Mistrust of dealerships

[Tarka]

I've cruised and lurked around most of the forums here and apart from the impressive technical knowledge of many participants, there's one thing that really seems to stick out in many posts - it's the unforgiving mistrust of dealerships. I must be fortunate to live in an area [Ottawa, ON Canada] where there are three or four Volkswagen dealerships that seem pretty competent to me. My own dealership has a very positive attitude to service and customer satisfaction.
Yet time and time again, I see references to 'stealerships' and tales of clearly incompetent service and lousy customer relations. I'm not bragging, but what is it with all these others that has made them so bad? Are they in remote locations? Are they joint ventures with three other manufacturer's brands? If they don't care or can't do the job properly, why are they still around? I'm pretty sure in saying that the dealers count more on after-sales service than they do the actual sale itself for keeping the revenue coming in.
It's ironic that almost all the complaints I have seen are from Americans, yet I and many others feared exactly the same thing would happen here in Canada when Volkswagen Canada shut down a couple of years ago. Canadian operations, if I am not mistaken, are now run by 'Volkswagen of America'. Everyone predicted gloom and doom, yet nothing like that has happened here, it seems. After a service appointment at my dealer, I automatically get two phone calls - one from my dealer and the other from VoA - about how the job was done and how well I was satisfied.
So what is it? Are service rates elsewhere so competitive that dealers aren't investing in training and they're trying to save money on that end of their operations? In my limited experience, service isn't cheap, but it is very good when done by the dealer.
And no, I don't work for Volkswagen or anyone else in the car services industry ....

 

[JetPuf]

There are two stories here. I'll start with my own.

My personal experiance with VWoA service has not been a good one. The service department at my local VW in portland (Rey Reece VW) consistantly charged more then other VW shops and cut corners.

I found on several occations where screws were not re-installed, or the incorrect screw was installed.

On other occations the vehicle had to go back to the service department several times for the same issue -- the MAF sensor and the response back from the service department was "Works within factory specifications" because it did not throw a code. When I put it to them that computer aside the car did not feel as peppy as it once did, they simply responded "It's a diesel, if you want peppy, go buy a 1.8t"

I also do not approve of the insane prices the service departments charge for regular maintence like oil and filter changes. at Rey Reece it costs upwards of 50 dollars. I can change the oil for around 25 (including the filter and 505.1 oil).

I since I was not satisfied with the dealers service department I have found two different shops in my area that are capable of servicing newer model VW's with better pricing and more compitent staff -- Hillside Imports and Halsey Imports. Because of some grief the clerk gave me at Halsey my first choice is Hillside. However since I have left all warrenty periods I have become chief mechanic/technician/grease monkey/etc on my car. If something on my car needs to be fixed or maintained that I'm not comfortable working on I check the local area for club members who may be willing to help and assist, or I use one of my two repair shops.

Okay, now for the other story
My girl friend drives a new (well, I say it's new) '04 PD Jetta. She has has a few different issues with her car - most of those being recall work and the only non-recall work was when her trunk latch stopped latching.

She takes her vehicle to Dick Hannah VW in Vancouver Washington.

All of the work on her car has been top notch. The trunk latch did not always misbehave however the service department had the part in stock and replaced it without hesitation.

Concluding, The dealership can be an okay solution. It's something that you will hear lots of opinions about. I recomend you see if there are any opinions about your local dealers and their service departments. If none are avaliable then if you decide,, try them. the opinion of most people on the club generally says dealers are poor. However like I even posted, there are acceptions.

 

[scrubber]

Web pages like this are notorious sounding boards for people with bad experiences, and not exactly a scientific sample of owners. So
you have to consider that a bit. People who have fair experiences with dealers rarely right up big raves about them here. I'm sure the quality of service is pretty variable form dealer to dealer, just like with any vehicle.

 

[William J Toensing]

Let me try to answer Tarka about the quality of dealerships. I think the reasons you are not having the same problems as in the USA is that Canada is a far better more civilized country than the USA. Before you Bush loving super patriots suggest I move to Canada let me say I moved to Calif. from Minn. because I don't like cold weather. Also, at age 72, I don't want to have to move anywhere again & go thru the moving hassel. I don't know about Canada but out educational system in sadly lacking compaired to what I know about Europe. It is my understanding that in Europe, if a student shows an interest & aptitude in auto mechanics in the Euro equilivant of our junior high school, he/she is trained to become an auto mechanic at state expense & when their education is complete, they are competitant auto mechanics. Its my observation that in most areas of the USA, vocational training at the leval that exists in Europe is sadly lacking resulting in a shortage of qualified auto mechanics in the USA. If dealers can't get enough quality mechanics, then service is going to suffer. Also, many if not a majority of VW dealerships are dualed with other makes.

