Funny how car maintenance works

[nats]

Hi,
I work for a Import Car Dealership in Victoria. In our shop we have one apprentice at a time and one lube tech, the rest are factory trained mechanics. Are door rate is close to $100.00 an hour. Sometimes when you go to a generic service centre you will have a cheap labour person working on your car, and the magority of the time they will not have the proper diognotics and will use cheap aftermarket parts. We had a lady in a while back wanting her car fixed. When we told her what it would cost she called us every bad name in the book and she took her car elsewhere. A few days later she was back, because the service centre she took it to put the wrong parts in her car and caused major damage to her engine. They would not take responsiblity for the damage. So in this case it cost her alot more.
You should be able to take your car to any licenced service facility to perform general maintence with out affecting you warranty as long as you keep the records. Just my two cents

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by nats

Hi,
I work for a Import Car Dealership in Victoria.

which one you work at Nats?

Steve

[lorenz0]

Oh wow lol so much hate on a dealership. Personally i am an apprentice at mazda and trust me when i say this, depending on the car depends on what needs to be done.

But I am suprised about the transfercase. With only 50,000km's it should be under warrenty. But this is where a dealership can get you. If you do not have major services (in other works, the fancy oil changes that cost you $500) the dealership will void your warrenty. With some of the things I have seen in the trade I don't trust anyone with my personal car except 3 of my tech friends who help me out. Just seeing how much every thing costs is insane. But i have had my manager void a few warrenty's because of people actually not servicing their cars at all. for instance i had a cx-7 that never had its oil changed in 1 1/2 years. you can imagine how that was.

If you have had all your services done, i would go talk to the service manager cause that transfercase should be covered under your driveline warrenty.

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

HOLLY CRAP !!!!!! A good Synthetic 75w140 should be $12-16 If I remeber correctly. Thats outrageous. And they charged $371 for labour. Holly crap. How slow was that Mechanic???
Did I say Holly Crap???

Every job should have a paid rate. so what ever job those were thats how much they cost in labour. for all you know a job that pays out 3 hours could be done in 45min.

[banditpowdercoat]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

Oh wow lol so much hate on a dealership. Personally i am an apprentice at mazda and trust me when i say this, depending on the car depends on what needs to be done.

But I am suprised about the transfercase. With only 50,000km's it should be under warrenty. But this is where a dealership can get you. If you do not have major services (in other works, the fancy oil changes that cost you $500) the dealership will void your warrenty. With some of the things I have seen in the trade I don't trust anyone with my personal car except 3 of my tech friends who help me out. Just seeing how much every thing costs is insane. But i have had my manager void a few warrenty's because of people actually not servicing their cars at all. for instance i had a cx-7 that never had its oil changed in 1 1/2 years. you can imagine how that was.

If you have had all your services done, i would go talk to the service manager cause that transfercase should be covered under your driveline warrenty.



Every job should have a paid rate. so what ever job those were thats how much they cost in labour. for all you know a job that pays out 3 hours could be done in 45min.

Soo, It's OK to charge 3 hrs for a job that takes 45 min because Some BOOK says thats the price??? Thats Freakin BS right there. one of the reasons I hate Stealerships.

[lorenz0]

I don't think its ok at times but thats how flat rate works. All depends on how good you are at the job. Like for me i can replace a auto transmission in 8 hours (and thats being slow) when another apprentice takes 2 days. Trust me would you rather take the chance and pay hourly and either get someone who is fast or someone who is slow or pay the fixed rate.

Also depending on the job sometimes diagnose is in the fixed rate

I think the OP got ripped off

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

If you have had all your services done, i would go talk to the service manager cause that transfercase should be covered under your driveline warrenty.



Every job should have a paid rate. so what ever job those were thats how much they cost in labour. for all you know a job that pays out 3 hours could be done in 45min.

My warranty isn't void and I have had all my regular maintenance (oil changes etc.) done and up to date. My 5 year warranty (whatever that covers) isn't up until July 2009. I asked the dealership if the transfer case was covered under my warranty and they said no. However the dealership I brought my jeep to is the one close to where I live, it's not the dealership I bought my jeep from.

I agree with the idea of fixed rates for services. It would of been nice to know that this costs this much to fix and that's it. Not this costs this much plus however long it takes to do it.