Mopar Dealer Service Department - Am I Correct To Be Pissed Off???

[Mark Barnes]

Pants, meet ankles....

 

[moparwacko]

I love my small hometown dealer, known them personally for over 30+ years. I stopped there last week to "assist" my daughter buying a new Grand Cherokee. Long story, but she owned 19 Durango ( purchased elsewhere) and when getting groceries out the dog jumped on the switch and locked himself in. 90+ degree day and no spare keys (divorce thing). I called the Service Mgr., and within 15 minutes had a key cut and he came personally to rescue the dog. That's service!.
Next part of the story:
My 2011 2500 Ram, felt like it was in 4wd when turning - bad front axle U joints. I asked him about how much to do the job. He just quietly said, do it yourself. Also figure on wheel bearings(hub units), ball joints, etc.
Around $2500 if they do it.
$750 in parts - including new brake rotors and pads and it's done. Not a fun job.
The only negative thing I can say about them is they are overwhelmed and can't handle the volume. If you take your vehicle there with 3 items, they get 2 and have to reschedule. Otherwise, great people.

 

[Slap Stick]

There was no payment made.
When I went to pick up my truck I asked about the diagnostic fee pending receipt of the parts and the Service Advisor waved me off.

Ha ha! Let em eat the cost of the parts. When they call to tell you the parts are in tell em why you won't need their kind of "service".

 

[multimopes]

I had an air bag warning light lit but no code on my old 99 Ram pick-up. (I could not read anything with my older, limited scan tool). Several local shops couldn't read it either. I called a dealer who said they would read it for $95 an hour and they were 20 miles away. Luckily, I found one local shop who plugged in his tool for free. This took about 3 minutes to do without an appointment. All it did was confirm it was what I suspected, the clock spring in the steering wheel. I read somewhere that Mopar dealerships were not being reimbursed by the company for warranty work & that's why they inflate prices for work so much.

 

[Charged440]

I keep getting calls about the air bag recall and knowing how poorly they get paid for that, I'm sure they will have the porter do the job thereby rendering the airbags completely inoperable.

 

[68BabyBlue]

I love my small hometown dealer, known them personally for over 30+ years. I stopped there last week to "assist" my daughter buying a new Grand Cherokee. Long story, but she owned 19 Durango ( purchased elsewhere) and when getting groceries out the dog jumped on the switch and locked himself in. 90+ degree day and no spare keys (divorce thing). I called the Service Mgr., and within 15 minutes had a key cut and he came personally to rescue the dog. That's service!.
Next part of the story:
My 2011 2500 Ram, felt like it was in 4wd when turning - bad front axle U joints. I asked him about how much to do the job. He just quietly said, do it yourself. Also figure on wheel bearings(hub units), ball joints, etc.
Around $2500 if they do it.
$750 in parts - including new brake rotors and pads and it's done. Not a fun job.
The only negative thing I can say about them is they are overwhelmed and can't handle the volume. If you take your vehicle there with 3 items, they get 2 and have to reschedule. Otherwise, great people.

My family had similar experience with Clark Motor Company, the Plymouth dealership in State College back in the day. Made me a Mopar guy for sure. But even then, the folks that bought new cars with warranty went to the head of the line. I did okay there, but I was still second tier, with my old GTX, two years out of warranty. Nowadays, I use an independent shop for 90% of the work on my daily drivers. Same for my big truck, with the exception of a factory cat shop for engine work, done well there. Guy who loads my truck these days worked as a tech in new car dealerships for a decade, stories he tells aren't pretty.

 

[Darius]

At least they even communicate with you! My wife had some issue with loss of power on her 2019 Jeep Cherokee.She just happened to be right at the freeway exit for one of the local stealers. This was a Saturday so she fills out the "early b bird" envelope and leaves the car and key there. DAYS go by with NO call. She calls and they tell her there are so many "APPOINTMENTS" ahead of her to will probably be next week until they can even look at it. She calls them back and they now say they don't know when they will have "special technician" available to look at its. WE had to call every time. I will be going there Monday to get the jeep from them as I made an "APPOINTMENT" with a different dealer for a broke down car under factory warranty and they say they can get me right in! We shall see what fuckery THIS dealer comes up with.

 

[multimopes]

Wow! That's a horror story! You should put the story in the local papers to show them your appreciation!

 

[69a100]

Cancel any payment, start your complaint with the owner, and move on to the zone rep's and directly to Chrysler or whatever it's called this week. I call it fraud, not service.

Only if he has a written estimate from the dealer with the bottom line repair price, otherwise it's all lip service and won't go anywhere in a Court of Law!

