[DeTomaso] NPT, Toyota Dealer Rip Off

[Will Kooiman]

I took my 84 Mustang GT-Turbo to the dealer for:

1) it would die in the rain
2) the idle jumped all over the place - sometimes
3) there was a slight clunk putting it into gear

It was all covered under a used-car warranty.

1) The rain problem turned out to be a cracked distributor cap.  I found it
months later.  They had no clue.

2) The idle problem was the idle-air motor (or whatever it's called).  I
didn't figure it out until years later.

3) They spent $4,000 on parts to rebuild the T-5.  I complained that $4K was
more than a brand new T-5.  They said, "What do you care?  It's covered
under your warranty."

They had the car for over a month while they waited on the parts for the
transmission.  That's what I cared.  I couldn't get the car back either.
The tranny guts were all over the place.

A year later, Ford closed the dealership down - due to too many complaints.


-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of boyd casey
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 4:42 PM
To: Jim Hendrickson
Cc: JDeRyke at aol.com; detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] NPT, Toyota Dealer Rip Off

 I was in the retail automobile business for over 25 years and started
as a sales person and ending as a General manager.
The srvice writers ( the guy or gal that writes you up when you come
into service is on commision and is also guaged on how much the can
"up sell a customer" That's one of the reasons dealers give free state
inspections. Any service writer worth their salt can take a state
inspection and turn it into a few hundred dollars by " selling " High
margin jobs (like rotating tires ) Any place that has oil change
specials will always try to "upgrade" the customer to a "better
filter" better oil"
In fact if you were a service writer and you did not sucesfully
upgrade the service tickets would not have a job for long. In fairness
to dealers most people don't realize how much the overhead is to
maintain a new car franchise. I will say this in spite of the fact
that I was in the business I never have had my cars serviced at the
dealer unless 1. It was warranty work, or 2. It was a complex car that
a run of the mill shop is not going to be able to work on ( Like my
Jaguar XK8 )  I had my 911 serviced at an independent  but he was a
porsche specialist who had been trained by porsche and had worked at
Porsche for many years ( and he charged almost as much as the Porsche
dealer!)

Boyd

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Jim Hendrickson<chendric at bellsouth.net>
wrote:
>
>
>
> Jack,
>
> I thought the way the mechanics were able to make a good living was by
being
> able to beat the "Flat Rates Manual" times. Do some stealerships still
have
> the mechanics getting commissions on parts?
>
> Jim #04091
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com]
On
> Behalf Of JDeRyke at aol.com
> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 4:09 PM
> To: Pantdino at aol.com; detomaso at realbig.com
> Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] NPT,  Toyota Dealer Rip Off
>
> Most owners know this, but it's not the cost of the coolant; any dealer's
> labor rate is around $85/hr and it doesn't matter a great deal if the
> mechanic's emptying the ash tray or re-torquing headbolts during that
hour.
> His
> guys work to the sacred 'flat-rate' book for all jobs, and much of the
time,
>
> average mechanics cannot do jobs as quick as the book says, so there's a
> 'little' extra mark-up on dealer's parts prices to fill in.....
> Which is why I recommend you all at least become familiar with your
> machines and what they require, even if you then choose not to get dirty
> yourself.
> Being young & poor when I started, I chose to do everything myself (no
> choice, really). And that attitude hasn't changed over the years. FWIW- J
> Deryke
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