First trip to the service department

[Boonieman]

Just had my first experience with the dealership service department here in Louisville where I've bought my last two CTD's. Had to get the instrument cluster reflash, the safety recall reflash for the cruise control thing, and my speedometer was going whacko. By the second day in the shop I hadn't heard anything so I called to see what's up. The tech was at lunch (at 2:30pm) and the guy I talked to said they were waiting on parts. The third day I called and they said they thought the truck had a short somewhere causing the speedo issue and they were having trouble finding it. I asked to talk to the tech, but they said he was test driving another car. I wondered why he's driving another car if he's working on my truck? I had the wife drive me by the dealership and lo and behold, there sits my pretty red truck sitting in the back lot blocked in by several vehicles. It was all covered in dust like it had been there awhile. They weren't even working on it. I went in and calmly as I could got my keys and took my truck home... busted speedometer and all. They had not done one single thing to it in 3 days. When I got my keys from them, they did have the gall to ask me if I'd like to reschedule. I almost lost it at that point, but luckily my lovely bride was chaperoning me and kept me outta trouble. Am I bashing all dealers? Nope. Am I bashing Dodge? Nope. Except that this is supposedly a 5 Star dealer, which tells me their rating system is meaningless. If you all are lucky enough to have a good service department, count your blessings. Yes. . I did e-mail Dodge and I will tell eery person at every opportunity about my experience. If I can talk just one or two people from doing business there, I'll feel better. I'lll find a reputable dealer and get my truck fixed, so I'm not giving up on Dodge yet. But I'm pretty darned disappointed. Thanks for letting me vent.

Danny

 

[Bouncy]

I wont buy a dodge from them if that helps you feel better



Then again. . That would be quite a haul to get there to buy one anyways.



Sorry you had bad luck. It happens. And emailing dodge doesn't help either... They don't care



DID YA HEAR THAT DODGE... . WE KNOW YOU DON'T CARE!!!!



Otherwise you might fix that VIBRATION in the rear axle and the window and the... (oh yeah... they don't care... . )

 

[Bertram65]

I know how you feel, I went through the same kind of stuff with a GMC pickup, Isuzu Trooper (it was my wifes car) and a Subaru Forester, wifes current car, and Dealer service is bad everywhere for any of the non premium brand vehicles.

I wish Lexus, Infinity or Mercedes made a HD truck, when you get service there, you pull up, drop of your car get in a nice loaner (usually of the same brand) and come back when your car is fixed and usually it is cleaned for you as well, nice clean customer areas and very little BS.

 

[KHogan]

Bertram65 is correct. The premium dealers kiss your a** period. BMW had fresh coffee, clean customer lounges, free loaner cars (brand new premium BMW's if you bought new from them and it's a premium cars sale) no matter what the service call was for. Car is cleaned/washed before it's returned to you. Both the Delaer and BMWNA called to see if the repair experience was satisfactory. I worked at GM Dealers in the early '80's and had forgotten how badly they treat you. It sucks that if you try to buy American (yeah, I know who owns DC and where this truck is made), they really try your patience.

 

[TGreschuk]

I share your misery... .

I picked up my 2004. 5 2 weeks ago and stopped by the tire shop today to have my 315's installed. The tire shop dropped the hoist and squashed one of my center caps (sigh) and when I quizzed the tech about when the replacement one would arrive he looked at me like I had 3 heads. He told me that he could pound this one so it looked "ok". At this point, I asked him if I could pound him until he started to think "ok". The temperature was a rising... Fortunately the service manager intervened and agreed to get me a new center cap (how generous).

As I simmered on my way home, I decided to stop into the dealership to see if they could re-flash the computer to correct for the new tire's diameter and book me in for an alignment as the truck has a pull to the right (I know so does every other Dodge... but humor me) The Ditch Pig behind the counter looks at me like I was a cow chip and informs me that Dodge doesn't warranty alignments (the truck has 250 miles on it) she has no idea what I am talking about with regards to the computer flash, and then informs me that I have voided my drive line warranty because I put bigger tires on my truck. All this, from a 5 star dealer! Unbelievable, and to think only 59 more payments... .

Thanks for listening to my rant...

