Dear Lord, not again... The Beetle visits Stohlman Dealership

[Marit]

First, does anyone have the e-mail of the Stohlman GM? I have his name so if you at least know their user-id formula, then I can e-mail him.

As you may recall, last summer the Beetle visited Lindsay VW for a new brake light switch, but after many e-mails and a call to VWoA, the switch was covered under warranty. This was just under 12 months ago, June 18th to be exact.

Well on May 31st it had the switch replaced AGAIN.

As many of you know, the Bug is living with my mother so that she doesn't have to drive her Blazer for her 100+ mile RT commute. Two weeks ago the glow plug light starts flashing as she is driving to work so she drops it off at Stohlman since it is literally around the corner from her office. Now I realize this was a mistake, but since she did not call me first it was too late by the time I was notified that the Beetle was ailing. Now I understand why hospitals require parent notification before operating on children

So when my mom arrive to pick up the sweet little car, bill for the 'diagnosis' and brakelight switch repair was... are you ready... $192.92 + tax and shop supplies. $12.92 for the switch itself and 2 hours of labor @ $90 an hour.

It took until today for me to get the repair ticket from last year as well as this year's ticket in my hot little hands to call the dealership. And to put it mildly, the conversation did not go well. They said, and this is a direct quote, "we have to charge that much otherwise we wouldn't make any money and no one would work on cars" 40 minutes we went around and around on this and he wouldn't drop the charges to the one hour that I know more than covers the amount of time it took for them to plug in VAG-COM, check and clear the codes, and change the switch.

 

[pghPAtdi]

Doooode, I don't even know what to say.
I too have had to replace my switch since it was done under the recall. The original was a "b", recall was done with part "c" and the latest one was a "d". I think anyway.
Painful thing is you know as well as I do that it takes all of 10 minutes.

 

[MOGolf]

Latest is E. And there is another recall for this but it doesn't start until December!

 

[Marit]

They put D in last year and E in this time... Either way the **** didn't work

 

[pghPAtdi]

No schit!
Missed ya at the GTG in the burgh' Glen.

Latest is E. And there is another recall for this but it doesn't start until December!

 

[IAD_TDI]

The practice that the dealers do around here it there is a book that has the time that it would take a mechanic to do a task. These numbers are extremely inflated and a mechanic that I know at a local dealership in Va inside the beltway would do 100 hours of billable time a week, he was only there 40 hours. Is it right - not in my book. Is it legal - have to get a good lawer to answer that one. Class action will be the way to go.

That is why they said "diagnosis" and brakelight switch repair, so they can add up both times. I love their quote on why they charge so much.

Go getem,
Good Luck,

Todd

 

[TheLongshot]

The practice that the dealers do around here it there is a book that has the time that it would take a mechanic to do a task. These numbers are extremely inflated and a mechanic that I know at a local dealership in Va inside the beltway would do 100 hours of billable time a week, he was only there 40 hours. Is it right - not in my book. Is it legal - have to get a good lawer to answer that one. Class action will be the way to go.

It probably has buffers for jobs that take extra time, so for the tough problems, you are probably paying for those. I can't say it is right either, but that is the way of it.

My sympathies, Marit. I've heard nothing but bad things about Stohlman from a coworker of mine who had multiple problems with his Jetta.

Meanwhile, my Jetta is at Fairfax getting the glowplug harness replaced. (Light went off on Friday.) Only have to pay the $100 deductable that the extended warranty didn't cover. Nice.

Jason

 

[weedeater]

"we have to charge that much otherwise we wouldn't make any money and no one would work on cars"

My answer: "Well, I work at a dentist office and if we don't bust people like you in the mouth, we don't get any patients." KABOOM!!!

 

[oilhammer]

I would agree that seems pretty excessive for a brake light switch. Heck, at Lexus we had a brake light switch recall on the RX330 and it took about 10 minutes and we got paid .6 hr, and I thought that was pretty inflated! But 2.0 hrs is crazy.

There are some standards to expect, though. .5 hr diagnosis is pretty common, and I would not suspect anyone to charge anything less than .5 for the job, so 1.0 hr would be pretty reasonable (yes, I know it only takes 10 minutes). But you have to figure how much more behind the scenes stuff takes place in a big organization with sky-high overhead. Even if they charged 1.0 hr, it would still in the end be pretty much a break-even deal for a large dealership when it's all said and done. But for 2.0 hrs they got a juicy tip!

 

[Birdman]

According to my dealer there will soon be another recall coming out on new switches so watch for it. You should get your money back. I know you really got ripped but how many miles were put on the car the warrenty is for 1 year or 12000 miles and it sounds like she puts on a lot of miles. Again keep your paper work if still under the 12000 miles ALL dealerships have to honor the warrenty. Start making some phone calls. Also all their comuters are networked so any dealer can pull up whats be done to the car. VW makes them keep them on record for min. of 2 years. call VW customer service then the AUTO BBB in the back of your service manual.