30,000 mile service (aka dealer trying to bend me over)

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by ZionsWrath

Most of the time they are are just dumbfounded at why you track and don't do street racing highway pulls and such.

To be fair, watching someone do a 60-130 pull in under 8 seconds is freaking impressive. It was a twin turbo Ford GT with 1K+ hp though.

[ZionsWrath]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

To be fair, watching someone do a 60-130 pull in under 8 seconds is freaking impressive. It was a twin turbo Ford GT with 1K+ hp though.

Yea that is impressive when my car cant even go 130. It's not that impressive when some guy is just putting his foot down a mile straight.

[sluflyer06]

Originally Posted by B-R-Z

My reasoning isn't solely based on money either, but the money factor is half of it.

I don't trust anyone touching my car. To a mechanic your car is just a piece of their 9-5. To me, my car is my child (not trying to sound gay, you know what I mean). It gets the extra TLC when the owner is doing the work. Plus you know exactly what you touched and may have accidentally broke/scratched/left loose etc.

That's a extremely unfair generalization. There are MANY techs out there that are not only exceptionally skilled but treat others cars even better than their own. From someone with an inside perspective of working for Mercedes during highschool and then my wifes father is a BMW & Ferrari Master Tech and has also worked as a advisor I can assure you there are lots and lots of techs that care greatly about every car they work on.

[B-R-Z]

Originally Posted by sluflyer06

That's a extremely unfair generalization. There are MANY techs out there that are not only exceptionally skilled but treat others cars even better than their own. From someone with an inside perspective of working for Mercedes during highschool and then my wifes father is a BMW & Ferrari Master Tech and has also worked as a advisor I can assure you there are lots and lots of techs that care greatly about every car they work on.

Ok, I can agree with that. I'm personally a perfectionist so I'd care for peoples cars like they were my own..

[JesseE]

I have never worked for a dealership, I do however run a privately owned general repair shop.


I take pride and satisfaction in knowing that I run one of the few honest independent shops around.


Technicians can make good money by finishing work in half the recommended time. Does that mean he should make less money because he is good/efficient at his job... No of course not.


a Slow technician might take twice the allotted time and would you like to pay twice as much for that, No of course not.


To be fair there is labor guidelines and if it says it takes 1 hour, then regardless of how long it actually takes, the technician is going to be paid that 1 hour. That's what flat rate technicians get paid and as long as you have honest non-cutting corners kind of techs, you are getting charged appropriately.


A lot of people think being a tech is soooo easy, and for the most part on basic cars they are correct, but every day I have people who come in that tried to fix something "easy" and made such a mess of things it ends up costing them more to fix than what we would of charged if they would of just let us do it in the first place.


For example I had a guy this week who tried to do his own spark plugs, did an o.k. job on 7 of them, but the last one, he cross threaded it in, and screwed up the aluminum head threads. and guess what, we ended up having to take the head off fix the head, and put it all back together. We could of changed the spark plugs for couple hundred dollars... now he just costed himself 2000$+... trying to do something most of us would say is "easy" because he didn't have the right quality of tools, or the knowledge of putting anti seize on the threads.

[Erci]

Originally Posted by sluflyer06

That's a extremely unfair generalization. There are MANY techs out there that are not only exceptionally skilled but treat others cars even better than their own. From someone with an inside perspective of working for Mercedes during highschool and then my wifes father is a BMW & Ferrari Master Tech and has also worked as a advisor I can assure you there are lots and lots of techs that care greatly about every car they work on.

You're right, of course, but to us perfectionists.. how do we know?? We take the car to a dealership (or any private shop) and just hand it over. I've no idea what the tech will be like. Unless you go by word of mouth.. 1st time is a leap of faith.

[sluflyer06]

Originally Posted by JesseE

I have never worked for a dealership, I do however run a privately owned general repair shop.


I take pride and satisfaction in knowing that I run one of the few honest independent shops around.


Technicians can make good money by finishing work in half the recommended time. Does that mean he should make less money because he is good/efficient at his job... No of course not.


a Slow technician might take twice the allotted time and would you like to pay twice as much for that, No of course not.


To be fair there is labor guidelines and if it says it takes 1 hour, then regardless of how long it actually takes, the technician is going to be paid that 1 hour. That's what flat rate technicians get paid and as long as you have honest non-cutting corners kind of techs, you are getting charged appropriately.


