SHOPSMARTSHOP AUTOS – CUSTOMER INFORMATION – APRIL 15, 2021
Confessions From the Dealership Service Department
Who Is the Service Advisor?
People think of the service advisor (also called a service writer) as a mechanic but basically they are salesmen. They’re even paid on commission. That means that the more work they convince you that your car needs, the more money that puts in their pockets. Another problem is almost no one reads their owner’s manual so they really don’t know what’s best for their car. See, the manual was written by the company that built your car. It is the most accurate description of how to care for it. But when people go to the dealership for routine maintenance, the service advisor pushes the “dealer recommended service” on them. Basically, this calls for oil changes and transmission flushes more frequently than the owner’s manual. For instance, the dealer might recommend changing the transmission fluid every 12,000 miles, whereas the manual recommends changing it every 60,000 miles. If you followed the dealer’s recommendation, that means you’d have four transmission fluid changes that were unnecessary. And transmission fluid changes aren’t cheap — they can run $200, so you might be spending as much as $800 unnecessarily.
When You Arrive at the Dealership
At the dealership, customers pull up in the driveway and are greeted by the service advisors. As the customers line up, you develop a sixth sense of who needs what, and thus which customer you should go to, to make the most money. Of course, you have the returning customers who you’re familiar with, and you have to help them. But then you find yourself looking for the people who have old-looking cars and who also look rich, so you figure they can afford superfluous work. The way we were taught to handle customers is via a carefully controlled interaction. The company even produces videos detailing exactly what they’re supposed to do and say and sell. There are phrases you find yourself using to sell services. For example, you can get people to go for early fluid changes by saying, “While you’re here, let’s get this work taken care of,” because people hate the hassle of coming to the dealership and waiting around. We also play up the safety issue. If you want someone to agree to a brake job, just say, “There’s less than 50 percent of your brake pads left.” That sounds bad but actually it isn’t time to get a brake job until that number is much closer to 15.
Pricing Work for Profit
Service jobs are priced according to the “flat rate” book, which has the times it takes to perform each repair or service procedure. For instance, an oil change takes 0.3 hour according to this book. The mechanics, however, try to beat these times to make more money for doing less work. Unfortunately, that incentivizes speed and overselling, which to me is the built-in problem with most service departments. There was a mechanic at one of the places I worked, who had created this contraption that actually sucked the oil out of the engine rather than letting it drain out. He could change oil in three minutes and get paid for the flat 18-minute rate. The guy probably made more money than anyone else in the dealership except for the owner.
The Dangers of “Upselling”
Let’s say that someone comes into the dealership for a simple oil change. They immediately become a target for the service department to “upsell” them as much additional work as possible. First of all, the advisor will ask how many miles are on the car. If there is close to, for example, 20,000 miles, they will say, “Well, you’re just about ready for your 20,000-mile service. Here’s what we recommend.” They then whip out a sheet with a laundry list of services that are offered for a package price. But if you look at what is actually done to the car, it is just inspections or fluid checks and fills. When you start getting more miles, the service writer will say, “We’re going to do all services recommended for that mileage, but we’ll also check for other problems.” So you agree to a “full inspection,” which is one of the biggest scams. Later in the day the service writer will call and say, “Everything looks OK but we recommend you have some other work done: transmission fluid, air-conditioning, differential fluid.” By the way, most manufacturers don’t recommend ever changing the diff fluid. So you go in for an oil change and end up dropping $600. Dealerships don’t profit on extensive operations like replacing engine blocks, transmissions or other large components. These require expensive parts, and the mechanics take longer to finish them. So while you pay a lot for these operations, the service department doesn’t make much off them. With the smaller operations, on the other hand, you don’t pay as much, but they’re making a very high percentage of profit. In one case, I looked at the dealer-recommended service and compared it to the owner’s manual — it had almost doubled the service frequency from the manual. That’s true of parts, too. The prices of most parts you buy through a dealership are doubled.
Tags: 2019 Subaru Forester Touring, 2020 BMW iX3, 2020 Chevrolet Suburban, 2020 dodge charger, 2020 EQC, 2020 Ford Super Duty, 2020 Honda Pilot, 2020 Kia Optima, 2020 Mercedes Benz, 2020 Nissan Versa, 2020 Subaru WRX STI, Audi SUV, BMW, Brandon K. Hardison, Chevrolet Car, Chevrolet Sonic, Dodge charger, electric vehicles, honda, Honda Pilot, Hyundai SUV, Mercedes Benz, Nissan Rogue, SUV, upcoming car, Volkswagen, Volkswagen Tiguan SEL Premium R-Line, Volvo Car
Trackback from your site.
