Dealership....$200 an hr...????

[Motor7]

The battery in the Jetta was dead again yesterday, so i charged it up & we drove into Knoxville to run some errands. After researching here i decided to get an oem battery. Keep this in mind- last week i was with a bud picking up lumber at Home Desperate & when we went to leave his battery was dead in his Suburban. We had a guy jump it, drove across the street to AutoZone where they tested the battery & alt, then installed a new $89 battery. The test & installation was FREE.
Now, back to the dealership, yes they had a battery in stock, it would be $48 to test my bat, & $48 to install a new one. They would not wave either fee if i purchased their battery. Battery/alt testing i can understand the cost involved in the equipment & the time of the Tech. But, $48 to install? It's a 15 min job, so that works out to $200 an hr....***? This kinda thing makes it hard to give a dealership any kind of business.

Needless to say i only bought the battery for $108 & left.

RD

 

[aja8888]

That's a prime example of why to stay away from VW dealers. Pretty soon they will be charging for parking at the parts department.

 

[ymz]

Pretty soon they will be charging for parking at the parts department.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

Don't give them any ideas...


Yuri.

 

[Diesel Addict]

You did the right thing. But I believe any job is rounded up to at least half an hour, frequently a whole hour, when it comes to pricing regardless of how long it actually takes. So this doesn't surprise me.

 

[Motor7]

Rounding up...a whole hr? Wait a min, that means over the past 27years, whenever i worketd O.T., i got paid in 15 min increments & got RIPPED OFF!!!!!!!!

I think the dealership took lessons from our court system that allows a felon convicted on 2 different crimes to serve both sentences at the same time .

So, us consumers should be able to walk into a dealership & get 2 cars for the price of one.....makes perfect sense to me

RD

 

[Diesel Addict]

Trust me, it's not just your dealership that does this. It seems to be standard practice in the auto repair industry. I asked an independent MB shop once about this and it made sense. Why should a business be penalized for having fast, competent mechanics? There's some standardized book of repair times that everyone is supposed to use. But if a mechanic can do it faster than that, why should he or his business get paid less? Sure, the book may be a little biased toward the business side on certain jobs, but what can you do.

 

[Fahrfuwerfuelen]

Did they charge you for the first suitcase in your trunk? Maybe the dealership is learning lessons from the airline industry.

 

[Birdman]

That's a prime example of why to stay away from VW dealers. Pretty soon they will be charging for parking at the parts department.

That's a prime example of why to stay away from ALL not just VW dealers. And depending on where you live it could be a lot higher.

 

[aja8888]

That's a prime example of why to stay away from ALL not just VW dealers. And depending on where you live it could be a lot higher.

Agreed....seeing the U.S. auto industry is tanking, and dealerships are not selling cars at the rate they would like to, there must be more pressure put on the service departments to generate cash for the business. And a lot of the businesses are franchises that have an owner who can change pricing policies.

 

[Motor7]

It gets better. I swapped batteries this morning. This is what i found:

Thanks to this site i knew instantly that this was the WRONG BATTERY that had been installed by a dealer in PA. I bought this car used & have the receipt..looked it up and YES, they charged the P/O $79 to install the WRONG BATTERY. And, yesterday the dealer in Knox didn't even show the AG battery as the one that belongs in the TDI. He had it in stock, but his computer showed the AF.
It's comforting to know that paying extra money at a dealer gets the job done right with the right part..............................sheeeesh!

RD

 

[TonyJetta]

I was at the dealer last thursday for the infamous A5 Seat Side Airbag issue. Dealer wanted $216 to R&R the seat and crimp 3 wires together.

It took me an hour, 4 bolts, 3 solder joints, and 3 peices of heatshrink tubing. That included 3 phone calls, and my buddy stopping by to BS. Not paying the dealer: Priceless!

 

[McBrew]

It may have been more than you wanted to pay, but that's the way it should have been charged. If your boss says he wants a report on his desk in an hour... but you get it done in 30 minutes, should he only pay you half of your wages?

 

[Motor7]

I disagree McBrew. If you want a customer to return for more work, do you pork him on the simple small job? It's not the way i would run my business, but they can & do charge whatever they want. It's their business & they just lost the possibility of me even purchasing a car from them. I can install my own, but it was raining, had the wife with me & we were willing to pay a reasonable charge for the service provided. I didn't think that $96 was resonable. I also came real close to just going to AutoZone & getting their comparable battery.
In the economy we are in, it just does not make sense to stick to the old way of doing things. The big 3 and most dealerships are hurting. How much is the "economys" fault & how much is their fault? Besides, if i didn't know what battery i needed and had let them install one......it would have been the wrong one.
Incompetent and over charging is the way i see it. Either one can run a business into the ground. JMHO......

RD

 

[BadMonKey]

That's a prime example of why to stay away from ALL not just VW dealers. And depending on where you live it could be a lot higher.