A lot of people think being a tech is soooo easy, and for the most part on basic cars they are correct, but every day I have people who come in that tried to fix something "easy" and made such a mess of things it ends up costing them more to fix than what we would of charged if they would of just let us do it in the first place.


For example I had a guy this week who tried to do his own spark plugs, did an o.k. job on 7 of them, but the last one, he cross threaded it in, and screwed up the aluminum head threads. and guess what, we ended up having to take the head off fix the head, and put it all back together. We could of changed the spark plugs for couple hundred dollars... now he just costed himself 2000$+... trying to do something most of us would say is "easy" because he didn't have the right quality of tools, or the knowledge of putting anti seize on the threads.

Originally Posted by Erci

You're right, of course, but to us perfectionists.. how do we know?? We take the car to a dealership (or any private shop) and just hand it over. I've no idea what the tech will be like. Unless you go by word of mouth.. 1st time is a leap of faith.

@Erci you can at some/most places request and book a time for a specific tech, there are often at least 1 or more higher level techs who do the hard stuff or say at BMW who would be the \\\M guy.
@JesseE As a independant shop you can't possibly justify the kind of prices you posted. Using the diff as an example. My local DEALER only wants .5hr to change trans AND diff fluid.

[Blackforge]

Originally Posted by sluflyer06

@Erci you can at some/most places request and book a time for a specific tech, there are often at least 1 or more higher level techs who do the hard stuff or say at BMW who would be the \\\M guy.
@JesseE As a independant shop you can't possibly justify the kind of prices you posted. Using the diff as an example. My local DEALER only wants .5hr to change trans AND diff fluid.

Therein lies at least one issue for me. My dealer's service department only has "one BRZ guy". He is the only one allowed to do service on them or so I've been told. This even includes oil changes...

[radroach]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

The "free" 15K service included oil change, cabin filter change and tire rotation. After keeping the car for almost two hours (1:45, if I'm being honest), they brought it back out and informed me that the cabin filters were out of stock, so they'll call me when their shipment arrives so I can bring it back over for that service. I'm not feeling all that great about leaving my car with them for another two hours.

My dealership wouldn't give me the cabin air filter for free, they said the cost added up too much for them to include it in my "free" 15k service. Shady bastards.

[radroach]

Originally Posted by JesseE

you don't think technicians should get paid for the work they do? etc

It's not that I don't think they shouldn't mark up prices and make a profit, it's that I think for service intervals that require 10 different jobs, they shouldn't itemize each thing and charge full price. It should be sold as a service package, not a-la carte.

At the point where they've already got the car on stands, and each (basic maintenance) job takes between 5-30 minutes, they're still charging you a full hour for every single itemized service. Again I'll bring up the rear differential service, it's as easy as pulling the plug and draining it and filling it back up, right? That'll be 80 bucks, you savvy subaru owner you.

Originally Posted by JesseE

Just so you know as well, Subaru has been recommending for a long time that pretty much all the fluids to be changed every 30k... so i'm surprised they didn't have coolant recommendation as well

My 30k service included coolant change.

[Erci]

Originally Posted by radroach

My 30k service included coolant change.

But why? The manual says 11 years / 137k miles

[JesseE]

Originally Posted by Erci

But why? The manual says 11 years / 137k miles

Have you ever seen what coolant looks like at 100k miles when it hasn't been changed... Disgusting At 30k miles its already bad let alone at 100k or 137k

[Erci]

Originally Posted by JesseE

Have you ever seen what coolant looks like at 100k miles when it hasn't been changed... Disgusting At 30k miles its already bad let alone at 100k or 137k

Actually I have.. 113k to be exact, and while the color has changed, its chemical qualities were still within spec. There is a simple, cheap HP test which shows if it's still good or not. Much like the oil, which dealers tell us to replace at 3k miles.. and has been proven by chemical lab testing to still be perfectly good after as much as 15k miles.
Color means absolutely nothing.

[CoupedUpSubie]

I look at it this way. If you actually know what you are doing then do it yourself. If you don't then take it in. I am an engineer on ships, I am fully capable of following a service manual and documenting everything. In my experience most dealerships employ mostly techs. They may have a couple guys who specialize in stuff like engines, transmissions and electronics but those guys are limited in numbers. A true mechanic is someone who can hear or see something and diagnose it. Techs just do what the computer tells them to do.

As for documentation I recommend having two. One of which is mySubaru for subarus. It allows you to log anything you do as well as showing what the dealer says they did.