Cars on a forecourt
Discussion
Hi All,
I just want to run a question by you car buyers in the hopes to possibly help me out.
I work in a car garage with around about 200 cars sat on the forecourt. I have just been promoted to quality control manager so need to make sure all the forecourt cars are fine.
Over the winter especially we are suffering with a lot of dead batteries which I'm sure you can understand. I need to figure out a way to get round this or make it better but as a one man band this is really hard.
My questions are ...
1) If you were to visit a car garage and the car/(s) you were looking at needed to be jump started would it bother you? (Obviously looking around you can tell we have a lot sat on the forecourt)
2) Please could anybody give me any hints or tips to help with the problem.
Thank you
I just want to run a question by you car buyers in the hopes to possibly help me out.
I work in a car garage with around about 200 cars sat on the forecourt. I have just been promoted to quality control manager so need to make sure all the forecourt cars are fine.
Over the winter especially we are suffering with a lot of dead batteries which I'm sure you can understand. I need to figure out a way to get round this or make it better but as a one man band this is really hard.
My questions are ...
1) If you were to visit a car garage and the car/(s) you were looking at needed to be jump started would it bother you? (Obviously looking around you can tell we have a lot sat on the forecourt)
2) Please could anybody give me any hints or tips to help with the problem.
Thank you
1) Yes, definitely off putting.
2) Presumably you have a bod who goes around cleaning vehicles? Set him/her up with a Ctek battery tester, when they've cleaned the vehicle, once a week pop the bonnet and check the battery. Establish some criteria which would mean that a result of x means sticking on Ctek charger. When finished, move to next vehicle requiring attention.
Neither the charger nor the tester will be expensive, and rather than be off-putting to me, per reply to 1), it could give a favourable impression that not going to buy a vehicle with a battery that's sulphated to buggery.
2) Presumably you have a bod who goes around cleaning vehicles? Set him/her up with a Ctek battery tester, when they've cleaned the vehicle, once a week pop the bonnet and check the battery. Establish some criteria which would mean that a result of x means sticking on Ctek charger. When finished, move to next vehicle requiring attention.
Neither the charger nor the tester will be expensive, and rather than be off-putting to me, per reply to 1), it could give a favourable impression that not going to buy a vehicle with a battery that's sulphated to buggery.
Yes it would bother me, not least because lead acid batteries that have sat discharged for any length of time tend to be knackered and tired batteries lead to all sorts of electrical gremlins on modern cars. A car should be fine left for a month or two, why not buy about 10 trickle chargers and a long extension lead and connect up a different group of cars every morning?
FiF said:
1)
2) Presumably you have a bod who goes around cleaning vehicles? Set him/her up with a Ctek battery tester, when they've cleaned the vehicle, once a week pop the bonnet and check the battery. Establish some criteria which would mean that a result of x means sticking on Ctek charger. When finished, move to next vehicle requiring attention.
We have a valeting team that do all forecourt cars, cars been collected and cars been delivered so some weeks depending on how many are been collected/delivered its hard to do all 200 cars. 2) Presumably you have a bod who goes around cleaning vehicles? Set him/her up with a Ctek battery tester, when they've cleaned the vehicle, once a week pop the bonnet and check the battery. Establish some criteria which would mean that a result of x means sticking on Ctek charger. When finished, move to next vehicle requiring attention.
As i've just taken over this job I have a big task to do so just wanting some little hints
TurboHatchback said:
Yes it would bother me, not least because lead acid batteries that have sat discharged for any length of time tend to be knackered and tired batteries lead to all sorts of electrical gremlins on modern cars. A car should be fine left for a month or two, why not buy about 10 trickle chargers and a long extension lead and connect up a different group of cars every morning?
So if you turned up to a garage and 10 or 20 cars all had the bonnets up would this not bother you? Meaning we are doing something about them and looking after them? h_p1993 said:
So if you turned up to a garage and 10 or 20 cars all had the bonnets up would this not bother you? Meaning we are doing something about them and looking after them?
Valeter cleans car, checks voltage.If voltage is below <x>, opens bonnet, puts trickle-charger on, runs cable unobtrusively, closes bonnet (at least to safety latch).
Valeter logs results of voltage check on quality-tracker sheet, together with action taken.
