The Confessions, Rants, & Thoughts of a Dealer Tech (Blog?)

Thanks Eric! Sub'd

 

Well, this should be interesting. Looking forward to your write ups.

 

Looking forward to this. Being a former mechanic at a few dealerships, I look back at some of the stuff that happened, from cars falling off lifts to engines seizing due to lack of oil after an oil change.....

 

Topic #21. Did they actually rotate your tires?​

Did you pay for an oil change/tire rotation service? When you picked up your keys, did the service advisor give you a quote for new tires? Better check to see if that grease monkey rotated your tires. I will bet a dollar they did not (I don’t gamble). I will also bet you still had to pay for that “tire rotation”…Yeah, that crap grinds my gears, and I am sure it does yours as well. But let me explain why this happens (usually), what I witnessed, why I disagree with this common practice, and the best argument for getting your money back on the tire rotation.

This friggin video here: https://youtu.be/gSz7cm6MwH0?si=RQF10bAtwSkD3QNT

Watch the above video for context. This video is what I remembered being used to educate service advisors and technicians on the serious nature of traction from poor tires vs good tires. While at the Toyota dealership, a “wise-guy” technician made the following comment after the video to the Fixed Ops Director (“FOD”): “Should we rotate the customer’s tires if the tread depth difference is significant front to rear?” While a decent question, it churned up a crowd of technicians voicing support for this question like a freaking crowd of concerned citizens at a town hall or HOA board meeting. At year 6 or 7 in my career, I knew these twerps were looking for a loophole. (To be clear, I don’t argue with the message of the video. I take issue with how this message was used.) The FOD caved and decided, for the safety of the customer and to reduce liability of the dealership, that the technicians could be granted the freedom of discretion regarding when it’s safe to rotate tires. Even when it’s requested or listed in the service sold to the customer. Seems like real morally aligned “do-gooders” looking out for your best interests haha.

This “give the technicians freedom of discretion…” turned ugly real quick. Technicians would decide that if your tires had a 3/32” difference front to rear, you weren’t getting your tires rotated. Not if the back tires were bald and the front were new. It could be 16/32”s in the front and 12/32”s in the rear. To make matters worse, the technicians were still paid for the full service, and the customer was still charged for the service. One wise customer spoke up eventually, which prompted the FOD to ask the technicians why they should still get paid for the full service. The techs replied quickly: “We still have to remove the wheels to measure the brake pads.” Total BS, because you know those fools were using flexible mirrors and squinting.

This is the part of the story where my butt got dragged into it. The technicians had not been communicating the lack of tire rotations to the service advisors unless they needed some leverage to sell a set of tires. A wise customer had been suspicious of this and was proactive. This astute customer removed a valve stem cap to keep track of where the wheels were before and after his service. I didn’t know that, and he didn’t know that I keep a bulk supply of valve stem caps in the event my customer is missing one. After he picks up his vehicle, I get called to the service drive and deal with this upset customer. After that fun experience, I gained a loyal customer, and I decided to “lock horns” with the FOD. The outcome: customers did not have to pay for tire rotations if they were recommended new tires and purchased a set. I believe that was the outcome, but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

In my humble opinion, there are very few reasons your tires should not get rotated at a dealership:

1. Your clueless self showed up with aftermarket wheel locks with no key in the glove box or spare tire tool kit. Or the dang key is glued to the bottom of the center console by some jelly rancher, gum, & soda mix…that actually happens
2. Wheels studs are broken off, and you declined new ones.
3. The lug nuts are rounded off, and you declined new ones.
4. You didn’t pay for a tire rotation.

The excuse of “customer’s safety” and reducing the dealership’s liability is a total crock of sheeeeeet. In my opinion, the dealership is released of liability if the technician and service advisor accurately represent the condition of a customer’s tires. As for the customer’s safety, we do not wear capes and save one car or customer at a time. It is my perspective that technicians are always looking for a shortcut or loophole without getting paid less. If the technician and service advisor are presenting you with an accurate measurement of the tire tread depths, then you, the customer, are now burdened with the knowledge and responsibility of what to do with those tires. Take that information seriously and make a safe decision. That is not to say you are alone in that decision-making process. Work with your service advisor on tire quotes or go to Discount Tire, etc, for a second opinion. Unless your tire is flat or the car throws sparks because of the cords you are riding, etc, I believe you have time to go home and sleep on it. Wake up tomorrow and make a game plan to address your worn-out tires.

Here is what I recommend to customers who want to hold the dealership or service shop accountable for tire rotations. Go to Amazon or the local O’Reilly’s, buy a wax tire crayon in white. Crawl under your car, mark each tire in a way that you can track. After each service, double-check your invoice to see if you were charged for a tire rotation. If you were, check your tire chalk marks before you leave the dealership. If they were not rotated, handle that immediately with the service advisor and demand a refund on the tire rotation. If you don’t get a refund, take it up with Toyota Motor Corp (I will go into depth on how to file complaints with Toyota Motor Corp in a later post) or hire an attorney for a breach of contract tort.