 

[Tarka]

OK, I'll put my feet back in the water here, if not my mouth... Reference has been made to multiple dealership set-ups where specialization in one brand and its problems would probably be difficult. As a matter of fact, as I cruised around here yeterday, I saw one VW-Mitsibushi-(plus two others I forget) dealership mentioned. No dealer could possibly afford full and proper training for its staff on four different brands and all their various models. Obviously, specialization has greater chances of success.
I'd also agree that this forum is sometimes a sounding board for personal rants. OK. Now I'll step into dangerous waters ... how do we stack up as a clientèle? Many participants enjoy doing their own mods and learning the intricacies of the TDI engine. I don't imagine we are very 'easy' customers and perhaps even come off sometimes sounding as if we know it all. Are do-it-yourselfers, however accommodating among their own kind, less so with dealerships? Is that a workable theory?
Secondly, apprenticeship programs in Canada may be better than in some other places, but they certainly don't compare to Germany, for example, where the Technical High School student does his / her classes in the morning at school with the same tools and instruments as at the factory and then may actually go work on the factory floor in the afternoon in some capacity.
Going deeper into dangerous waters still ...is there anything to do with the prevailing public ignorance / prejudices about diesels and what I would call the anti-diesel monopolism of the petroleum companies, American car manufacturers and even the government in the States at play here? Is the whole concept of a diesel engine, just like the name 'Volksswagen' itself, too 'foreign'? I wonder how many people know the Jetta is made in Mexico under the terms of the North American Free Trade Act and the fact that most of the Big Three auto makers now have shared designs and parts with most of the Japanese and European manufacturers, for example? As an example of the ignorance / prejudice about diesels, even here, I'll tell you the reaction of one of my friends to whom I gave a ride a month or so ago. She got in, I started up and was about a kilometer down the road when the first thing she said was "This is a diesel?" I silently said "Yes!!!" to myself in the full satisfaction of knowing I had made an impressive purchase, even though it is 'just a diesel'. Also, the most frequent question I get about the TDI is "How's it going to be in winter?" I then jokingly tell them that if the motor refused to start I could probably drive into town on the starter motor because the battery has to have so much more cranking power. So, ignorance about modern diesel technology exists here in Canada too.
This brings me to a question. How do dealerships in the States calculate their charges? Do they work on a flat-time basis or do they use guidelines from VW or other sources like Chilton's to calculate how much time a particular job might take? Service charges here are not cheap, but by and large, we do get satisfaction.
Lastly, what percentage of Americans might lease their cars rather than buy them outright? More and more Canadians, almost a majority now, lease their cars so they always have a reasonably new car under factory warrantee. In such cases, the dealership has less and less reason to do a sloppy job because they have no interest in continually trying to get a repair right. If they start costing the manufacturer too much, they either get their hands slapped or the manufacturer might actually stop reimbursing them for repeated attempts to get something that should have been done right in the first place.
Any other thoughts come to mind?

 

[bhtooefr]

If they start costing the manufacturer too much, they either get their hands slapped or the manufacturer might actually stop reimbursing them for repeated attempts to get something that should have been done right in the first place.

Except the stealerships will say that things aren't covered under the warranty, so that you have to pay megabucks.

I wonder how many people know the Jetta is made in Mexico under the terms of the North American Free Trade Act and the fact that most of the Big Three auto makers now have shared designs and parts with most of the Japanese and European manufacturers, for example?

A lot of people that I know know that the Jetta's made in Mexico, and would rather have a German-made one. As for the "domestic" models... well, heck, Honda is more American than the domestics... 97% of every car they sell in the US is made right here in the US, and the cars are assembled in Marysville, Ohio.

 

[vwestlife]

In general I can't complain about my VW dealer experiences, because no dealer is perfect, and at least for me the positives far outweigh the negatives. For example, last winter the heater core blew on my '91 Golf. Even though it was not covered by the VW heater core recall (that only applied to 1985-1990 models), after a few calls to Volkswagen of America, the dealer agreed to replace it for free. It's a wonderful feeling to take what was then a 13-year-old car with over 165,000 miles on it for major service work and get it back the next day freshly washed and detailed, with the bill totalling to $0.00. They even complimented me on how nice my Golf was for its age.

