for that versus having my Lotus' paint ruined by the dealer when it goes in for work (I tell them explicitly not to wash it!).

Probably 90% of dealerships nowadays use third party staff from a valeting franchise, and their pay/targets are just as crap as they are for the lads in the workshop. The group I work for pay £3 per car, which for one of them (a real good lad) was slashed to £2.75 a car because he was "washing too many". He often washes and hoovers in excess of 40 cars a day on his own, and missing one is not an option. Given the reward and time available, how good of a job would you expect to be done?

Better washes would mean more staff, better products and more time taken, which would have to be recouped somewhere else...and then in turn moaned about for being too expensive. And so the circle continues.

Very much this-valeting is now usually subbed out, I think our dealership paid £80 per day per valeter. How much of that do you think they saw?

[itcaptainslow]

Drive Blind said:

Rat_Fink_67 said:

Probably 90% of dealerships nowadays use third party staff from a valeting franchise

itcaptainslow said:

Very much this-valeting is now usually subbed out,

Fair enough, I can understand that.

But, is the same third party responsible for cleaning cars for sale? As I said the cars for sale are immaculate.

the difference is a vehicle for sale looking like a dogs dinner the sales manager boots the valeters arse?

Sales cars will have a full valet-charged around £50 per car.

Service cars will have a wash & vac charged around £4 per car.

To fully valet every service car wouldn't be practical due to cost(!) and also time constraints.

[itcaptainslow]

gottans said:

itcaptainslow said:

gottans said:

How do you respond when a customer's car gets damaged?

I have been in this unfortunate situation and quite frankly the response was just unreasonable right from the start despite being very polite about it. Anyway I only see one side of it so what does happen internally?

We had a system of checking cars in for damage, so any claim was easier to deal with.

Internally-I'd look at CCTV etc and speak to any staff members involved. If we damaged it, fair enough, we'd get it repaired. If we didn't, then no, sorry Sir, I can't cover that.

It's also a balancing act-if it's a 50/50 with no proof either way, if it's a reasonable customer who is loyal to us-I'll invest £50 in a smart repair to keep their custom and the peace. If they're a knob, I'd take the punt on losing them.

Hmm, the issue of proof is where it gets interesting. Where fault is established how good a repair do you offer? I have experience of smart repairs or painting parts of panels where they haven't lasted long, on a metallic car would you lacquer the whole panel as part of the repair?

Depends on the nature of the damage. If it's a small scuff etc then we'd get a smart repairer to do it. Anything big where a smart repair would look crap it'd get sent to a body shop-only had one of these, fortunately.

[itcaptainslow]

PurpleTurtle said:

Here's a question: have you ever presented a hefty bill to a customer and they've just not been able to pay, purely because they are skint and just haven't got the money?

What happens then, do you keep hold of the car until they return? Has anyone not bothered?

Only once did I get a bill so big that I flinched but, having checked it was all above board, got my credit card out and thanked having a generous credit limit, but I wonder what happens if people aren't able to do that?

Cars don't get released without payment in full, unless a credit account is agreed (usually only businesses or fleet customers).

As someone else said it wouldn't be an unexpected bill though as no work gets done without authority of the customer.

[itcaptainslow]

Jimmy No Hands said:

Should I make a move into aftersales or stick to sales?


Which has a less likely outcome of me wanting to throw myself off a motorway gantry?

Thanks.

Get out of the trade.

If it's a choice between which limb I want sawn off, aftersales. Saturday afternoons and Sundays mean a lot to me, and I like the idea of having some semblance of a baseline salary.

[itcaptainslow]

jonwm said:

I have always found service advisors great, I won’t lie BMW and Audi have the better looking advisors ;-)

Question though, how many times a week does someone come in with the most ridiculous problem like “rattle when doing 38.7mph and I want a courtesy car till it’s resolved or I’m rejecting this 7 year old 100k golf”

Flip it round-get the customer to demo the fault to you. You'll be amazed how this turns a rucker into someone as quiet as a mouse when it dawns on them you actually need to experience the fault in order to fix it!

[itcaptainslow]

Buster73 said:

Ever left a car up on a ramp till paid in full ?

No, as my dealership only had five ramps so it would create merry hell, especially if a commercial as we only had one lift rated for the larger vans.

We did have to block a few cars in to ensure they didn't go walkies with spare keys-we also had rising bollards and a secure compound for parking stuff overnight which proved useful on more than one occasion.

We also used to lock vans inside the workshop overnight as otherwise the "keys which open all locks" would pinch the cats!

[itcaptainslow]

Willy Nilly said:

Intead of making your show rooms look like a fancy bristro, why not scale that back a bit to reduce you overheads so you can bring the hourly rate down and stop all of the upselling that drives people away?

I'd much rather my car was looked after by factory trained people, but as a general rule you just take the piss. A a result, you just end up doing service work on almost new, well very young anyway, cars so never see older cars that require repirs and fault finding. So not only are you too expensive, you haven't the experience of the indepenant garages.