Valeter later checks whether charger is in float mode, removes charger, closes bonnet properly.
How long do the cars typically stay on the forecourt, un-driven?
h_p1993 said:
TurboHatchback said:
Yes it would bother me, not least because lead acid batteries that have sat discharged for any length of time tend to be knackered and tired batteries lead to all sorts of electrical gremlins on modern cars. A car should be fine left for a month or two, why not buy about 10 trickle chargers and a long extension lead and connect up a different group of cars every morning?
So if you turned up to a garage and 10 or 20 cars all had the bonnets up would this not bother you? Meaning we are doing something about them and looking after them? If I wanted to test drive a vehicle and it wouldn't start because it had a flat battery, that would bother me.
Well, unless I was spending shed money or less, in which case, it would be par for the course.
h_p1993 said:
TurboHatchback said:
Yes it would bother me, not least because lead acid batteries that have sat discharged for any length of time tend to be knackered and tired batteries lead to all sorts of electrical gremlins on modern cars. A car should be fine left for a month or two, why not buy about 10 trickle chargers and a long extension lead and connect up a different group of cars every morning?
So if you turned up to a garage and 10 or 20 cars all had the bonnets up would this not bother you? Meaning we are doing something about them and looking after them? MorganP104 said:
If I saw the bonnets up on forecourt cars, I would be reassured that the vehicles are at least being looked at.
If I wanted to test drive a vehicle and it wouldn't start because it had a flat battery, that would bother me.
Well, unless I was spending shed money or less, in which case, it would be par for the course.
This.If I wanted to test drive a vehicle and it wouldn't start because it had a flat battery, that would bother me.
Well, unless I was spending shed money or less, in which case, it would be par for the course.
Trickle chargers on cars in the forecourt as a matter of course = good.
Go to test drive a car and battery is flat = bad.
hornetrider said:
MorganP104 said:
If I saw the bonnets up on forecourt cars, I would be reassured that the vehicles are at least being looked at.
If I wanted to test drive a vehicle and it wouldn't start because it had a flat battery, that would bother me.
Well, unless I was spending shed money or less, in which case, it would be par for the course.
This.If I wanted to test drive a vehicle and it wouldn't start because it had a flat battery, that would bother me.
Well, unless I was spending shed money or less, in which case, it would be par for the course.
Trickle chargers on cars in the forecourt as a matter of course = good.
Go to test drive a car and battery is flat = bad.
We have 4 chargers in the garage at the moment so by the time you get round all of them most of them will be flat again. And this said garage is where we keep the clean cars been collected the next day so I can only hook them up in there providing we dont have a lot going out
h_p1993 said:
the only issue I can see with the trickle chargers is we are sat on a 4 acre site, can you get an extension lead that will reach all around?
Time to start installing remote power points around the site, then. Do you have power to lighting poles around it, or is it just a flat, featureless, tarmac wasteland?h_p1993 said:
We have 4 chargers in the garage at the moment...
Looks like Sir will be shopping, then.TooMany2cvs said:
h_p1993 said:
the only issue I can see with the trickle chargers is we are sat on a 4 acre site, can you get an extension lead that will reach all around?
Time to start installing remote power points around the site, then. Do you have power to lighting poles around it, or is it just a flat, featureless, tarmac wasteland?
No we do have flood lights around in metal poles so I'm guessing we would have to have somebody to come and do them for us, I'll have to put the ideas forward to the boss man :-D Time to start installing remote power points around the site, then. Do you have power to lighting poles around it, or is it just a flat, featureless, tarmac wasteland?
KungFuPanda said:
Or perhaps charge the car when someone makes an appointment to view / test drive.
This is a good idea and one that seems to be beyond some dealers judging by the stories you read on here!The suggestions for trickle chargers are good but seem like they could be expensive to implement in practice.
I don't think a flat battery would bother me overmuch if I were buying, as long as batteries are covered by the warranty! If batteries are covered by warranty, you might be able to make a case that chargers and infrastructure would pay for themselves in reduced warranty claims.
Frankthered said:
KungFuPanda said:
Or perhaps charge the car when someone makes an appointment to view / test drive.
This is a good idea and one that seems to be beyond some dealers judging by the stories you read on here!Gassing Station | Car Buying | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff