Dealer service dept.

[abyss]

Just picked up my car from its second service from my local Infiniti dealer where I bought the car. They "replaced" steering column motor again and replaced the fuel pump. My first service experience with the dealer was handled by one of the three service consultants and the woman who handled my service had the attitude like she was doing me a favor. And upon inspection of the work that was done, I was not too impressed with the dealer's performance. This time I dealt with another service writer, and when I picked up my car, he commented to me - what a good service team he has. I said "what do you mean, a service team?" He explained to me that he has a dedicated number of service technicians that work for him. So I asked "Do the other two service writers have their own dedicated technicians also?" And he said yes. I asked him if he also had supervisory authority over his technicians and he replied yes. This became an "ah-ha" moment for me. I asked if this was typically the way most service departments work within new car dealers and he said yes. So I guess my questions are these: Are other board members aware of this? Does your Infiniti dealer operate this way? If this is truly the case throughout the industry, then there is no consistency within the dealer. The quality of the service varies from team to team. I would have to try different teams to see which one was best. There has been many different threads on these boards about dealer service departments and the poor quality of the service that was received by the dealer. In reality, it may not be the dealer, but just the particular service team. Am I the last turnip off the truck?

[SteveTheTech]

What kind of car are you coming from?

Many dealers have separate teams with a few guys of varying levels of experience and knowledge. In my case I am the senior member of the team qualifications wise, but I am the youngest of the three by ten years.

This equates to any service facility with multiple technicians. Almost all of the techs are Nissan/Infiniti trained and there are extensive online courses for all new techs in order to move up.

I advise getting to know the crew that will be servicing your car. Ask to speak with person who be servicing your car if you have any questions you may want to ask them. At least meeting the person should give you some small bit of trust.

Infiniti dealers are not generally out to screw you over. Give them a chance.

[cjre1]

Steve,

I want to add this point. You stated that the infiniti dealers are not out to screw you, this I agree with, but their customer service level is below average across the board. Not only what I have been reading on these forums, but I have had two very bad dealers that didn't want to take care of my car when I had issues. One dealer even lied to me 3 times on 3 different issues that is why I had to call CA.

I am very thankful now I found a dealer that I can trust. They did everything right to my car and treated me like I meant something to them, this I admire and will always be a faithful customer to them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against Infiniti at all, I really do like their cars (that is why I bought one), but their service is bad.

[SteveTheTech]

I know and there is a small group of people like myself and my team members that strive for overall customer satisfaction, not just for survey numbers we take pride in what we do. This type of approach is very hard to maintain when you are constantly beaten down by those above you. I do not expect them to really take everything I say seriously but there are just some things that will take new management to totally reform. Infiniti seems to have the right direction, it's the old boys club that needs to go in order to complete the change.

There are some dealers that get rave reviews for the service, I strongly suggest doing some research. Ask some of the members in your area that are have a positive relationship with their service department.

[driveforfun]

Points well made Steve. I have had an excellent experience in both purchasing and servicing my EX at Crossroads Infiniti in Raleigh, N.C. Previously I have owned a number of Acura's and always thought they set the bar on service. Crossroads Infiniti has matched that experience.

[abyss]

Thank you all for your comments. To answer your question, Steve, my last new car experience was a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I have also owned new Porsches, and 3 or 4 Ford products and I even owned a Chevy Vega back in the day. My point was, in my dealer's case, they have 3 service consultants. These consultants have 3 dedicated teams of technicians. Now in a perfect world, all 3 of these service teams should offer similar service. But people being as they are, this is not always the case. My first service experience I would have rated as poor. My second service experience I would rate as above average. So consequently, I will deal with the second service consultant from now on. I am very happy with the service he and his team provided for me. So my point was that if your dealer has more than one service team, you might try another if you are unhappy with the service provided. I also understand the service consultants are there to keep profitable business flowing to his team. In reading your posts, you seem to be quite candid about what kind of service our cars really need. Does this bring you into conflict with the service consultant who sold these questionable services? I find the whole dynamics of this service team concept curious. What is the dialogue like between you and the service consultant? (without revealing any trade secrets, of course - lol) Your input, I am sure, would be appreciated by all of us on the board to gain some insight into how the service departments operate. Thank you. I love my EX and I will be returning to Cerritos (Calif) Infiniti for my service needs.

[SteveTheTech]

I really understand your frustrations with the service department in question and for all service departments out there. The sad news is that there is no standard and little quality control except for those techs who do it themselves. Saying there is no oversight is not the case they trust us for the most part. In many professional service centers trust is earned over years of service, this is the case in most of the Infiniti dealers. Although some peoples output is better than others or one tech excels in one area of diagnostics ensuring a proper fix the fix time, the majority try.

Well you say, Trying doesn't fix my car (and I 110% agree with your skeptisism)! If you want to ensure that you are taken care of as a person and not just a car with a repair order number, try something like bringing a dozen donuts. Or better yet ask to speak with the technician regarding a technical issue, something over the skill level of the service writer. It's honest but true, we typically know these systems inside and out. What the overall goal here is to develop a rapport with the person who is directly working on your car. I really enjoy getting to know my customers, I like to not only put a face to a car, but if there are little things I can do to help that particular person out I (as well as my co-workers) all go out of our way to help.

I find your question about the inter"office" communication within a dealer interesting. Since all shops are independently owned and operated by whatever person or group bought the rights.