This post is more of a ranty statement than a decent question, but I'll attempt to answer as theres a question hidden in the angry man somewhere.

Manufacturer standards dictate what the showroom looks like. I had little control over what is spent and what goes where.

All of our techs were factory trained-I've just worked out that the four guys at the dealership I was SM had a total of sixty odd years with the marque.

Just end up doing service work? Do me a favour-you clearly have no clue about the work mix a dealership actually sees. Some days techs will see nothing BUT diagnostic jobs.

[itcaptainslow]

Sheepshanks said:

More generally on the point above, what do franchise dealer service managers think about servicing older cars?

I got chatting to one SM (Mitsubishi) he said virtually no one takes their car once warranty is up. Yet manufacturers generally all offer service deals on older cars - do SM's hate this?

We saw a fair amount of older cars-it was quite nice to see some interesting stuff like Xantia V6's and ZX's! By and large the techs enjoyed it too, especially the more experienced guys who remembered the cars when they were new. Typically these owners are loyal too and not shy on spending money if the car needed it.

We didn't offer any specific deal on the labour rates for older cars but tried to ensure any pricing was sensitive-used our loaf, basically.

I like to think we saw a good percentage of older cars and had a high amount of returning customers because we offered a decent service.

[itcaptainslow]

jamoor said:

What's the deal with piss taking such as four plus discount, or half price discount on older cars? Can't you people see that this feeds resentment and you will be dropped the second something better comes along, a bit like banks will be very shortly and Uber Vs black cabs.

Can't answer that as our dealership didn't do it-but I guess it's an attempt to retain customers and compete with independents? To be fair-it's not a bad idea-as already stated previously in the thread the reason for high labour rates (although I feel anything above £100 P/hour is a bit toppy!) is dealerships have higher overheads than an indy.

One persons "piss taking" is another's "good idea". I bet your business does things I wouldn't like!

[itcaptainslow]

super7 said:

What really p***ses me off is that I only bought the car 11mths ago with 8k on it. So having done 4k miles i'm now expected to pay £600.... I will be having words with the Service Manager....

I think this is purely because it's 2 years old, which overrides the mileage etc etc.

My mates GLC has done 36k miles and has just had it's 1st B1 service? Go figure.....

You've bought a used car-therefore it's reasonable to expect it might need servicing sooner than a new one...?

If the price is an issue-phone around other Merc dealers and get some prices from them-you then have a bit more leverage to negotiate rather than just going in and stomping your feet demanding discount. Some dealers will actually match the indy price to retain your business, I always considered it.

I was always far more amenable to someone who negotiated on price in an "educated" way rather than just simply whinging "it's too much".

[itcaptainslow]

Willy Nilly said:

itcaptainslow said:

Willy Nilly said:

Intead of making your show rooms look like a fancy bristro, why not scale that back a bit to reduce you overheads so you can bring the hourly rate down and stop all of the upselling that drives people away?

I'd much rather my car was looked after by factory trained people, but as a general rule you just take the piss. A a result, you just end up doing service work on almost new, well very young anyway, cars so never see older cars that require repirs and fault finding. So not only are you too expensive, you haven't the experience of the indepenant garages.

This post is more of a ranty statement than a decent question, but I'll attempt to answer as theres a question hidden in the angry man somewhere.

Manufacturer standards dictate what the showroom looks like. I had little control over what is spent and what goes where.

All of our techs were factory trained-I've just worked out that the four guys at the dealership I was SM had a total of sixty odd years with the marque.

Just end up doing service work? Do me a favour-you clearly have no clue about the work mix a dealership actually sees. Some days techs will see nothing BUT diagnostic jobs.

I appreciate that the manufacturer tells the dealer what the site needs to look like, but do you ever say to them that this is adding to your overhead costs which dictates you labour rate which inturn drives away people once the car's warranty has expired?

Time and again main dealers are referred to as "stealers" and this isn't for their generosity and reasonable rates. Would you recommend I take my 6 year old car (which will be taken care of and run into the ground) back back to the main dealer, or continune with the indy guy I use?

I would be very interested to see the breakdown of work carried out, but suspect the bulk of it is servicing cars still under warranty with the odd bit of warranty repairs and hardly any work on private, none leased cars over 5 years old. I will of course stand corrected.

My bike (same brand as the car) still goes to the main dealer because the rates are quite reasonable and not expensive enough to make me look elsewhere.

You suspect wrong-only around 50% of our work was service work. Shame as it's the most profitable but it's part of being a main dealer.

My take on it is you should deliver a better service for the higher labour rate-expert techs, knowledgable front desk staff, new loan cars, that sort of thing. You're then delivering value for money.

I think more people are unhappy when they get crap service from a dealer-I'd be annoyed too (in fact I have been when taking my Elise to a well known Lotus dealership) as that's not then good value.

However you can't expect all the trappings a good main dealer will offer AND a labour rate of £40 p/hour. Something has to give.

And if you don't adhere to the manufacturer's standards, you get the franchise removed. Simple as that!