You Are Responsible For The Health Of Your Car

Most people will agree that cars today require far less maintenance than they used to. Oil changes go past 5,000 miles, spark plugs are only every 100,000 miles or so, tune ups are all but gone, and cars even tell you if you have a low tire. While this is great it has led to a general feeling that you never have to worry about anything about your car but this is far from the truth! We still need to pay attention to our cars and in the end, it's you, the owner, that's responsible for it's health. Heeding some of the advice listed below will not only make your car more reliable, but it will also allow you to get to know more about how it works.

Check Your Oil Regularly

Many people assume new cars don't consume oil when in fact, across all makes, oil consumption warranty claims are on the rise. Mix the higher oil consumption rates with extremely long oil change intervals and people soon find their cars running out of oil! In pretty much every owners manual it recommends you check your oil every thousand miles. It's not a lot to ask since for most folks that's only once a month, and it could save you some serious trouble down the road.

Check Your Tires

All new cars are now required to have a tire pressure monitoring system that warns you if one of your tires is getting low. These systems are not fool proof however and it would be wise to know how they work, what their limitations are, and how to check the pressures yourself. Doing this while you're checking your oil is a good idea. If you find a tire consistently loosing a couple pounds per month you can get it checked and repaired before it leaves you stranded. Pay attention to the tread depth while you're doing this so you can plan early for the rather expensive tire replacement down the road.

Know How To Change A Tire

This one comes up so often these days. Yes, getting a flat and having to put on a spare on the side of the road, in the summer, in nice clothes sucks so very bad, but getting a flat in a place where you have no cell phone signal and you don't know what to do is MUCH worse! I have family in West Texas and there is a good chunk of I-10 where I lose reception. Picture getting a flat in the high desert, in 120 degree heat, with no ability to call for help. Not a pleasant thought is it? Go learn how to change a tire, please......

Open The Hood And Have A Look

Ok, sure, you most likely will not know what you're looking at but that's not the point. Checking under the hood will give you heads up if you're about to have car trouble. Things like oil leaks, power steering leaks, and coolant leaks are all obvious things to look for but there's more to see under there. Every cold snap we get a surge of people with strange electrical issues, bad smells, and check engine lights and the first thing I do is pop the hood of their car and see rodent droppings, nests and chewed up wiring. Most of the time it's pretty obvious the critter has been living in the car for quite some time and had the owner simply checked under the hood they could have saved a hefty repair bill.

We're now more than a generation beyond the time where a car's owner needed to know how to do all these things so don't feel dumb if you need someone to show you how to do the checks I listed above. Since the lives of most technicians, mechanics, and advisers would be easier if folks knew more about the cars they are driving you shouldn't have any trouble finding someone to happily take a few minutes to show you how to keep a better eye on your car.

5 Things You Should Know About How a Service Department Works

I've worked on a service drive for over 5 years now, and have found the biggest reason for unhappy customers is a lack of understanding on how the system works. This is not a knock on our customers, they shouldn't be expected to know everything about the process. It's our job as advisers to help them understand the things they need to know. Here is a list of five things customers should know about a service department:

Appointments

This is the biggest source of friction between advisers and customers. An appointment is simply a way for the service department to control how many cars are checked in on a given day. It does not mean there is a technician waiting, with tools in hand, for you to arrive. It would make all our lives much easier if it worked like that but it simply cannot and here is why:

Even though a customer will typically give us an idea of what is going on with their car, we really cannot know just how long the diagnosis and repair will take. Will your air conditioning problem be a 1.5 hour evacuate and recharge and check for leaks, or will it be a 6 plus hour evaporator replacement? My dealership averages about 50 cars a day, not including express oil changes, so if repairs on that day's cars takes even an hour longer each it causes enormous delays. This means that even though you have a 10am appointment, the 20 cars that have gone into the shop since we opened may have taken more than doubled the time they were expected to, and now your car won't be looked at till much later in the day.

Honesty

This is a tough one. Nobody likes to be taken advantage of, and since most customers don't know much about cars it is easy for them to think someone is trying to profit from their ignorance. When an adviser is telling you that your car, that seems to be running fine, needs over a thousand dollars of work it's understandable to be skeptical. Something I wish more customers would do is ask us to bring them into the shop and show them why we are recommending a repair. It builds trust in me, it allows the customer to learn more about their car, and it helps justify the costs when they actually see what needs to be done. If you, as a customer, don't believe what you are being told, have the adviser show you the issue, and if you still don't feel right get a second opinion.

Diagnostic Charges

Dealerships charge to diagnose a problem to protect their most valuable assets, the technicians. A technician is constantly going to expensive training to learn about the cars they work on and it never ends. We have a few at my dealership that have been doing this for over 20 years and they still go for week long training stints out of town. They do this so they can be an expert on finding out what's wrong with a car. Anyone, with enough time and tools, can replace most parts of a car. It takes a professional to know which part actually needs to be replaced in the first place! There are a lot of people that do their own repairs as well as independent shops that work on all makes that call on us to help them find the problem. The diagnostic charges cover the factory trained technician's time and effort for finding the problem for you. Most places will waive the charges if you have them do the work.

Warranty Work

I've met a number of people that think the dealership is financially responsible for warranty repairs. This is absolutely not true! The manufacturer pays the dealership for any and all warranty charges as part of the franchise agreement. It's a free repair to the customer and we still get paid to do it. It's a win-win situation! So why do some repairs get declined? Advisers hate telling a customer the repair won't be covered but we must be honest with the manufacturer just like we are with you. If your kid jumps on the center console and breaks it, then it wasn't a defect, so it's not going to be warrantied.

Mistakes

Advisers are human, techs are human, and our customers are human. This means mistakes will happen, a car won't be fixed correctly, and it makes for a very unhappy customer. We understand we will make these mistakes, and all we really want when we do is to have a chance to make it right. Please, if you're a customer and something doesn't go right, calmly talk to your adviser or the manager and give them a chance to make you happy. We know it's frustrating to spend a lot of money only to pick up your car and the problem wasn't resolved, and a good repair shop will take care of you. Some of my best customers are ones where we didn't do something right and it upset them. We earned their loyalty by taking responsibility and dealing with the mistake.