 

[Budnicks]

Glad you found a cheaper more qualified person to repair it
a good local experienced automotive glass co.
fixed it for 1/5th or 1/4 the price

I'd be pissed sort of too, waste of time
good thing you didn't pay anything for it too...

It's exactly what gives dealership service a bad name
service is way overpriced too

Not all dealerships are equal
some are very good, some suck ***
(unfortunately, the latter is getting to be the new norm)
My old buss. facility management
I've been dealing with dealership managers & dept. heads
for over 35+ years
it's a total crapshoot, which are good & which aren't...

I know some great service writers,
some great Service dept. heads/managers too
I know some real douches too, just in it for the paycheck
horrid communicators or dealing with the public
shouldn't be in that job...

Usually, the Tech that becomes a Service writer
or service writers/dept. heads
are good knowledgeable people or they wouldn't be there

And then;
there's the guys/gals that get the job
for just being there for a long time, not truly qualified
some are just not good communicators or total BS'rs
& are in it for the bottom line for their dept.
$$$ drives the whole deal...

a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch

 

[Dennis H]

What is the name of this Dealer-Whore of the month?

I wouldn’t let them change the oil let alone solve a problem.

 

[Richard Davis]

With anything that breaks I automatically hit the Internet for advice. I had a Mec E320 and the window failed on it as well. Went to the Merc forum and discovered it was a common problem. Ordered the part and did a DIY. Later, I had the car in for a 100k mile service and another power window failed. The repair place wanted $1k. I think repair places always overcharge for things. Now I'm building my own house and learning how much profit Builders make.

 

[MoparLeo]

Not sure about other states but in California the B.A.R. requires at the time of writing the work order that you have the option of requesting your old parts.
If you make sure to ask for the old parts many times the actual repair, if they even do it will be much less than estimated.
If you don't do this they know that you can't prove any parts were actually replaced and/or even needed.

 

[Purepony]

The cables jump out the track it seems like a hard repair but pretty easy. I fixed the one on my f150 for 45 dollars, the part was from eBay abd took like 1.5 hours to install the first time without experience

 

[ckessel]

As an ex dealer employee, parts dept for me, the places vary from being great/honest to thievery. It depends on who owns it, who the general manager is and who the service manager is. If they only care about bottom line and max profit, you're toast. One I worked at in Escondido was great until they booted the service manager because he didn't want to screw his tech's or the customers. Because of him they had a full cycle on the vehicles from buying new to doing ALL the service work, not just warranty, to time to turn it in for a new one. When the owners kids were coming into the picture, it was max profit by any means so he got booted. That place has never been the same. They lost quite a few tech's who had been there 15+ years but finally stopped the madness before they lost all. Its still not the same. On the window repairs, the factory only supplies certain items as large assemblies. The glass company probably has a supplier for high wear items, like that guide, that you can't get separately from the dealer plus they may not know about it. Cable type regulators cannot be skimped on as the cable stretches and anything it runs on gets worn too making it so all items need replacing. Its also a wise idea to replace the motor, if the reg comes separate from it as it may croak sometime after the reg has been replaced. If the writer has their **** together they should give the option to do both to the customer so the customer makes the command decision on how it goes.

 

[Ron H]

Yep – been there as well with dealers. Couple involved power windows. Every time the story was the regulator had to be replaced...and every time I did the repairs or replacement myself. “They can’t be repaired they come as an assembly”. With my ‘97 Ram it was a nylon roller that wore down and jumped off the channel. “Nope, we don’t stock those. Need to replace the entire assembly”. Found some rollers at a GM dealership that were rather close in size; boiled them in water and slipped those on the pin. The parts guy, friend of my brother, didn’t charge me for them. Similar deal with my daughter’s Sonata, wanting to charge a grand. Found a regulator at a boneyard and replaced it for $150. My brother was a mechanic at a couple dealers back when and he got tired of the bullshit with pay scheduling/time for repair work. He changed careers.

My daughters gave me an education of how people that have no idea can be ripped off on auto repairs. They’d call me when trying to have work done telling me what the place wanted to do and charge them. Sometimes I’d end up doing the work or steer them (a pun hey) elsewhere. My youngest lived in Miami for a while. A shop wanted $180 to change the cabin filters. I said I’ll do it when you’re here (she was led to believe this was important to do right away, aha). Cost $25 for new filters and taking the glove box out to get to them. I have two mechanics I’ve known for eons that own their shops and they do work I don’t do anymore or can't do. I’ve advised my kids to look for a reliable place in their area as dad won’t be around forever…

 

[Dennis H]

Still don’t know the OP’s Dealer. If I roll in with one of my modern Mopars i gotta get screwed too. Thread did no good.