 

[bhtooefr]

I haven't noticed any problems with the heater core on my car, but if the recall work hasn't been performed... can you PM me with the info on that? Mine IS an 85, and I'd imagine that it'd be the same as a Golf in that respect...

 

[Bob_Fout]

Let me try to answer Tarka about the quality of dealerships. I think the reasons you are not having the same problems as in the USA is that Canada is a far better more civilized country than the USA. Before you Bush loving super patriots suggest I move to Canada let me say I moved to Calif. from Minn. because I don't like cold weather. Also, at age 72, I don't want to have to move anywhere again & go thru the moving hassel. I don't know about Canada but out educational system in sadly lacking compaired to what I know about Europe. It is my understanding that in Europe, if a student shows an interest & aptitude in auto mechanics in the Euro equilivant of our junior high school, he/she is trained to become an auto mechanic at state expense & when their education is complete, they are competitant auto mechanics. Its my observation that in most areas of the USA, vocational training at the leval that exists in Europe is sadly lacking resulting in a shortage of qualified auto mechanics in the USA. If dealers can't get enough quality mechanics, then service is going to suffer. Also, many if not a majority of VW dealerships are dualed with other makes.

Some auto makers (Volvo for example) have programs in the U.S. where they pay for the 2 years of post-high school education for people who want to work as auto mechanics. In return they work for that company for a few years. No need for the gov't to get involved, they'll just dork it up. I've yet to see a federal program that is easy to understand, is fair and works right

You've only lived in 2 states? 2 out of 50 doesn't qualify you to make blanket statements about the U.S. Different parts of the same state can have drastic differences in education, let alone different parts of the country.

 

[vwestlife]

I haven't noticed any problems with the heater core on my car, but if the recall work hasn't been performed... can you PM me with the info on that? Mine IS an 85, and I'd imagine that it'd be the same as a Golf in that respect...

Give a VW dealer's service department your Jetta's VIN, and they can tell you if the heater core recall has been performed already or not. It applies to all 1985-1990 Golfs, GTIs, and Jettas.

VW is pretty liberal about this recall due to fear of being sued when a heater core blows and burns people's feet with hot coolant (and/or fogs up the windows, resulting in a crash due to lack of visibility). So based on my and other people's experience, there's a pretty good chance that VW will replace any faulty A2-chassis heater core for free, even if it has been previously replaced under the recall and/or is outside the recall's VIN range.

 

[cp]

http://1.8t.org

I just posted that site in another thread, but it seems appropriate here, too.

It maintains a ratings system for VW and Audi dealerships' service department. Something like this could be valuable to help people avoid encounters with incompetent and/or unethical establishments.

 

[Bob_Fout]

Dealers that know 1.8, 2.0 and 2.5 gassers etc. may not know 1.9 and 2.0 TDIs though.....

 

[redbarchetta]

I saw a customer satisfaction survey and VW was near the bottom 25% right next to Daimler chryler. I believe Lexus was on top of the list.

I have to give some credibilty to these customer surveys. This is my first VW that I purchased and I'm very leary of VW dealers. Never had an issue with Toyota dealers. Dodge dealers (IMHO and based on experience) really do suck.

 

[DieselDriver2003]

This is very interesting post. Let's face, the reason we have forums like this is because, 1) We love our VW TDIs, 2) Dealer overcharges, 3) It's inconvenient for some of us to rely on the dealer (appointment, wait, aggrevations of bring it back because it was not repaired correctly, etc.)

We have many reasons to 'mistrust' dealership for many reasons, but, I think some of us 'home mechanics' simply feel more comfortable doing it ourselves or rely on folks that 'been there done that' - e.g. this morning, I had my ECU scanned and reset - he charged me $20 bucks and also received exact tips on bringing my TDI to original state, whereas the dealership would probably have changed me >$100 plus many times, in my experince, I have to go back. So there you have it and we love our cars too much to rely on people who just want to make money, any way, any how...

 

[xsbank]

JetPuf, Just curious, if it costs $25 for an owner to do their own oil change (I think that's low) how much should a business charge? $50 doesn't sound too high so you don't have to get your hands dirty ($25 more to tie up the shop for an hour, plus dispose of the old oil/filter). Or you can pay $30 and have it done at a MoronLube and have them 'forget' to put the plug back in...

