Re: Why not blame the Dealer.

[Khan Klatt <kmk@pacificrim.net>]

At 10:47 PM -0400 9/29/98, deecee@exit109.com wrote:

Don-

My service advisor is awesome. He has always been able to get my car taken
care of, and fix the problem to the best of any human ability.

The technicians that work on my car are top notch. One is GM, Porsche, and
VW certified, the other Porsche & VW.

I'm not always happy with my car, as after all, I paid > $20,000 for the
car, and I would guess this is the biggest purchase many of us has ever
made. There are small problems like the 'squeaky doors' but heck, I give my
dealer respect, and they take care of me.

Every chance I get to praise and commend good work, I take it, and this
isn't just for my dealership. When I take my car into the shop, I want
people to know whose car it is, and that "this guy is pretty cool to us, so
let's take care of him and his car."

I keep my car clean, with 0 clutter if I can manage it. I even go through a
mechanical no-touch car wash before I go into the dealer, just to make it
easier for the college student they've hired to wash the cars after they've
been worked on.

I'm always polite, and I do my research before I go in. If I can find a TSB
on the Internet, or the TSB number, or whatever, I print it out, and I ask
if this could be any help.

Just like my dealer kicks ass, because they have talented people who care
about me and my car, I hope that I kick ass as a customer, thanking the
technicians personally who worked on my car, and even writing letters to
VWOA commending the dealer for their good work.

There are some technicians out there who actually enjoy doing their work,
and it's unfortunate that you don't enjoy your work, Don. You are clearly
competent, and if you were my technician I would see to it that you were
aware that I was appreciative of your efforts. I can only guess, though,
that those customers of yours that are like me would appreciate you more
if, perhaps you liked you work.

I felt good taking my Bilsteins and my Neuspeed springs to my dealer for
the installation, because after my technician was working on it, I asked if
doing new suspensions like this was fun. He said, "Yeah, it's fun, but
probably not as much fun as you're going to have driving it." Doing a
spring installation is a lot more fun than doing engine diagnostics, or
trying to find an electrical problem. It's always more fun to implement
rather than repair.

And clearly not everyone's dealer sucks, because that guy, whose Dad put
the car into first gear from 45 mph, and whose dealer decided they would
fix it under a "good will" clause, must really love his dealer at this
stage (or better yet, his dad must love his dealer).

Not everyone has issues with their dealer, but just like human nature,
you're going to hear about the bad experiences more than the good. I'm
trying to fight that by speaking up about my positive experiences.

One positive experience? Well my sunroof was "tittering" when I went over
even slightly bumpy roads. Once, they took apart my whole sunroof assembly,
lubed and insulated all parts that they could. This worked for two months,
but then it came back. Then they pulled out a stethescope, followed the
noise with the mechanism, and finally found and adjusted the sunroof to
remove the problem. This tenacity and willingness to go the extra mile to
find and repair a problem that transforms an awesome, semi-luxury
inexpensive sport sedan into a shoddy, economy, expensive poorly engineered
car (I hated driving my car with these little annoyances) is truly worth
some merit.

I couldn't help but think "If I had bought a BMW, I wouldn't have that
tittering sound" when the problem was around. Now I'm back to the more
accurate, "I'm glad I got a car comparable to a BMW 328 for a Jetta
pricetag!" All thanks to the competent service advisor and technician.

I'm probably rambling, so I'll stop.

-Khan
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Khan Klatt <kklatt@nw.verio.net>                             Verio Northwest
Network Engineer                                    Bellingham Branch Office
Tel 800.591.2757 x 13                                    725 N. State Street
Fax 360.738.8315                                        Bellingham, WA 98225

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