I just was subject to a crappy situation with my Chevy dealership and my dad with the GM dealership...kinda SUCKY situation with two dealerships...my question is...do YOU trust your dealership to work on your vehicles? Do you take it in feeling you are getting the straight scoop on things and that they are doing you right?

HERE is what happened to me....First of all my dad has a Pontiac Montana. It started doing the dancing needle thing which for anyone that owns one of these vans knows...HEAD GASKET is most likely the culprit. So he takes it in to a GM dealership...he always does. They do the oil changes, maintenance, etc. This time, however, he takes it in and they DO call with the proper diagnosis, head gasket, however...instead of asking him if he wants to repair the gasket...they throw out YOU NEED A NEW ENGINE!...PERIOD..no other offers to repair anything else any other way...NOW...I could have MAYBE seen that if water had been mixed with the oil and milk chocolate was coming out of the oil pan...but this WASN'T the case...NEW ENGINE...REALLY? He took it to another mechanic and got the gasket fixed for about 1/4 the cost...van FIXED....

Fast forward...a few weeks to my van. I had a mysterious issue going on to where the van would bog down after warm up. So I took it the the CHEVY dealership thinking..HEY these guys know these vans...let them figure this out and save myself some time....They call me up....its your torque converter...now mind you another mechanic had already looked at this and had checked over the transmission...I almost believed them and just took them at their word since they are supposed to be the KNOWLEDGEABLE ones...they gave me a price on a NEW transmission and rebuilt one....so of course I call FOUR other transmission shops to get rebuild prices...EVERY ONE OF THEM asked me why I thought I needed a rebuild. After I told them they were like...UUUummm...that does NOT sound like a torque converter or transmission issue...ALL FOUR OF THEM..one of my fellow employees over heard me and gave me the number of a guy he uses...so I got my van to him for a second diagnosis...come to find out I had two spots on my wiring harness that were melted and had fused wires together...zapped my cam sensor, crank sensor and throttle position sensor, plus I had a cracked ICM....CHEVY SAID IT WASNT THE ENGINE...BUT A TRANSMISSION ISSUE! Now imagine me with a 3200 dollar transmission and being told the problem was still there.....I can tell you...one of two things WOULD have happened....they would have GIVEN me the transmission for FREE...or they would put my old one back in...cause I would have been MAD AS FIRE...

ALL of this has just number one made me SICK....second...I cannot trust my local GM dealerships now....I understand they aren't doing well...they may or may not have been lying and trying to take advantage of both my dad and I...but it SMELLS ROTTEN! HONESTY...plain and simple...A simple in depth diagnosis with the problems and different solutions based on price with explanations WOULD have fixed one of the issues...my van..it seems could have been fixed if they would have monitored the sensors at the sensors and seen the wacky voltages coming thru instead of hooking a scanner to the van and saying..NOPE..no codes...brown transmission fluid..THATS IT its the transmission...that SEEMS to be the way they came to this...there were NO CODES for even the transmission here...

 

Deep breaths....wooo saaaa, wooo saaa.

My best friend works at the GM Dealership. I hear of stories like this all the time, but it's from their end. Everyone makes mistakes...they aren't just trying to take you for your money, believe me. I can understand your anger..trust me I would be p'd off too, but honestly they probably just made a mistake. It has nothing to do with GM having hard times.
Keep in mind everyone has a horror story from a mechanic. This kind of stuff happens everywhere, not only dealerships. Backyard mechanics make mistakes too, as do shops and dealerships.
With that said, I probably wouldn't be bringing it to the dealership anyway. The markup on parts at a dealership is just unreal. If you could see the cost and markup on some of their parts you'd probably puke. Not to mention the door rates keep going up (the dealers around here just went up from $89/hr to $99/hr...it was $69 just a few years ago). You can definitely get the work done elsewhere for cheaper and just as good.

 

I trust the mechanics, I dont trust the service writers. Most of them seem to come off as ******** when I talk to them. Just the other day I wanted them to run a vin on a vehicle I just purchased and he was being a general dick when I wanted to know what/if any tsbs were performed on it. Ive never gotten any work done at a dealership, I do goto the parts dept for alot of things though and just the way those people come off rubs me the wrong way.

 

I think it all depends on which dealership you go too. The one by my parents house all the guys there are really cool people. But I've been to the one near my job and they are douche bags.

 

i quit going to dealerships a long time ago. all of the dealers down here have a bad rep for just taking your money and not fixing anything. I know too many good mechanics (father in law is one of them) to be wasting time/money at the dealer.

 

My thing is...you could TELL it wasn't a torque converter issue..I mean...if you could have driven it...when it bogged down you could tell it was the engine acting up. For the guy to just throw out..Sir, there aren't any codes, but the fluid is brown and we believe its the torque converter....My reply was..OK..if I pay for a transmission rebuild your telling me the problem will go away...his reply..Well, no sir, I am saying your torque converter is locking up causing a loss of power...WHU WHUuuuu...either it's GOING to fix it or not...I don't take my vehicle in to get work done for the heck of it...

I TOTALLY understand that mistakes happen..and maybe it was a young tech who just relied too much on his computer instead of doing a little investigative work...but this would have been a 3200 dollar mistake..and a mistake I would NOT have paid for...Just gives me a bad feeling and I shouldn't feel that towards the guys that should be in the know!

 

It seems like you were doomed from the start.

My fiancee used to work for one of the larger GM dealerships here in Pgh. I can tell you it's not usually the mechanics who are trying to rob you. Management is always trying to push for more expensive replacements with little to no correct diagnosis. Some things take a bit of time to figure out but they like the customer turnover. The stories he would tell me about both foolish customers and some employees is ridiculous.

The one time I took my Blazer to this dealership for inspection (Pa sucks *** with inspection bullsh*t) and they put crappy ball joints on and charged out the wahzoo for it (despite warranty coverage) only to replace said crappy ball joints less than a year later. One trip to my local AAMCO and I've saved hundreds!

Not all dealerships are bad, but your best bet is to find a private mechanic.

 

I trust my local dealership, though they have never worked on my Blazer. Warranty work on the Monte Carlo and body work on my wife's Camaro (couple of fender benders). Service managers know what they are talking about, mechanics have no problem with me going into the shop and see what they are doing, parts counter being honest that I can find most parts cheaper elsewhere.

 

Hood latch cable - $100 Online - $25
Hood latch - $50 Online - $10

After taxes and labor my total cost to get my little hood latch fixed would have been $410.

I didn't want to do that and got charged $40 for it to be looked at in 10 minutes. There definitely is a very large markup for parts. As well the labor cost was only for 2 hours at something like $120 an hour. This was at my chevy dealership.

I think I would rather take it to a smaller place in town where I know a mechanic and they charge half the price for labor. The $40 for 10 minutes of evaluation is what really turned me off ever getting anything fixed at a dealership.

 

I went to a dealership (finish line ford) and stood there waiting for 45 minutes before getting service.... I could have had a wad of benjamins in my zipper and they wouldnt have looked down.... Service depends on the dealership.... There is a dodge dealership Lakis in IL that has TOP NOTCH people and haven't had any problems with them, My father has purchased 2 cars from them, and my fiancee's family has purchased 2 as well... no problems...

Just remember its not that ALL are bad.... its that there are a few BAD ones....