Trent

 

[bfriskey]

Ok I'm going to get some grief on this, but maybe I can shed some light on the subject of the "service dept". Just recently I the extrem pleasure of getting a promotion to Manager. I was never a a** till this job. Try talk to customer's all day and getting screamed at by every single person, and every single customer wanting everything for free, yes even a question like isn't my oil change part of my warrenty and then the person going into a total rage when they have to pay for it. I not siding with the service dept. but its the manufacture's that put the limits on warrenty and the customers turn the service dept. people into a#$. This is just my experience from the last few months. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[TGreschuk]

Hey Bob,

I understand where you are coming from... I'm an Insurance Agent... NO ONE is happy when they call me... I'm thinking of getting bullet proof glass put in my office door (kidding... a little) My beef is with the dealer and the company, Why do they continue to devalue the position of Service Adviser and put people who have little or no knowledge of the company, its products or its policies in this position. I will only buy the truck once, but I will need to have it serviced dozens and dozens of times. If the dealer and the company continue to whine about how little they make on the sale of a new vehicle they why the !#@$#@@$ don't they allow themselves to make a living on the service? I have never whined or complained about the price, in fact I rarely ask... I am a businessman, I have to make a profit and understand that vendors that I deal with need to make a profit too. A wayyyy back when, I even apprenticed as a mechanic. I am intimately aware of the investment that is required to properly staff and equip a service department but am baffled when they consistently spend peanuts in salary or training for the front line staff... the person who deals with the client! This dealership could have had the most competent front end man in the country... but I wouldn't have known that as they lost out on the work because the person who was supposed to "advise" me had neither the training nor experience and inspired zero confidence in me. Thus, I left...

Trent

 

[bfriskey]

Trent,

I aggree with you that service advisor's should be trained. From what I have seen so far they are more concerned with making money and politically correct classes than actually what the customer actually need, information!! I myself don't know how they do it except lie thru their teeth. I know if I didn't have the experience and knowledge of being a tech. , I would be screwed, reading what the tech wrote would be a different language and that leads to well you know. My personal opinion is Service Advisor should be trained the same as a tech. A good service advisor should be able to take the info from the tech translate it into a form the customer can understand! Take the time and talk to the person as you would want to be talked to, that my motto.

Let them know what is exactly what is going on. Maybe this is why our service dept. is growing.

 

[TGreschuk]

Hi Bob,

"My personal opinion is Service Adviser should be trained the same as a tech. A good service adviser should be able to take the info from the tech translate it into a form the customer can understand!"

In my opinion, you hit the nail on the head. Judging by your attitude and outlook, I suspect you'll be a great service adviser.

Best of luck,

Trent

 

[DBoyd]

Hmmmm!! Don't we have 20 some odd thousand members now?? You reckon it might have some kind of affect on Dodge if we all made a concerted effort to send letters or emails about our complaints all at one time to HQ???? And how bout TDR having some kind of a prefered dealership list of our own. Kinda like havin our own Five Star Dealer list.

Just posing some possibilities.

 

[Boonieman]

I agree with the points about working with John Q public. I've done that and it wears you down in short order. And my point isn't really to bash service departments either... BUT... I really hate seeing our domestic car manufacturers let their business go down the tubes like they have been the last few years. The purchase of a vehicle any more is a substantial investment, and it's agravating when something goes wrong with it. The service guys I'm sure bear the brunt of it. BUT... customer loyalty is borne of good experiences with a vehicle, including service department experiences. When I was young, I was a pure Chevy-only kinda guy for years. Then my 1973 "Body by Fisher" truck rusted to pieces in front of my eyes and a lot of others too, and I watched GMC just walk away from it and a lot of loyal truck owners. Since then, it has slowly dawned on me that there is no loyalty to customers any more. Therefore, in return I have no brand loyalty any more either. I'm gonna spend my money to whoever offers the best product at the time for the best value. (not necessarily cost) That's the only real weapon I have against shoddy workmanship or poor service. I wish Cummins would build an entire vehicle, including the engine, because I think they are one of the few American companies left that stands behind their product. And they do give me the impression that they care about the customer. OK... I'm done.

 

[DGFoster]

I have to say my dealer has been ok for me so far,on my second CTD bought from my dealer,always friendly always have a truck to drive,I had them install my cab lights and they gave me a truck to drive,they did scratch the roof and told me up front they had done it and it will be fixed,they did a great job and everytime I have had them do anything it is washed and detailed before I pick it up. . Great service.

Sorry you had suck back luck,there is some bad ones out there for sure.

 

[jersey diesel]

I can't complain, service advisors at the dealership I use, used to bemechanics and have heard them diagnose problems from the cust, description. After talcking to one of the techs, I find the advisors are pretty accurate.

