5 ms·

> Find a mechanic you trust, the car dealership will rip you off time and time again. The dealership is doing work under warranty, so are motivated to fix thin

> Find a mechanic you trust, the car dealership will rip you off time and time again. The dealership is doing work under warranty, so are motivated to fix things quickly and permanently. A freelance mechanic is motivated to find more things wrong and to never really fix them so you have to keep coming back.

barkingcat 4y ago
This is opposite to reality. The car dealership is doing work under warranty, so they don't make any real money from you (they can put in the work/time/labour for whatever the manufacturer wanted them to fix, but that has a set margin that's determined by corporate - who for sure have counted their beans) - the real money is in upselling - getting you to do brakes while you get the warranty repair done, selling you new windshield wipers while you're there, etc. Hey while you're in for servicing, why don't we do a fuel system treatment too? it's only $50 and we'll get your car fixed for the warranty and get it to run better too! The other side for car dealership warranty repairs that I've also seen is that they get so many repairs in the shop that they can't do each one properly cause they are under pressure from corporate to do the servicing for a certain dollar amount, and they can't spend any additional labour hours/time to do it right. this happened on engine recalls, due to the complexity of an engine recall, the mechanics didn't get allotted enough time to do each one, so basically, corporate tried to shove 4 hours of work into 2 paid hours - the end result is shoddy workmanship due to the mechanics only doing 2 hours of work on a 4 hour job (so rushed, loosed bolts, parts left over, not installed correctly, etc) - there ended up being a 2nd recall on top of the first recall because it wasn't the dealer mechanic's fault - they weren't being given enough time to do each one
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Maybe my warranty is different to yours, but tyres, brakes, wipers, fluids, fuel system are all under my warranty. They only need changing on schedule that is in the manual, not by their suggestion. They've never suggested up-selling anything at all.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Most likely an extended warranty they added on when you purchased the car - no car manufacturer includes those wear items in their limited warranty.
  - barkingcat 4y ago
    Tyres aren't included in any kind of car manufacturer warranty. It might be on a lease agreement (where you can only use their pre-determined brand of tires installed at their pre-determined mechanics) Even for high end race cars, tyres you need to pay out of pocket for - since they are total wear items.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      Maybe it's different in different countries - but looking at my warranty they do replace wear items during the warranty period.
- Theodores 4y ago
  There is also the aspect of customer relationship building, as far as Ferrari are concerned, their customers are there for the duration. The idea is that you buy several normal cars from them, then, if you are lucky and really, really on best behaviour, they will let you on to the lottery to get an allocation for one of their special edition models. If you get the special allocation then you can't 'flip' it, you have to play by the game because otherwise Ferrari won't sell you another special edition model. If I was a dealer and I had to replace 1000 fuel filler widgets free of charge in my own time in order to keep those customers happy enough for one of them to come back and spend a million, then it would not be a problem. Getting those 1000 customers through the door again (or even a dozen of them) is all good. Funny how few of these Ferraris get to put in any miles. It isn't range anxiety, it is mileage anxiety. If you had to drive 400 miles you would not do it because of the miles and how that affects the value. Hence these cars spent their time in garages, connected to wall chargers, turning a wheel once or twice between services in order to ensure everything is mechanically peachy. In the UK the likelihood of finding a Ferrari is high in London where the average speed is in the single digits. Some of these cars don't get to escape the capital, they don't drive at speed, they just sit there as a speculative asset.
pivo 4y ago
Some people (like me) keep their cars after the warranty expires, for us it doesn't make sense to go to the dealer at that point if you have a good independent mechanic. Being a good mechanic includes not finding unnecessary repairs to charge you for and depending on repeat business from happy customers.
Phlarp 4y ago
Car manufacturers are not without blame in this situation. Their products are designed to be difficult and expensive; bordering on impossible to service. I have a mid 2000s sedan from the Ford motor company, recently the air conditioning stopped working; initially I engaged with a few different freelance mechanics, one billed me for a pressure system check / recharge, another said they didn't know what was wrong but could do "diagnostics" until I cried uncle on the costs. The car is worth maybe $3,000 so I can't justify a lot of repair costs on it, but at the same time the powertrain is still in great shape. The Ford dealership was able to pinpoint the actual problem, which was a $25 ambient temp sensor-- but it's buried in the center of the dash requiring $1000 worth of labor to replace. Ultimately I was able to find the ambient temp sensor pins on the glove box wiring harness and bridge them with a 47 cent resistor, tricking the computer into turning my AC back on. Cars could be so much better. We'd generate less waste if perfectly good vehicles weren't getting thrown away because Ford and GM designed them to fail in opaque and unserviceable ways, unfortunately things have been trending the opposite direction with BEVs and Tesla in particular.
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  Too true, My sister-in-law had a VW. She took it to a dealership to replace a headlight lightbulb. Cost several hundred dollars, it involved removing the bumper. Honestly not sure if it was a scam by the dealership or if the car was really that poorly designed.
  - mbreese 4y ago
    My wife had to have a headlight replaced on a new car, about 2 years after owning it. There was a ton of work to replace it. Unlike my first car (ahem) years ago where this was a routine thing and took all of 5 minutes. So yes, it is now ridiculously complicated to replace lights. But here’s the kicker — my wife’s dealer had never had to do it before. They are so reliable that this was the first time they had to replace a light in that model. We walked in and asked them to replace it as if it was routine. They didn’t believe us that it was out. So, my guess, not knowing anything about the VW in question is that it really was that complicated, but not something that is expected to happen often.

