is there a such thing

[Jason Glavich]

As an honest and capable car dealership? Between Ford and VW I have lost all faith in people doing the right thing. Ford has been unable to fix my truck for 2 years, they actually have no idea what is wrong with it. And now VW replaces the headliner, done lights, sun roof switch and fries the PCM and now the dome lights wont work. They claim is wasn't there fault, even though they never disconnected the battery, which resulted in the toasting of the PCM. I am so sick of the scams that go on there, from the outragous quotes for simple repairs to the quotes for repairs on items that do not need replaced.

[Didley]

I worked at Hill Kelly Jeep and Dodge in Pensacola, FL. They are one of the largest dealerships in car city. I worked there 3 weeks before I quit.

Car salesman are some of the slimiest, disgraceful human beings I've ever met.

Quick story:

When a used car is put on the lot, the price is put on the car in between the month and year that it came in. So if a car was 17,900 and came onto the lot March of 2007 it would read: 031790007 on the tag.

I was new so I was shadowing one of the senior guys during a sale (ironically, this is also a guy that sold me a car a few months earlier). The guy asked about the price and he told him it $xxxxx. I didn't at this time know how the pricing on the cars worked so didn't know anything was up. Well, the guy ended up selling the car after the dealership came down $4000.

After the sale, he starts bragging to me how the price they ended up selling the car for was the price that was ON THE STICKER. He told the guy the car cost $4000 more than what was listed so when they started negotiating price, he could go down $4000 before even touching his commission (they made 50% of whatever the dealership made on the car for used cars).

I told him that was wrong and he told me I just hadn't done it long enough. Sorry, but I can't lie to people to make a living. Quit shortly thereafter. Who knows how badly he ripped me off when I bought my car (used).

I know you're talking about the maintenance side so here's another story:

My dad bought a brand new Titan from the Nissan dealership there in Pensacola. On our way to the shooting range he fishtailed and ended up hitting a tree, damaging the front end rather badly.

They take it into the dealership to have the body work done. They call him a week or so later and tell him it's ready. He gets there and nothing is aligned properly, there's still dents in the hood, etc etc... Tells him he's not accepting it. Few more days go by, they call again and it's ready. He goes there and still a bunch of issues. Doesn't accept. Few days later, he gets a call again saying that it's ready. Nope... he's pretty pissed by this time as he's been without his truck and he's wasted days of work coming to the dealership only to find out they haven't fixed it yet. He demands that a manager come out and takes a grease pen to the truck and starts circling all the issues, drawing arrows where things are still dented and misaligned.

Finally, after he gets a manager and another 4 or 5 days go by, he gets a call that it's ready. He goes to pick it up and it actually looks like it should. Hops in and can smell this nasty strawberry air freshener that someone poured into the truck because they'd been smoking in it the whole time.

Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't start shooting people. He was so fed up at that point that he just left with the truck and shampooed it himself to get the smell out.

[BonMallari]

my biggest beef with auto maintenance is the so called "book of costs" ...my Nissan Pathfinder needed a front end alignment after a female friend decided to run it into a snowbank last winter....so I take it to a Firestone repair center and they quote me 89.95, so what choice do I have ,don't want to drive around and ruin a new set of tires, so I say go for it...sit down in the waiting area,break open the laptop expecting an hour long wait...15 minutes later I see my pathfinder driving by on the road and pulling up front and its done...they even showed me the computer printout for the before and after, steering wheel straight and no pull to either side...but 90 bucks for a 15 minute piece of work WTH,are you kidding me...

I ask to speak with the service mgr and he explains that the alignment job is rated for X amount of labor, and I get charged that no matter if the job takes 15 minutes or one hour..so basically while the mechanic is working on the next car, he is getting paid by my labor estimate and also the one that he is working on too

Whatever happened to the neighborhood mechanic that would basically make up his own rate and take care of his regular customers and repeat business, we had a guy like that in my home town , he took care of my brother's cars, my mom's car, and eventually my car...He actually ran a SERVICE station, even pumped gas for the ladies,dropped the Enco label when they got taken over and just named the place after himself..even during the days of gas rationing, if you needed gas he pumped it no matter if your license plates were odd/even..just don't make those kinds of SERVICE stations anymore

[Jason Glavich]

I also have the boday shop issue, 4 times they tried to fix their mistakes, I took the car called the insurance they agreed to fix the shops mistakes, same insuarance that was paying(not mine). New estimate comes in 3 times the original to fix the bad work that was done. I am still fighting that one out as well.

If i added in my granite guys and my other issues with peoples worksmanship I could write a damn book at this point.

[Didley]

IMO, find a good mechanic/body shop and use them forever. Dealerships are bad places for business period.

[LokiMeister]

At least a dealer will get the job done right the first time. I had an Outback that I took to a high school classmate that couldn't get it fixed because of incompetence and the mere fact that they aren't allowed the proprietary information on the car. After being at the place about 20 times, I finally just sold the car.

[Gerry Clinchy]

Since my son has been an auto mechanic since he was 15, I can say you are correct most of the time. With the sophistication in newer cars, being a good auto mechanic is not a piece of cake anymore.

Add to that the fact that most of them end up with arthritis in their hands by the time they're in their 40s. Also can sometimes be a downright dangerous job. And in the dealerships the mechanics are getting far less per hour than the dealer is charging you ... so they do try and do a job faster than the book rate. As long as they do the job right, I don't mind a shorter wait for the car.

He is now a technical specialist for Toyota. Visits dealerships and finds the answers their mechanics can't. Also testifies in "lemon" hearings.

However, I'll be getting my new tires from a local shop (where my son once worked) because they took the time to discuss the tire options with me, while the dealer just puts on the same Bridgestones. I'll pay a little more for these tires, but I should be getting better performance and more miles out of them.

[Jason Glavich]

At least a dealer will get the job done right the first time. I had an Outback that I took to a high school classmate that couldn't get it fixed because of incompetence and the mere fact that they aren't allowed the proprietary information on the car. After being at the place about 20 times, I finally just sold the car.

100 days in shop, my dealership hasnt fixed anything except a window and a plug in the tire. All of my issues are from a dealership. Ford cannot even fathom what is wrong nor can 3 of their engineers who spent weeks trying to figure it out.