And if Lobsang is still living on the Isle of Man, how long can that take 
It is true, there are many bad shops out there-and a lot of incompetents masquerading as mechanics. WE have a very good guy, who does reliable work, and is lawys below the times estimated for repairs. This guy is a family friend, and has never cheated us.
On the other hand, my wife went to a guy who almost destryed her car (left a critical partoff)-how he stays in business i have no idea.
You need to talk to people-word of mouth is a good way to find a good shop.
Oh, and jaguars are VERY complicated cars 9as you no doubt know)-they require frequent mainatanence, and do not like it when neglected. That said, many Jag owners get well over 150,000 miles…provided they follow the factory maintainence to the “T”-they are not japanese cars, that you can run for quite a while by neglecting them.
I find that main dealers are the biggest shysters out. I had a dead rear wiper motor on my Ford Focus, and before I got the bastard back from the Ford garage, I was out more than £600. Similarly when I responded to a “have us service your car for £100”, I got a £600 bill. (And the cnuts never credited me my nectar points for these transactions, despite following up three times.)
I appreciate using main dealers means they’ll do a good job and use the best components, but a) they charge per the hour for even one minute’s work, b) their hourly charge is shocking, and finally c) I don’t care about the car enough to have to have an original component fitted.
The next time I needed an MOT, I avoided them and found an alleyway-style mechanic near my house, and not only did he do the minor bulb replacements that were needed to get it through the test, without failing it and trying for the retest fee, he didn’t want to charge me for them either. I insisted and bunged him a few quid. As a result, every time there’s something wrong I go back to this guy and I always get great service and results, for a good price. And I recommend him to everyone, and everyone has received similar service.
In other words, word of mouth.
If you are not satisfied with a repair job, take it back to the shop that did the repair. Discuss your dissatisfaction and explain what you had expected. Give the shop that did the work an honest chance to resolve your problem. DON’T take it to some other shop and expect them to defend the shop who did the original repair; the new shop wants you to become their customer. If the original shop fails to resolve your problem with one or more efforts, then look for a new shop.
You know, you are right. I dont know why I couldnt see it. All these years, I have been blinded to the reality that us garage workers are scum with only one aim, to fuck all your cars up the exhaust pipe and charge you for it. Thnaks for sharing your typical story that proves this.
(I would apologise for the scarcasm but hey, you seem to think it isnt a valid business model to try and retain a customer base through creating trust and good working relationships, so I wont waste my time)
Heres one for you. In the garages I have worked, both dealership and independant, not one single one of them had their service advisors on commission. Not one. That guy scheduling the work, taking your details, keeping you informed and then processing your invoice? He doesnt get one penny extra for upselling. Instead, he is there to try and make everybodies life a little easier. But hey, go bitch at him if you want, you wont be the first.
You want to know the biggest reason we tell car owners about other faults we might note when a car is in the workshop? Its because of the god-awful bitching that breaks loose if a car leaves a workshop with faults still present. Just picture it. Scenario A. Chappachula has his car in for front brake pads. We notice water dripping behind the wheel. We tell Chappa this. He disgustedly tells us that he checks the water every day and IT JUST ISNT POSSIBLE (been there, done that). Scenario B, we dont tell Chappa we seen water pooling beneath his wheel arch. Two days later his engine boils and Chappa badmouths us around town as rubbish mechanics. Cant win with some people.
Well I won’t apologize for my sarcasm cause frankly I am insulted by his post on the subject. To quote Dick Gregory “How would you like it if tomorrow I came to your job and kicked the shovel out of your hand?”
I just left a job working as a service manager for one of the largest publicly held car dealer groups in the country. The company motto was “Take the High Road” So is that some kind of code for fuck the customer? Gee I must have been sick the day they explained that to us. Or maybe it is another language that you could translate for us.
I can tell you that I wrote off between 3-5 thousand dollars a month in the interest of customer satisfaction. That is pure bottom line profit that I gave up because we took the high road. I had to sign my name to each one of those repair orders, so I was very acquainted with the circumstances of each and ever $ that we wrote off. So what did I get for that money? My customer satisfaction as measured by the car maker was 92% the last month I was there and during my entire tenure there it was never below 88% and always above both industry and the car maker’s national average.*
At the shop where I am working now, the day before yesterday we told a long time customer who’s car has well over 250,000 miles that while we love fixing his car and taking money from him, it was time to send this one away, and look for a new car. Gee I guess I am going to get drummed out of the union cause I didn’t sell him that $3,000 worth of work the car needed.
That customer called us back later that afternoon, and asked just which brands of cars we work on, so he could make sure he bought a vehicle he could get serviced with us.
You forgot two items if you don’t tell Chappa about the leak.
- He accuses you of creating the problem
- He will want you to fix it for free.
*Funny story. A lawyer stopped payment on a $700 check to us because he claimed that we had broken his CD player 2 years earlier when he brought the car in for an oil change. His car at that time was in warranty and any dealer would have fixed it for free. Instead he did nothing until 2 years later when the car was out of warranty and then stopped payment on the check. Not quite a kosher way to handle this.
So I send a demand letter (first step before I could drag his ass into court)
He calls me, and tells me that the car is at a dealer in New Mexico and “Your customer service is so bad, that the dealer in New Mexico knows about it and told my wife they felt sorry for her”
At this point I lost it with this asshole. Here is what I told him
“Sir didn’t they teach you in law school to be sure of your facts before you open your mouth? It just so happens I have on my desk a copy of the latest national ranking of customer satisfaction published by the car maker. I am #12 in the entire country. No dealer in New Mexico is higher than me, in fact I don’t see any New Mexico dealers in the top 100 names on the first sheet. So if any dealer in New Mexico is discussing my CSI they are no doubt wondering how to get theirs has high as mine. Now we have cleared that bullshit out of the way how about my money?”
And yes I did get paid, but I had to sue him and have the marshal serve him.