Sorry dealer, Citrus Dode

[dward]

What is the best way to check for play in the ball joints? Is it something you need special tools for or can you just feel it?

 

[DPKetchum]

My nerighbor got paronoid about this vibration thing with his 05. You can put change in the ashtry and at all speeds to 90 it does not move or rattle at all. (well a little at idle)At 70 his does have a little harmonic noise about every other second or so. Several told him SO its a 4x4 running 70 mph and lots of things turning etc. He's done put it out of his head now.

 

[rrl989]

My dealer summed up working on my truck as this. They will do any work I wanted on the truck, they get paid either way, by DC or me. I doubt that these dealers do any fighting for their customers with the area rep. I bet their warranty claims against DC are tabulated somehow and affect the dealerships bottom line, so they just do the minimum for us.



Ron

 

[DPKetchum]

Bull. They do and will go to bat for a customer. At least any and all I worked at for 25 plus years did. They are NOT penalized for warranty work unless a certain operation they do stands out like a sore thumb compared to other dealers in their size range and local. Other wise its fix them and get ion to the next no matter if custmor pay/extended service contract or warranty. Its all GOOD money.

 

[rrl989]

Bull what ? Get paid by the customer at an hourly rate or get paid a flat rate for a warranty repair ? Are ya saying that a dealership gets to charge DC whatever they please, just like they do to us ?

 

[DPKetchum]

They shoouldn't charge YOU whatever they PLEASE! None of the dealers I worked for charged whatever they pleased. There was in house pricing on hundreds of items. On computer or in a book. The better dealers WE had service meetings to discuss items of question and raise or lower as needed. Service manager is suppose to do more then wait around for a customer problem. If it wasn't in a book we took factory flat rate(warranty time)Xs 130% and that is Chilton flat rate on almost every warranty op by every manufacture. If you called same dealer 5 days in a row and talked to 5 service writers you were /ARE suppose to get the same labor price on each item inquired about every time. Differant items at differant labor amounts per hour also. Depending if maintance work,light line,heavy line by degree of skill level involved. Prices can not by law just be pulled out of ones butt. Techs are also paid by skill level etc. Some dealers pay a service to set up their pricing manuals. G. M. had a quick 100 that then jumped to the quick 500 repairs that gave parts and labor on that many items set up for each dealer. It was a service they paid for. The Nissan store I was at 14 years the service manager set them up. He worked many a night until the wee hours about every 6 months adding new ops/changing old ones,figuring out gross profit percents on items etc. He(as I did later)also went over each r. o. and doudle checked charges almost every evening. Sent many a refund out he got and let several writers go over the years by playing stupid and over charging repeately etc. In NONE of the stores did TECHS make or dictate pricing. Sure if the op was not clear it was discussed but the Tech did not make the pricing.

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

. Sure if the op was not clear it was discussed but the Tech did not make the pricing.

I agree with some of what you said, But I owned my own shop for 18 years and your last comment is where ALOT of problems arrise. If a procedure is not cut and dry ie: r&r starter or trans or wheel seal etc. and you talk about a "drone" or "vibration" a tech can spend hour after hour or day after day atempting to locate that problem, Who's going to pay his labor DC? or the dealer? I think not . This I believe is the reluctance by the dealer to do anything and I'm sure DC got tired of paying for experiments, This is why ball joints now have a " tolerance" before they are replaced, This is why DC now is tring to sell us on the idea that this "drone" is an inherent trait of our trucks.

But this atitude ads up to POOR customer satisfaction, this atitude is what got the big threee behind the 8 ball in the 70's and 80's when the imports took a large bite out of the US auto makers butts! MY 2 cents

 

[DPKetchum]

If its documented as D. C. or any other manufacture outlines its not a big deal to get paid for time involved. Happened daily! Once in a rare while we(dealer/shop)helped with techs pay and time on a ticket. But STRAIGHT time is used daily in dealer shops as long as specified criteria are met it gets paid by the manufacturer. Broken bolts,studs,lots of wiring/short issues/weird vibrations/some trim repairs if glue/cleanup is difficult etc. The D. C. dealer as well a G. M. Nissan etc. straight time is part of daily business on warranty repairs and its paid by the manufacturer as long as its documented correctly.

