Dealership Employees Learning to Drive Stick with Customer's Car

[soundman98]

my co-worker has a focus st with a factory service plan. every time he goes to the dealer for an oil change, HE has to drive it into the lifts, as they don't have any techs that know how to drive stick.

when i was a porter, no one i knew had a stick. my parents were formally opposed to the concept. the dealer refused to teach me until they took a beater stick on trade. i finally got tired of asking for help with all these cars, read 'how to drive stick shift' out of a chevy suburban manual, and gave it a shot in the next customer car that came through. i misunderstood 'popping the clutch' and 'letting the clutch out', but after a small chirp of the tires, i got it under control.

if this is your concern, i suggest you avoid allowing anyone to touch your car, and perform all maintenance yourself. it's generally my plan.

[2020BRZtS]

I used to be worried about the same thing and then I see video of a kid taking a bath in a fast food sink. You have a valid concern, and I can appreciate you want to keep the car perfect and you want to keep long-term costs low. It is wrong for a dealership to do what they did and there is no excuse for it.

In the long run you will do more unintentional wear to your car in between oil changes than a valet can do to a clutch in 100 visits. Unless you check your tire pressure and fluid levels every other fill up being even 1/2 qt low on oil or 5 lbs off on tire pressure puts unnecessary strain on an engine. Even if a person can drive stick, every clutch grabs in a different place, every shifter reacts differently... so there is going to be some minor undue wear anyway. I could be wrong but the other than a clutch failure, most clutch parts are considered wear items anyway.

I can get 80-100K miles out of a set of brakes, my wife gets about 25K. Neither of us drives badly, it's just that I engine brake more often. I have gotten as much as 200K miles out of an original clutch and I hold it in at every stop light (I'm working on this though).

You are right to be upset, and I'm sure any reputable dealer would like this to be brought to their attention and handle it internally. Unless they Ferris Bueller'ed your car nothing was done out of malice and I don't think there is any irreparable harm done to your car.

You can also request a permanent note on your account to not provide courtesy car washes. I did something similar with a large internet company who recently started handling their own deliveries. I specifically requested no in-house courier service and only the major delivery companies handle my deliveries. They were happy to note my account and honor it... I just had to ask.

As stated above - they want your business and a simple note on your account could be all you need.

[korhun]

The dealership service (of VW) once crashed my old car. In my country, if a car has a paint on any part of it, people think the car has been involved in a very, very serious accident; so the price diminishment is insane. (And if a piece is changed.. Oh my god! The car must have gone through an apocalyptic zombie war!) Anyway, they were going to paint a rather large piece, so I demanded them to pay my lost value, or I'll sue them.

The man said: "if you do that, we would claim that you had already crashed your car before you came here. Also you know how the justice system works; you would wait for years, and spend too much time and money, and at the end you would get nothing. So, I offer you a free spoiler. Just take it. Feel lucky that you have it."

This talk might sound you like a threatening. However it is not. He just told the truth. A friend of mine bought a brand new BMW and had a transmission issue in a few weeks. The dealer offered to change the transmission, but my friend wanted them to give a new, untouched car. The court lasted 2 years (if not more) and during this time, according to his lawyer's advice he did not took back the car from the dealer. So he had no car for 2 years! At the end, my friend gave up and get the car back. No tranny change was made (I don't remember if it was his choice) and still using it like that.

So I accepted the spoiler offer. Then go and have a chat with the service guy (we call them master) who would repair my car. I admire those guys. Anyway, maybe he liked me, or maybe for another reason, after a while they called me and said: "our master used some vacuum technique and, the problem is gone without a painting!" And they gave me the spoiler as well..

And OP, sorry for trolling your thread Cheers..