barkingcat 4y ago

This is opposite to reality. The car dealership is doing work under warranty, so they don't make any real money from you (they can put in the work/time/labour for whatever the manufacturer wanted them to fix, but that has a set margin that's determined by corporate - who for sure have counted their beans) - the real money is in upselling - getting you to do brakes while you get the warranty repair done, selling you new windshield wipers while you're there, etc. Hey while you're in for servicing, why don't we do a fuel system treatment too? it's only $50 and we'll get your car fixed for the warranty and get it to run better too! The other side for car dealership warranty repairs that I've also seen is that they get so many repairs in the shop that they can't do each one properly cause they are under pressure from corporate to do the servicing for a certain dollar amount, and they can't spend any additional labour hours/time to do it right. this happened on engine recalls, due to the complexity of an engine recall, the mechanics didn't get allotted enough time to do each one, so basically, corporate tried to shove 4 hours of work into 2 paid hours - the end result is shoddy workmanship due to the mechanics only doing 2 hours of work on a 4 hour job (so rushed, loosed bolts, parts left over, not installed correctly, etc) - there ended up being a 2nd recall on top of the first recall because it wasn't the dealer mechanic's fault - they weren't being given enough time to do each one

chrisseaton 4y ago
Maybe my warranty is different to yours, but tyres, brakes, wipers, fluids, fuel system are all under my warranty. They only need changing on schedule that is in the manual, not by their suggestion. They've never suggested up-selling anything at all.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Most likely an extended warranty they added on when you purchased the car - no car manufacturer includes those wear items in their limited warranty.
- barkingcat 4y ago
  Tyres aren't included in any kind of car manufacturer warranty. It might be on a lease agreement (where you can only use their pre-determined brand of tires installed at their pre-determined mechanics) Even for high end race cars, tyres you need to pay out of pocket for - since they are total wear items.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Maybe it's different in different countries - but looking at my warranty they do replace wear items during the warranty period.
Theodores 4y ago
There is also the aspect of customer relationship building, as far as Ferrari are concerned, their customers are there for the duration. The idea is that you buy several normal cars from them, then, if you are lucky and really, really on best behaviour, they will let you on to the lottery to get an allocation for one of their special edition models. If you get the special allocation then you can't 'flip' it, you have to play by the game because otherwise Ferrari won't sell you another special edition model. If I was a dealer and I had to replace 1000 fuel filler widgets free of charge in my own time in order to keep those customers happy enough for one of them to come back and spend a million, then it would not be a problem. Getting those 1000 customers through the door again (or even a dozen of them) is all good. Funny how few of these Ferraris get to put in any miles. It isn't range anxiety, it is mileage anxiety. If you had to drive 400 miles you would not do it because of the miles and how that affects the value. Hence these cars spent their time in garages, connected to wall chargers, turning a wheel once or twice between services in order to ensure everything is mechanically peachy. In the UK the likelihood of finding a Ferrari is high in London where the average speed is in the single digits. Some of these cars don't get to escape the capital, they don't drive at speed, they just sit there as a speculative asset.

pivo 4y ago

Some people (like me) keep their cars after the warranty expires, for us it doesn't make sense to go to the dealer at that point if you have a good independent mechanic. Being a good mechanic includes not finding unnecessary repairs to charge you for and depending on repeat business from happy customers.

Phlarp 4y ago

Car manufacturers are not without blame in this situation. Their products are designed to be difficult and expensive; bordering on impossible to service. I have a mid 2000s sedan from the Ford motor company, recently the air conditioning stopped working; initially I engaged with a few different freelance mechanics, one billed me for a pressure system check / recharge, another said they didn't know what was wrong but could do "diagnostics" until I cried uncle on the costs. The car is worth maybe $3,000 so I can't justify a lot of repair costs on it, but at the same time the powertrain is still in great shape. The Ford dealership was able to pinpoint the actual problem, which was a $25 ambient temp sensor-- but it's buried in the center of the dash requiring $1000 worth of labor to replace. Ultimately I was able to find the ambient temp sensor pins on the glove box wiring harness and bridge them with a 47 cent resistor, tricking the computer into turning my AC back on. Cars could be so much better. We'd generate less waste if perfectly good vehicles weren't getting thrown away because Ford and GM designed them to fail in opaque and unserviceable ways, unfortunately things have been trending the opposite direction with BEVs and Tesla in particular.

stonemetal12 4y ago
Too true, My sister-in-law had a VW. She took it to a dealership to replace a headlight lightbulb. Cost several hundred dollars, it involved removing the bumper. Honestly not sure if it was a scam by the dealership or if the car was really that poorly designed.
- mbreese 4y ago
  My wife had to have a headlight replaced on a new car, about 2 years after owning it. There was a ton of work to replace it. Unlike my first car (ahem) years ago where this was a routine thing and took all of 5 minutes. So yes, it is now ridiculously complicated to replace lights. But here’s the kicker — my wife’s dealer had never had to do it before. They are so reliable that this was the first time they had to replace a light in that model. We walked in and asked them to replace it as if it was routine. They didn’t believe us that it was out. So, my guess, not knowing anything about the VW in question is that it really was that complicated, but not something that is expected to happen often.