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

If its documented as D. C. or any other manufacture outlines its not a big deal to get paid for time involved. Happened daily! Once in a rare while we(dealer/shop)helped with techs pay and time on a ticket. But STRAIGHT time is used daily in dealer shops as long as specified criteria are met it gets paid by the manufacturer. Broken bolts,studs,lots of wiring/short issues/weird vibrations/some trim repairs if glue/cleanup is difficult etc. The D. C. dealer as well a G. M. Nissan etc. straight time is part of daily business on warranty repairs and its paid by the manufacturer as long as its documented correctly.

Well since you have more dealership experience then I do, Why do think they do not want to attempt a fix on the drone issue? I really am baffled at the lack of effort on there part?

 

[mopars1]

Just a thought. Have they tried tsb #03-003-04 and 03-004-04? These are for an axle whine and a launch shudder. Maybe it would help some of your concerns.

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

Just my point they are not willing to try anything!

 

[mopars1]

Well, the only thing I can tell you is a different dealer. Too bad you aren't closer to the St. Louis area. I would not have a problem working on your truck and fixing what we could find wrong with it. We are tied to the guidelines on the ball joint wear, but they can be tweaked if the know how is there

 

[SGBARRACUDA]

That is the aggrivating part, they use to be real good to me, that is why I would travel 35 miles to this dealership and had to drive by several other dealerships to get there. But they have been bought out by a large corp. since my last purchase. I'm waiting to here from them still on getting an appointment with the area rep. I also went to DODGE. COM and filed a compaint with them but they havn't gotten back either?

 

[mopars1]

On the area rep, ours hardly ever makes a date to come by so it is very hard to tell people when he is going to be there. He tends to stop by whenever he feels like it. That makes it hard to set up appointments. It isn't that he won't set a day, but it seems to take too long to tie him down to a date.



As far as DC is concerned, they have made tv commercials about how they have better products and the proof is in the amount they spend on warranty repairs is a lot lower than it used to be and keeps falling. In my opinion, most of the savings have been made in their time reductions on repairs and cheapening of parts. They don't backlight the electric switches anymore or have led's in them so you can see them at night. They only put one horn when they used to have two on some vehicles. You can hardly hear the horn when they delete the second one. I could go on and on but it doesn't make any difference. The dealers lost their chance years ago by not standing as one against the slashing of the time they pay for warranty repairs. If I didn't have 28 years at the same dealer now, and am close to retirement, I would look for something better. I would get out of the car business altogether.

 

[EBottema]

Dealers do get paid less for warranty work then a retail customer. The dealer also only gets paid by what the book says even though DCs or other companies book time is listed to short for a praticular job.

 

[DPKetchum]

Because its a design flaw not something techs are going to fix. Cadallic Brougham with 350 v8s had a boom/drone issue(some,not all)with almost 30 pages of Tsb's and sets to repair. Not one thing fix two in a row. Was told by G. M. DO NOT attempt repair,its a waste of money unless we tell you what or what not to do. Was told they'd rather buy back said auto's intead of spending thousands of dollars in parts and man hours. I had one I was told this and took it on my own to try a driveshaft and adjust pinion angle. It fixed it. REP later said YOUR lucky cause I was NOT going to pay the claim if it did not repair it as I told you I would purchase auto back and leave it at that. Even then the claim was like $1600 dollars. Dealers don't get paid much less then customer pay as a rule. GOOD techs,not super tech's usually match or beat book(warranty time)on op after op. It also depends on how's it written and the knowlege of a good booker/dispatcher. A poor one can cost tech's/dealer etc. thousands in lost moneys per week. Granted some ops are walking a thin line but others make up for it. With the right tools and knowlege of product they(tech's)usually do just fine. I had one tech who all he wanted was TRIM and AC repairs. Its was 99% warranty. Always looked like he wasn't busy. He turned 40 plus hours week end week out. All legit,mostly alltrim and interior rattles,some ac/heater box etc. He could pull a dash or steering column in a flash and never look flustered or stressed. Window motors were a breeze for him.

