QOTD: Do You Trust Your Dealership Service Department?
I've been wanting to ask this since we showed last week that consumer trust in dealership service departments is high. Other QOTDs took precedent. But now I have my chance.
Do you trust your dealerships service department?
I am curious about this not only as a car enthusiast and industry observer but also as a former service grunt myself. I was a porter, a greeter, and a service writer. Even though I haven't drawn a paycheck from a dealer group since 2007, I still feel a little bit connected to the job. In fact, I still have some ideas for " Tales From the Service Desk".
Anyway, the perception or stereotype is that consumers often don't trust mechanics/technicians, and when they do, it's usually a local owner of an independent shop. Until I read our post, I was under the impression that both dealerships and large chains were considered untrustworthy.
So, anyway, it's your turn. Sound off below. Do you trust the folks at the local dealership when it comes time for service? Why or why not?
Is that trust limited to basic maintenance and/or warranty work?
And so on and so forth. Sound off below.
[Image: Parilov/Shutterstock.com]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Comments
Join the conversation
Like many things, there's a huge variation out there in the world.
I generally had good experiences with the Toyota dealership in one town, but poor experiences with the one in the next town over. In the first case the service writer seemed to be a "car guy" and worked with me to find appropriate resolutions to issues; in the second case I was never able to deal with the same writer twice and they all seemed to be sales folks not car folks.
My local Subaru dealer had a great writer who actually owned a very similar car to mine, and a service tech who was fantastic. The writer used his personal experience to assist with appropriate service and upgrade recommendations and made sure that my car was only touched by that tech. Unfortunately they both left that dealership, and the next time I went there they called me to pick up my car before it was ready, left me waiting for half an hour, and when I subsequently went to change the tire which they had off, the lug nuts were torqued to over 200 ft-lb. Needless to say I never went back.
One thing I notice at my Nissan dealer, which is probably the same at most dealerships, is the high turnover for Service Advisors. They leave so they don't have to deal with difficult customers or let go for not selling enough?