Have dealership service depts gone downhill lately, or...
...or is it just the dealers here in Tulsa that are so lousy? I hope things are better elsewhere!
I always took my Toyota to the dealerships for regular maintenance, but after it had about 125,000 miles on it, suddenly the dealers would report leak after leak after leak of various components. After shelling out a couple grand, I finally got fed up when one of the service managers informed me I had yet another leak and needed a new timing chain cover gasket to the tune of $2600 (or was it $2800, I forget). I took it to an independent shop and their mechanic found that 3 of the cover bolts were loose! He tightened them, washed the area, test drove it and confirmed there was no more leak. No charge for that repair, since I was having some other stuff done at the same time.
Now today I was visiting with my buddy; he and his wife have 3 Ford diesel pickups (F350,F450) for their hotshot business, and says he is completely fed up with every Ford dealer in the metro! In the latest encounter with dealer service, the check engine light was on and some sort of oil leak was evident. The diagnosis: need a differential seal and some DEF system part he'd never heard of, total cost (IIRC) would be $9,000 and there was a week-long wait for parts. They needed the truck sooner (a 2nd one was in the shop awaiting a fuel pump but 90,000 pumps are backordered nationwide, plus needing a new engine due to a cracked cylinder wall). So they took it to an independent diesel shop out of town (in Muskogee), a small but busy place. There, instead of $9,000, the mechanic showed him the cause of the leak: the differential fill plug was hanging on by just one thread! And the check engine light was due to low turbo coolant; the factory had failed to install some brackets that are supposed to hold some fluid lines away from a part of the radiator, causing rubbing and a hole which let coolant escape. Total repair cost was $680 and the truck was quickly back on the road. So now he's pulled the one with the bad engine out from the dealer and it is awaiting a 'second opinion' in Muskogee as well. This would be their second engine replacement in the past 2 years for 2016 model year trucks (but they do run a ton of miles).
It seems like (in our opinion) these dealer service departments in our metro area seem to be plagued with a combination of problems including incompetence, a mentality of "let's throw expensive parts at it and see what happens," and service advisors working on commission who have an incentive to sell fixes for nonexistent problems. I was wondering if others are seeing similar problems in other cities?
I always took my Toyota to the dealerships for regular maintenance, but after it had about 125,000 miles on it, suddenly the dealers would report leak after leak after leak of various components. After shelling out a couple grand, I finally got fed up when one of the service managers informed me I had yet another leak and needed a new timing chain cover gasket to the tune of $2600 (or was it $2800, I forget). I took it to an independent shop and their mechanic found that 3 of the cover bolts were loose! He tightened them, washed the area, test drove it and confirmed there was no more leak. No charge for that repair, since I was having some other stuff done at the same time.
Now today I was visiting with my buddy; he and his wife have 3 Ford diesel pickups (F350,F450) for their hotshot business, and says he is completely fed up with every Ford dealer in the metro! In the latest encounter with dealer service, the check engine light was on and some sort of oil leak was evident. The diagnosis: need a differential seal and some DEF system part he'd never heard of, total cost (IIRC) would be $9,000 and there was a week-long wait for parts. They needed the truck sooner (a 2nd one was in the shop awaiting a fuel pump but 90,000 pumps are backordered nationwide, plus needing a new engine due to a cracked cylinder wall). So they took it to an independent diesel shop out of town (in Muskogee), a small but busy place. There, instead of $9,000, the mechanic showed him the cause of the leak: the differential fill plug was hanging on by just one thread! And the check engine light was due to low turbo coolant; the factory had failed to install some brackets that are supposed to hold some fluid lines away from a part of the radiator, causing rubbing and a hole which let coolant escape. Total repair cost was $680 and the truck was quickly back on the road. So now he's pulled the one with the bad engine out from the dealer and it is awaiting a 'second opinion' in Muskogee as well. This would be their second engine replacement in the past 2 years for 2016 model year trucks (but they do run a ton of miles).
It seems like (in our opinion) these dealer service departments in our metro area seem to be plagued with a combination of problems including incompetence, a mentality of "let's throw expensive parts at it and see what happens," and service advisors working on commission who have an incentive to sell fixes for nonexistent problems. I was wondering if others are seeing similar problems in other cities?