 

[GBrock]

You have been successful! I won't buy another Dodge again.



The arrogance of DaimlerChrysler is getting more and more unbelievable as I read the boards of the 3rd gen owners. The only ones who seem to be happy with their Dodge are those whos truck is less than a year old.



Hmmmmmm...

 

[DPKetchum]

Why? All the manufacture are all the same. Just minoe differances in their way of doing business. I found D. C. to be a lot more helpful then G. M. by a long shot.

 

[TFucili]

Reality break

You have been successful! I won't buy another Dodge again.



The arrogance of DaimlerChrysler is getting more and more unbelievable as I read the boards of the 3rd gen owners. The only ones who seem to be happy with their Dodge are those whos truck is less than a year old.



Hmmmmmm...

I can't speak for or against DC, as my '05 3500 will be my first Mopar, but I could write a book about paying a whole lot of money for poorly designed and/or built vehicles. If you think GM or Ford will treat you any better, you are delusional. Been there, done that. As a matter of fact, I had a '92 Fourunner with the infamous 3VZE V-6 turd engine and was not treated any better. Car companies are like insurance companies, in that they brag about how great they will treat you UNTIL they have to reach into their pockets. Then all bets are off. Being mis-treated always sucks. I've given up on brand loyalty. It's a darn shame that spending upwards of $50K is such a crap shoot.

 

[mechanic]

SG- Do yourself a favor and sell the 3rd gen and get a real injection pumped engine that was only in a second gen. Insulate the cab and do some other upgrades and it will be the best truck on the planet.

I have gotten lots of smart comments from 3rd gen owners like you have been getting, too many angry mobs around here. lol. Many i have met are great but some are just too stubborn to know why an injection pumped diesel engine is far superior in reliability to a new engine. Good luck with finding a second gen. Dodge dealers suck, dealers in general suck. The facorty doesnt pay full rate on warranty and the dealer doesnt want to do the work. Its tough to know who to really blame

10-4 on that. I left the dealerships in 1975 when they kept cutting time allowed and cut the mechanics back to less then 50% of the flatrate, then raised the flatrate to unbelievable levels. In 1972 I got paid 1 hr to replace the transmission pan gasket on a full size "B" series Pontiac with a 400 transmission, but by 1975 the same car, still in the 50,000 warranty, only paid . 6 hrs if I remember correctly. And that was one of the minor cuts.

That is also the reason that dealerships don't have many MECHANICS anymore. They have a lot of TECHNITIONS, which are at best mechanics-in-training. However I have seen the work that some of them do and have been told what they told the customer, and that leads me to believe that some of them will hever become true mechanics. No offense to any one who calls yourself a technition. But I believe some of us have been told we are technitions and not asked what that is. After evaluating the term, I realized that I am not a technition, but a mechanic. Mechanics would rather fix a machine by repairing the part or parts, not by replacing parts untill it functions again.

And you betcha that they enginer the specs and times in their favor. You can align a F/E to warranty specs and it may not be possible to keep it between the lines in a crosswind. I had the Throttle cable and heater blower overlay harness done on my 94 2500. David Stanley Dodge did the work and gave me the invoice to show it had been done. TPS was left disconnected and bolts left out of the throttle bracket, and to top it off they billed the parts and labor for the heater blower overlay harness and ignition switch, but did not do the recall. I confronted them on the situation and they gave me the parts which I installed myself.

So while it is hard to blame the mechanics, and even the dealers because the motor companins are the ones setting the policies and telling the mechanics how much they will pay them to do a job the way the manufactures tell them to. It is not the manufactures that require the mechanics to work there. If they consent to stay and take the abuse, then they should give the customer the best job they can. It is not our fault that the companies and dealerships treat the mechanics the way they do. We are just the ones buying the products that keep them is business. If they do not like the abuse they have to take they should go to work for a better dealer or work in an independent shop ar start their own, but they shouldn't make the customer out to be the bad guy here. We are your job security.