So, about the car

[cjsmith]

I dropped my car off late Friday night to be serviced Saturday morning. They kept it until today. Get this:

They. Don't. Know. What's. Wrong.

They recharged the A/C and couldn't find the leak. To be fair, I think they did try... but when this is the third time in a row I've brought this car to this place and had a repair either NOT DONE or NOT SUCCESSFUL, "try" becomes a poor choice.

Now there's dye in the system; when it fails again, as it is expected to do, they're hoping that will pinpoint the leak. Fine. My only question to myself is how many more times I'm going to be willing to go back to this place in the hopes that the repair will eventually materialize.

They did fix the headlight I asked them to fix. I could've done it, sure, but now that's one errand I won't have to do.

They didn't scrape the glaze off my brake rotors, as I asked. So they're one for three.

What makes this all especially annoying is that this place used to be good. It really did. I have a ten-year history with them. Only in the last year have they started to be such incompetent lazybutts. I'm thinking of sending a brief outline of my service history to the manager with an explanation of why I can't justify continuing to give them my business.

It's sad when a good place falls down.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Agreed, leaks are indeed hard to find. On the other hand, two or three weeks ago I just paid these guys almost eight hundred dollars to fix what was then a much worse A/C problem, and they replaced just about every part in the system. So it's not like they can say it's old. And they did have the thing for nearly four days. They couldn't run it themselves with dye in it?

(I wonder if there is some kind of rule against them driving the car off their own property without me in it. But it's not like their property's small.)

The rotors were new last year, so I sure hope they're not too thin. The form had no statement about measuring them, anyways. This time I think they just blew me off.

One thing about this place is that you get a different "service representative" each time you go in. It's luck of the draw. Some of 'em are good and some... well... aren't. Wonder if I can be annoying enough to make sure I always get a good representative each time. That might solve all the problems right there.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I agree that somebody should have been able to find the problem with the A/C before this. It's possible that one of the new items has a manufacturing defect, which is the cause of your slow leak. It's also possible someone cut the edge of an o-ring when assembling things.

Sounds like they just blew it on the brake rotors.

Service reps are a chancy lot. During my six years as a dealership mechanic, they were the source of most of my headaches. You might try talking directly to the Service Manager, if there is such a person.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the value of service reps is supposed to be. I guess they free up the mechanics to spend more time with cars. Are they supposed to do anything else useful, like make sure the customer is happy, or double check some details, or something? I suppose around here they're useful for translating. My Spanish is just not up to snuff.

There is indeed a Service Manager. When I bring the car back with (hopefully) dye all over its innards I'll ask to talk to him, let him know the recent history, let him know politely that taking my car to them hasn't been great lately. I'm not big shakes for him, but if he's losing one customer he may be losing more.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Service reps are supposed to be a buffer between the customer and the line mechanic. It's an idea that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. While it's probably a smart thing to have somebody who is well spoken and literate for the customer to interact with, the assumption that the line mechanic is neither is, honestly, pretty annoying. When I was working in the Ford dealership I was also a university physics student, and probably the most adept communicator in the garage with the possible exception of the Service Manager.

If the Service Manager is worth a damn, he'll pay attention to you. You might want to write him a letter now, so he reads it before you come back. Offer a contact number in it, so he can call you if he wants to talk about the issues.