I am quite handy, and I have certainly done my share of car maintenance, but I leased this car and technically it belongs to them, so they can fix it. It HAS been a bad one, but the service I have received is definitely good, and the guy who picks me up and drops me off, well, our families are probably going to do Christmas this year! I have used 2 dealers in Canada, one in Montreal and one in North Vancouver, and their service departments have been excellent. The only complaint I have had, 2 actually, is that I see waaaay too much of them, and the Montreal one never met a deadline: "It'll be ready by 10:30, you might as well wait" always meant 14:00.

The only better dealers I've used are Volvo dealers, who can rob you blind or force you to sell your youngest child to pay their bills, but your car was always spotless and you were always happy.

 

[BudsBug]

etPuf, Just curious, if it costs $25 for an owner to do their own oil change (I think that's low) how much should a business charge? $50 doesn't sound too high so you don't have to get your hands dirty ($25 more to tie up the shop for an hour, plus dispose of the old oil/filter). Or you can pay $30 and have it done at a MoronLube and have them 'forget' to put the plug back in...

What ever happened to getting paid for the drain oil I know who were still paid for the oil not paying to have it taken away as of 5 years ago haven't talked to anyone about it recently. All of this Hazard mat disposal seems odd for a recycalable Product ie motor OIL

 

[pghPAtdi]

Total Points aSewickley Car StoreSewickleyPA412-741-64007+10
vwHillcrest VWNew KensingtonPA724-335-98475+9
aBillco Motors Inc.WexfordPA724-935-46663+3
vwDay Apollo VW/SubaruMoon Twp.PA412-264-92221+2
a3Rivers AudiMcMurrayPA 10
aDay AudiMonroevillePA724-327-83136-7


Ha, I bought my car at Day VW. The last one in the list, -7 score

Ahhh, good times

 

[tjl]

Well, I personally haven't had the best luck with dealer shops.

1. Honda dealer many years ago. After some service, there was an oil leak.

2. VW dealer #1. On one of the free under warranty services, overfilled the oil. Also, service advisor tried to sell extra services not listed in the book (wheel alignment at 10,000 miles, 15,000 mile service).

3. VW dealer #2. Gave alarming story about how my car needed new rear brakes, "metal to metal", etc. while car was having something else fixed. So I got the car back and measured the rear brake pads myself. There was about 10,000-15,000 miles left on them, based on the wear rate I derived from previous inspections at scheduled maintenance intervals.

 

[DaveGaunt]

I appreciate the kind words here about Canadians, but I'm not sure our "niceness" and "Civilized" approach to life has much to do with this.

I have--or rather had, two VW dealers in my area, the better of the two was closed by VW--and I would not take my car to either of them, Service managers from GM background who knows poop about VW, corner cutting, and just generally irritating attitude at one. Like, changing belt only inspite of VW manual instructions to the contrary. We should be able to expect a VW dealer to do it "by the book" or decline the work.

We also have a local independant. does pretty good work but want dealer pricing on parts. I know better, thanks to TDI club and Roseland.com.

Well, being a pretty fair wrench swinger myself, I decided to buy the tools I need to do my own work and that is how it is now.

But, back to the point. I think we do a bit better in Canada because almost 50% of the VWs sold here are diesel, which has forced the dealers to learn the car, if only by screwing up.

 

[scooperhsd]

We bought the NB as a "certified" pre-owned.

#1 - it only came with 1 FOB key ( and NO valet key)
#2 - it had a few sniggly little faults that they shold have corrected on 1 visit (CEL, no air out of one of the center vents, HVAC controls lightbulb burned out) - it took them 5 trips to finally get these straightened out.

Needless to say - I only go to that dealer when I absolutely have to.

 

[BudsBug]

We bought the NB as a "certified" pre-owned.

#1 - it only came with 1 FOB key ( and NO valet key)
#2 - it had a few sniggly little faults that they shold have corrected on 1 visit (CEL, no air out of one of the center vents, HVAC controls lightbulb burned out) - it took them 5 trips to finally get these straightened out.

Needless to say - I only go to that dealer when I absolutely have to.

Notice the words"certified pre-owned" Yes I am sure they can prove someone owned it before you But These clowns are the ones certifiing it and they did not say it was without problems did they

 

[ymz]

Getting back to the original poster... please read the following thread:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=127603

Although this new member's experience is not one of the many disaster-following-dealer-sevice messages we read here regularly (YET - the engine could still fall out of the car or one of the idlers or water pump could fail prematurely on account of not having been replaced), we read far too many tales like his...

I think I'll send a donation to the TDI-Club now...

Yuri.