The Toyota dealership i go to changed the battery on my Tacoma during a PM visit and only charged me for the battery. VW tried to charge me $75 to change my wipers tell i through a childish fit

 

[Birdman]

The Toyota dealer my brother goes to has done all the service on his wifes car since new. He did it that way because he travels a lot and if she needs service she know where to take it. A few years ago he took it in for an oil change and the monkeys doing hate job came out and told him the the drain plug was leaking (stripped) and asked him what he want them to do about it? So my brother turns it around and asked THEM what they were going to do about it seeing they had done every oil change since new (70,000 on the clock now) they tried to run him around in circles to get out of paying for a new pan even offering to pay half, Well if they were admitting to half the damage they really are admitting it was their fault. He ended up with a new pan. Moral All dealerships will get as much as they can. They no longer make the big dollars on sales but now on service. I would not mind paying for GOOD service down right the first time and on time but I have only found a few decent dealerships and even they will try to slip things past you. Lucky for the TDI club we have people that will help each other and save up a lot of money the dealership would normally be getting.

 

[aja8888]

The Toyota dealer my brother goes to has done all the service on his wifes car since new. He did it that way because he travels a lot and if she needs service she know where to take it. A few years ago he took it in for an oil change and the monkeys doing hate job came out and told him the the drain plug was leaking (stripped) and asked him what he want them to do about it? So my brother turns it around and asked THEM what they were going to do about it seeing they had done every oil change since new (70,000 on the clock now) they tried to run him around in circles to get out of paying for a new pan even offering to pay half, Well if they were admitting to half the damage they really are admitting it was their fault. He ended up with a new pan. Moral All dealerships will get as much as they can. They no longer make the big dollars on sales but now on service. I would not mind paying for GOOD service down right the first time and on time but I have only found a few decent dealerships and even they will try to slip things past you. Lucky for the TDI club we have people that will help each other and save up a lot of money the dealership would normally be getting.

The members of this club (and other clubs) are only a very small percentage of the car buying public. Because we are knowledgeable enough to see through the rogue practices occurring at franchised dealerships and take steps to protect our wallets, we are the lucky few. Many car buyers are getting hosed more and more these days. As we go into this global recession further, and car dealers become desperate for cash, expect to see and hear of more gouging and suspicious *work* charged for.

There is virtually no regulation in this repair/service industry and cars are getting harder to diagnose for problem resolution and repair. That, in itself, will lead to the same thing that is going in in the U.S. medical industry, which is blatant charges for services rendered that cannot be even figured out by the recipients.

It's going to get worse before it gets better (if it ever will). Thank God for a site like this and for the resources it makes available.

 

[TonyJetta]

What really helps out the club and it's members, is three major items:
1) We have SO much support on the site
2) The engines, drivetrain, and electrical systems are very similar from generation to generation, just built to higher levels of complexity
3) vag-com!

Tony

 

[Variant TDI]

There is virtually no regulation in this repair/service industry and cars are getting harder to diagnose for problem resolution and repair.

I understand what you're getting at, but I disagree that things have really gotten that much harder.

The cars are more complicated, sure. But you don't need thousands of dollars of equipment to diagnose. A SG2 isn't that far out of league from a technolgy tool of yesteryear... the timing light, right?

And then there's the Internet. I had an issue with my wifes Chrysler van. A product that's pretty foreign to a guy who has only worked on VWs since he was 16.

I scanned it with my SG2, and searched on the fault code. And it also gave me a little tidbit for the future. You don't even need the SG. Just turn the ignition on/off 3 times, and the fault codes display on the odometer readout.

Chrysler (a 5 star dealer for that matter) quoted me $300 to do the repair, which amounted to replacement of the EGR valve. I bought the valve for $85. I replaced it in 20 minutes with the most basic tools. That's $600 an hour when you do the math.

 

[Diesel Addict]

It gets better. I swapped batteries this morning. This is what i found:

Thanks to this site i knew instantly that this was the WRONG BATTERY that had been installed by a dealer in PA. I bought this car used & have the receipt..looked it up and YES, they charged the P/O $79 to install the WRONG BATTERY. And, yesterday the dealer in Knox didn't even show the AG battery as the one that belongs in the TDI. He had it in stock, but his computer showed the AF.
It's comforting to know that paying extra money at a dealer gets the job done right with the right part..............................sheeeesh!

RD

My VW dealer's parts department also gave me the wrong battery the first time. Morons. It would be nice if they knew what they're doing, wouldn't it? Fortunately I've never had to bring my car to their service department, but I've had some bad experience with other dealers.

Years ago when I had a Pontiac Firebird I used to bring it to the dealer for oil changes and watch them. From my observation the guys doing oil changes are usually some high school drop-outs who don't really know what they're doing. I remember one of them had a difficult time inspecting my air filter and couldn't even get to it and I had to show him. How embarrassing is that?

Another time my wife's Honda's rear door latch stopped working so she brought the car to the dealer and they charged her like $90 to tell her the latch is broken. Duh! Tell me something I don't know! They wanted to replace the whole part for another $200. We took the car home and I took it apart, adjusted some mechanism inside, and it's worked fine ever since. The cost: $0 and about 20 minutes of my time.

 

[Fahrfuwerfuelen]

My understanding of dealerships.

 

[mrGutWrench]

My VW dealer's parts department also gave me the wrong battery the first time. Morons. (snip)

__. Yeah, me too. They tried to give me a TDI battery, all right, but it was the battery for a New Beetle. The *correct* battery for my Jetta is larger and has more amp/hours. I had to argue with them but they finally agreed, took the NB battery back (it had only sat on their counter - I wasn't going to accept it), and brought out the proper Jetta/Golf sized one.