Folks, sorry this post came in late on Sunday evening. It was a busy weekend with family and a ½ marathon trail race I competed in. I hope y’all found something helpful in my long-winded diatribe. My goal with this post was to vent about this, educate y’all on when to be leary of it and how to spot it. I believe dealerships should be the best place to get your Lexus or Toyota serviced. However, customers need to be informed and able to hold the dealerships accountable. Accountability matters, and it will eventually lead to improvement.

Thanks for stopping by…

 

Next week, I want to share story #2 - Prius fell off a lift, so we sold him a new Prius.

 

My brother works as a mechanic at a dealership, when we hang out the stories that come out are interesting.

 

In for more great dealership stories.
Thanks for this Eric!

 

I've never had an issue with the tire rotations - every time I've marked a tire I could see that it was rotated. My issues have been with oil changes, back during a period when I lived in an apartment and there was no place for me to change my oil myself. I really think the oil change places go out of their way to hire the dumbest kids available to do oil changes. Fortunately I never had anything cross-threaded, but a few times they left the fill cap off, and a few times they made it so tight that when I could do the next oil change, I was afraid of breaking something when removing the oil drain plug AND the filter. Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with those oil change idiots myself in several years. But now, with my daughter living 7 hours away, I have to help her find somewhere that will take care of the basics. I taught her how, but she doesn't want any part of maintaining her car herself.

 

Appreciate the sharing of war stories, keep em coming!

 

Thanks Eric! The dealership I use tells me when they don't rotate because the fronts were more worn AND they don't charge me for a rotate! I'm so thankful I have a good trustable dealership within an hour's drive. There's another an hour in the opposite direction that is not a place I can trust at all!

 

I'd kill to have that.

What's the good dealership's name? They deserve the praise.

 

Magness Toyota in Harrison AR

 

Howdy from Cabot, AR

 

If you don't mind, share the trusty dealership information in this thread other thread I started (https://www.tundras.com/threads/whi...air-shop-do-you-frequent.162048/#post-3998322). Trying to make a thread for folks to find good dealerships & Toyota specialty repair shops.

 

I had a somewhat opposite experience. I run both summer and winter tires on all my vehicles and swap them myself. I do a rotation at every swap.

I had just done a tire swap shortly before I took my car in for servicing. I asked the service advisor what all was included with the service and when she said the tech would do a rotation, I asked her to ask them not to because I had just rotated the tires as part of my swap.

Went to pick up the car later and was told "the tech noticed your tires were worn so they went ahead and rotated them even though you said not to." Duh. That's why I do the rotation myself.

I ended up having to put my car on jack stands on my parents' driveway in the middle of November so I could rotate the directional winter tires back to their original spots.

I guess maybe they did the rotation so that I wouldn't be able to ask for a discount on the service? Though I didn't say anything to the service advisor about it and the thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

 

Not from working at a dealership years past, as I moved on.., but experience at a Honda dealer. My Ridgeline was being brought back from the body shop for warranty paint repair, and they ran into the back of a dump truck and totaled it.....They were giving me the run around about payout and their insurance company. Oh and no police report. We contacted the owner, well known in the Buffalo,NY area, he was not aware of the situation, replied to us almost immediately, and expedited the payout and more......

 

But the question is did they fix the truck then try to sell it to some other poor, unsuspecting schmuck like a Chevy dealership tried to do to me?

 

Hey KNABORES, we're just over the line on TRL.

 

Will Do!

 

Here's my $0.02. If there was a discrepancy between front and rear, I'd mention it to the customer but still rotate. On 4wd's or vehicles with a major discrepancy (5-6/32) I'd talk to the advisor before rotating, and let them know I advised against it, and wait for word on whether or not the customer said to, but I always told the advisor that if they agreed and didn't want me to rotate, to make sure to remove it from the service. I've seen as little as 3-4/32 cause issues on 4wds, specifically on my Dad's Tacoma.

Basically, to me it comes down to CYA. I got very good at adding to my writeups after the fact to cover my own ass. I'll die on that hill, and it's saved me multiple times at the shops expense. I've got a great story on that one as well.

 

#2 - Prius fell off a lift. So, we sold him a new Prius.​

A 2nd-gen Prius customer was passing through on a road trip, stopped in our dealer on Thursday afternoon, asking for a diagnosis regarding his hybrid system warning light. Usually, I am excited about a diagnosis, but I had a 3-day lake trip planned the next day with my girlfriend (now wife). I don’t like loose ends before a long weekend. Knowing I wouldn’t likely get to see this through, I hurriedly rushed into this diagnosis on the neighboring tech’s vacant lift next to mine. Turned out to be an issue with the inverter, which I had not previously had the experience of tearing into. So, I got some extra diagnostic time approved and dug into things a bit, going late into the evening. I came to a conclusion and recommended an expensive inverter repair/replacement. The details of the diagnosis are a bit fuzzy to me and not relevant. Around 8 pm, I clean up my area, lift the Prius into the air, go home to pack for the weekend, and tell myself I will get into work early to get the Prius off my neighboring tech’s lift.

