Auto dealership ethics and a question

Next time just grab his phone and dial 911 for him! Let him explain it himself.

Total B.S. on there part.
All they can do is advise you not to drive it.By no means is it legal to withhold it from you.
A torn boot does not fail the part,it's just noted as a recommendation.
A few dealers I worked at use to insist that you tell the customer that it's unsafe-needles to say I don't work at those places anymore.

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Originally Posted by encorehunter

Thank you for that. I printed it off to have on hand when I take it in next. The truck is a 1989 Ford F-150 I purchased from the original owner. I do not remember the techs name as it was almost a year ago I got my oil changed. I normally do most of the maintenance on my vehicles, but when they were willing to do the work and provide supplies for almost half of what I can purchase the supplies for, I jumped on it.

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Those older fords do often need balljoints, etc with due mileage on them. With the low miles you stated, I doubt it would need them due to wear. I've seen too many service writers, or techs, or both at the stealerships that auto-write stuff on estimates of vehicles, for common problems whether it needs them or not. Case in point would be a Chevy Blazer comes in with the 4.3L engine. Either the tech or service writer puts down that intake gaskets are leaking, because it has 105k miles on it, and they are always leaking by then. They never popped the hood to see the customer had it done the last visit to an independent shop. Another one I saw a lot, they would automatically assume it needs brakes after 60k miles, and never bother to actually confirm this. Seen plenty of what tmleader has seen, customers wanting a second opinion or a better estimate with wads of cash in hand, only to find out it needs nothing.

Must be one of those mom/pop dealership.
Those franchise dealership are less crazy due to survey now.

I would call Department of Rev Motors div in Lakewood, and tell them what happened.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Haha, I would have called his bluff in a heartbeat. I had a brake place tell me that the car was done and it was going to be $600. I asked wtf for, and the guy told me that they replaced some other stuff. I told him that I don't remember telling him to do any of that stuff and I'm not paying for it when I get down to get my car. He actually said, "Well all the stuff is already on the car, you really want me to take it all off?" I knew he was bullshitting me. No one installs parts then charges for them.

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Had this happen to me with my first car. I wasn't as smart then and but still did talk them down to about half of what they were saying. I know I still got screwed over looking back. Wish I knew what I know now. But it was also the driving force for me to learn all that stuff and do it myself.

Threaten to call the police? Sure, I guess. They're not quite threatening you with a breach of the peace.

Refusing to give back the keys? F*** them. If they don't give me back the keys I'll call the police my own damn self, since I'm too old and fat to go diving over the service counter Full Farva Five at them.

Auto dealership and ethics? ROFL. Good one...

Is it Phil Long down here:) or Big O , or pretty much any other one down here:)

I have NEVER had a good experience at a dealer for ANY type of service. Hell, My wife just got a brand new RAV4 that included 25k miles worth of free oil changes and tire rotations, and I refuse to let the dealer do it any longer. As I predicted, they royally screwed up the first 5k oil change. I am done with Ehrlich Toyota in Greeley. Like the saying goes, if you want it done right, do it yourself!

Ages ago I worked for a small shop in Wichita, KS that specialized in European cars (German cars in particular).

A big chunk of our business was repairing the damage done to Mercedes by one of the big Merc dealers (at that time we were the only Bosch certified shop in the area so we could even do some warranty work).

The problem is that dealerships seem to hire one good mechanic as a supervisor and then a bunch of inexperienced kids to do the actual wrench turning. So you end up with a bunch of shade-tree mechs that know how to work on the carbureted GM 350 in their jalopy and that's about it. And the one good, trained and competent mechanic is too busy to check the work done by all his underlings.

I've always found that smaller, specialty mechanics are the way to go. Even if they cost more they're usually worth it. That and I prefer changing my own oil as I like to get under the car and check things out on my own.


As for the OP, the instant I was threatened with the police I'd be demanding the General Manager write me out a refund for the remaining oil changes or he's going to have to deal with the police and the local "...On Your Side" media costing him lots of other business.