In our shop the owner comes in and speaks with the service writer. The writer interprets all the concerns to usually two lines per concern. This part varies greatly all dealers. The dispatching part. (I will address dispatching below) In my shop dispatching is either done off team history (say you were written up by a different SA since yours was busy) or new model stock number (final digit determines team allocation). Since the dirty truth of the business is that there is money in everything, our direct overseers (the SA) try to make things fair for the members within the team by balancing out the crap (absolutely no offense intended ) work with the easy stuff to try to make sure that everyone is fairly compensated. When we complete a repair order and wash all of our own cars we park them and turn in the documented repair order. Most of the time we have a quick conversation with the SA regarding the work we just performed in a couple of sentences usually.

That is the way daily operations have gone on for decades. Until there is a new source of revenue to keep the doors open that is the way it will continue. The prices can be a little high sometimes but unlike the garage down the street we have a lazy sales department to keep lit too. And the regional reps salary comes from parts. There are reasons the things at the dealer cost more and I really feel that if they were more honest with people you all would be more inclined to understand. Not necessarily agree but understand somewhat. It is not pure profit there is an impressive matrix, that I know nothing about. Personally I buy OE because I count on the quality and even with the meager discount I get aftermarket is still cheaper but if an OE product lasted 14 years (my J) I trust that it was worth it... to some extent, the window motor is $600 my cost.

DispatchingThis is where my shop differs from others. Some shops have a shop foreman (the job I lust after, not for the money, just to do what I enjoy without the stress of needing to get my hours up) that deals with the majority of customer relations concerns and hard to diagnose issues. My shop does not, so even on these hard to diagnose problems that take hours if not days to research and trace down, only to find out the company deems this "normal" we get nothing. Every hour I personally spend (avg. between 2 and 5 hrs/day) diagnosing something like that or interacting with customers in one way or another is all out of my pocket. Now I am not complaining in the least, I love my job and the I truly believe in the product and want everyone to get the most out of these cars so I would show up for free, but my wife/accountant might have something to say about that. I still have to pay the bills. My SA is extremely fair when it comes to helping me out, he knows I do allot of work for other teams either for free or some sort of warranty repair and he helps me out. The benefits of our job comes mostly from purchased services and :::cough cough::: upsells all things that are deemed easy work. Brakes, tires, and alignments are all things we hunt for, not to deceive you (and anyone that lies for profit about the status of wearable items should be put in the stocks and fired) wear items that need replacement. I have actually had a frank discussion with many of the people involved in this business throughout my employment career and although the benefits are arguable to anyone who really knows these products the financial incentives pushed by the cleaning product manufacturers far outweigh any moral reservations they may have about the products themselves. That is a dirty secret of the trade and I know it has hurt my YTD significantly but I refuse to sell things I do not personally believe in, however there are times that require something to be done and if replacing the fluid with a generic fluid at least it is new. Now I personally do not believe that OE may always be the way to go but in the real world generic replacements are not an equivilant, that is why Infiniti would rather pay $15/pt for their own PSF when paying to replace a power steering rack instead of the generic replacement. Sorry that is another topic all together, back on track.

There are allot of variables in this equation. Since there are technicians of varying levels there are occasions where something may go amiss, and even the most senior techs have a really bad day. Some people (myself included sometimes, although I make a valiant effort sometimes it is not possible) do not test drive all of their repairs especially those that are routine. Within 5 feet of driving I can usually tell if there is any sort of issue with the repair I have just made. That is not a justification for no quality control sometimes circumstances do not allow for proper verification and that type of activity is the reason repeat repair numbers can be high at some dealers.

The old mentality of dealer shops was volume and profit margin. This is no longer so much the case and the dealers themselves do not know how to deal with this. Without the revenue from customer pay work I know that almost all of the dealers in my area would be out of business. Since the profit margin on new cars has been all but eradicated through internet research that only leaves service to keep the doors open. With places like Jiffy Lube out there we need to stay competitive so that means we need to have people in out and on their way in a comparable amount of time. However our complete infrastructure is setup differently and the proper quality of work is not ensure, no matter who you are there is no way you can inspect a vehicle in 15minutes the same way as if you took 1/2hr to thoroughly evaluate every vehicle. I have seen this progression to Quick Lube (<1hr labor) service and I am not really a fan. While this meets the needs of our client base there is little to no personal connection and it is almost an automated process.

Wow I am really sorry to thread jack. I usually stay quite and try to disconnect somewhat here. Oops. Well I'm going to hit send on this before I get a chance to reread it.

[abyss]

Wow! Thanks so much for your reply Steve. I really appreciate all the insight you have added and feel that you are a huge asset to these boards. Thanks again for everything!

[yorker]

Any thought of relocating to NY/NJ area, Steve? We need you here!

Unfortunately, I have to agree that my local Infiniti dealer is horrendous, in both sales dept & service dept: Everything from forgetting to put my loaning bank's name in the title (I have to get a new one), not providing my state's inspection sticker (had to get it myself at the DMV), DIRTY brand-new car (40mi, not a demo), steering column that was not fixed before purchase (I asked the salesman to his face before signing, and he said it was done) and of course broke after 2 weeks, and after the steering column replacement, its memory-function won't work.

http://www.dealerrater.com/dea...77889

OTOH, my purchase of Acura TSX in 2005 in Manhattan was perfect, and 4 years of services have been great.