The next morning, I get a “what the hell” text from my Fixed Operations Director and a photo of that Prius in a less than ideal spot. My stomach dropped, so I hurried to work. I get there to find the GM, Shop Foreman, Fixed Ops Director, and a local tow truck rigging the Prius to lower it safely back down onto all fours. When I left this Prius the night before, it was sitting on the lift with no issues.

The Shop Foreman & GM are scheming with the Service Advisor on how they can wiggle out of this. Turns out my recommended inverter repairs were close to the equal value of the customer’s Prius. So, the GM’s eyes lit up, and he decided to get a salesman to work up an offer that would entice this customer to prefer a new Prius over repairing his old Prius. If the customer accepted the deal, no one had to have the uncomfortable conversation about how we dropped his Prius off a lift 8’ in the air.

At this time, no one had chewed my ass out, and somehow the Shop Foreman decided it was the fault of the young tech who lowered the Prius down that morning. The young tech, getting the blame, claimed that as soon as he started to lower it, the Prius rocked back, and he stopped lowering it. Then the Prius rocked forward, and it went down right onto its nose when the lift settled. I did then and still believe I must have F’ed up lifting the Prius into the air, and the lift arm was not positioned well. The young tech likely bounced the lift on one of the airlocks by accident. Which happens often with no negative consequences.

That young tech hated my guts afterwards and ended up quitting shortly after. Or maybe he got fired. I was not well-liked there.

Anyways, about an hour later, the customer arrived to get his estimate for repairs and took the bait on the new Prius offer from the sales team. I don’t know the details of the offer, but I am sure that made it too sweet to refuse. Later, they covered this guy’s old Prius in fender covers to hide the damage as he transferred his personal items into his new Prius. I hung around for two hours to watch this go down, hoping it would backfire. I was so bitter at this point with this dealership, I wanted their sales ruse to fail. It was a toxic state of mind to be in. I have since let go of my bitterness and have mostly moved on. However, this story runs through my mind occasionally, and it still bothers me that they didn’t tell him the truth. I think this customer would have been understanding and still got a great deal on a new Prius. Maybe I am wrong, and I am overly critical of this situation.

 

I am not off to a great start on consistency with this blog. I had just worked 12 days in a row, I am a new father, and I have marathon training starting to ramp up. Also, I think this Prius story was difficult for me to share because I feel some shame about it. I enjoy this blog process, but it's a bit difficult to share some of my shame.

 

To er is human, to forgive is not in my purview.

We all eff the pooch sometimes bud. It’s par for the course of life. Great, terrible story though. In fact it’s the biggest eff ups that make for the best stories.

 

good story.

I had an incident with my MB E350 when it was about two years old. In took it in for a A service and software update. Their story to me was the garage was full and they did not have any available bays to do the A service so the pulled it in partially under a car on a lift to connect to the computer to do the software update... yeah you can pretty much guess what happened.
The tech working on the car on the lift did not know someone pulled my car under the lift and he lowered the car on the lift and fucked up my hood and passenger fender...

The worst part was noone told the service advisor. the finished the software update then the A service.

the service advisor called to let me know my car was ready for pickup. I had a loaner and dropped it off then went to check the car as I always did in the service drive. I was like WTF.... I went over to my SA and asked what happened and he had no clue. we walked over to my car and he was like WTF...

bottom line it took them three weeks to fix my car and I had a higher level car to drive for the thee weeks and did not have to pay for the service or software update...

I should have pushed for more...

 

Dude. You're doing great.

 

Appreciate the shared stories. Don’t feel obligated to do a weekly write up if life is pulling you other places. We’ll appreciate them whenever you can. As far as this story goes, I honestly think the dealer should have told the customer about the “incident” as that’s what honesty would have looked like. Sounds like they did try to take care of the customer in their own way, so at least they didn’t take the opportunity to punish you, the new tech or the customer for the accident.

 

I'm just curious about standard garage practices (and not trying to blame you in any way) - is it typical to leave cars up on lifts overnight or when otherwise not working on them?

 

I remember those days, being a new father and a tech. I understand your base level of exhaustion, I can't imagine adding training for a marathon. And I'll add this, now that you're older and wiser, you need to learn to forgive yourself. There is no shame in making a mistake, they happen. As long as you learned from it and don't make it again it's alright to forgive yourself.

I've never personally dropped a car, I came close a time or two though. I've seen a pair of Tundra's dropped unfortunately though, both at the last dealer I worked for. There was some fear in our lube techs about the way that the Tundra, being the biggest truck Toyota makes, rocks a little bit on two post above ground lifts. If you do this job long enough, you just get used to it and learn when to trust the equipment and when to set it down and re-rack it. We couldn't get the lubies to understand this though, and they talked management into getting a handful of post jacks to place under the hitches to stabilize the trucks. This became standard practice on all trucks for them. We, as the line techs with more experience, voiced our opinion on the matter, feeling that it wouldn't be a good practice to get into as the trucks were not on the lift for a long time for the lube techs, and that eventually someone would forget to remove the jack.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. First on a pristine first gen Tundra, then about a month later on a second gen. After that, we won out and they weren't allowed to use the pole jacks anymore. I was there and tried yelling a warning on the first gen, but with the noises of work and radios in a busy dealership shop, no one heard.