 

[PJ]

#1 common reply from any service writer. . "No problem found at this time"

 

[rbattelle]

Whenever I talk to anyone I always try to remember "you catch more flies with honey". It's amazing how a smile and a calm voice can get you what you want from people, especially service people who are accustomed to everyone yelling at them. Remember when you talk to a service advisor (or any customer service person) that person is probably immediately on the defensive, in anxious anticipation of your impending caniption-fit. I've found phrases like "I know this has nothing to do with you, it's just your manager/company policy, it's not your fault" have gotten me AMAZING service from people in the past. All anyone wants is a little understanding.



That said, there are also a lot of morons working as service advisors. Being a moron is not necessarily a problem (I'm not so bright myself), but the problem comes when you're a moron but you think you know everything. Then you go around telling people things like "Ford owns Cummins" and "Your seat covers caused your U-joints to fail so we're denying your warranty", or "That noise is just spark knock". It seems to me that most dealership service departments have developed the idea that "The customer is always wrong". Why would they do this? Because USUALLY the customer IS wrong!. We here at this site, being generally far more knowledgable about our trucks than John Q. Public, therefore experience a lot of frustration with the service department when we percieve they are forcing incorrect information down our throat.

 

[KCJackson]

I guess I lucked out...



My dealer is 5-star and earns it. When I drop off my truck for scheduled maintenance or have a problem, they listen to what I have to ay, they do the job right the first time, they call ME (not the other way around) when they need approval for parts or when the job is finished. The service writers are not Joes off the street, they are assistant service managers who know the products inside and out. Years back, I was behind a woman 3ho brought her Caravan in for service and she clearly had no idea what to ask for... "whatever it is you have to do. " An unsavory dealer staff might have said "sure!" and replaced everything but the engine block, but the advisor calmly asked her pertiunent questions like "are you experiencing any problems like rouigh engine, hard starting?" When she said "no, none of thjat", he calmly said, "then you propbably just need an oil change and a check of fluids. We'll make siure everything is up to spec, and you should be out of here in 45 minutes. "



That's the way it supposed to be, and the reason why I'll be ordering my 05 from them... they've treated my 96 and me like a valued customer. Even my sales rep who sold the 96 is still there and actually REMEMBERS me.

 

[rashwor]

PP service rep is why my '99 did not get the injector pump it needed at 84K, but rather 136K when warranty was out. I am not mad about it, but he never heard a word I said as to what the problem was. Joel Snelson is his name. Want to know the dealer?



I always talked to him calmly, but it made no difference.

 

[radar doctor]

Challange TDR

AFTER READING ALL THESE TERRIBLE STORIES I WONDER IF WE COULD CALL ON OUR (TDR) (MEMBERS) TO PROVIDE A LIST OF DEALERS IN EACH STATE THAT PROVIDE TO THE CUSTOMER... 1. A DIESEL TECH, WITH CERTIFIED TRAINING CERTIFICATE ON THE CUMMINGS ENGINES. 2. . . A BODY SHOP THAT DOES GOOD WORK... 3. . DEALERS AND EMPLOYEES THAT ARE COURTEOUS. . 4. REASONABLY PRICED ETC..... 5. . THIS IS A START OF A OUTLINE,,,, NOW WOULD YOU MEMBERS ADD ON TOO THIS,, WHAT YOU THINK NEEDS TO BE IN HERE AND WOULD ANY OF YOU SUGGEST HOW THIS KIND OF THING CAN BE DONE???????AS I THINK OF THIS I AM REMINDED OF THE BROCHURE THAT COMES WITH OUR TDR MAGAZINE THAT PROVIDES US HELP IF OUR TRUCKS BREAK DOWN... . MEMBERS WHO WILL HELP OTHER MEMBERS WHEN WE ARE TRAVELING THROUGH THE STATES... WE NEED SOMETHING LIKE THAT WITH THE DEALERS????ANYONE GOT ANY IDEA'S HOW WE CAN DO IT... WE REALLY NEED THIS IN OUR MEMBERSHIP... . BILL

 

[rbattelle]

Re: Challange TDR

Originally posted by radar doctor

1. A DIESEL TECH, WITH CERTIFIED TRAINING CERTIFICATE ON THE CUMMINGS ENGINES.

I don't want any diesel tech certified to work on CumminGs engines going anywhere near my truck!

 

[radar doctor]

Why Not

Who or what would you recommend??Some of us out here can't work on our trucks and we have to rely on some one else... Maybe you can sumit a more reliable way to go???Thank you for your reply... .