Service Scams

[Rodge]

^^ Regardless of whether that's the case or not, Is that an excuse to rort customers like they're doing ?

[flappist]

Originally Posted by Rodge

^^ Regardless of whether that's the case or not, Is that an excuse to rort customers like they're doing ?

Yeh it is not like they are doing template company tax returns and regurgitating financial advice from seminars.

You won your Merc and GT-P in a lottery didn't you........

[TheSneakiness]

Was scammed $180 on a transmission flush (ie undo the pan, let whatever fall out and put back on, and fill slightly)

It got taken back 3000km later cause the fluid was brown, it got fully replaced including the drain from the convertor and we picked it up and walked away, not a cent paid.

[Elks]

The 1 hour min charge is a bit rich but....

They need to take a mechanic off another job, wash wands take off grubby overalls take next door walk back, yeah I know not far, re set up up for next task and start work. It's probably really 15 mins from tools down to tool up as crazy as that sounds. Then of course repeat. Because its gotta be brought back.

BMW Sydney charge $200 per hour, rents are high in the emerald city.

Then I was my local Benz dealer the other day and one of the service advisers noted that he just had an C63 in for. 60,000 km service. Including new front pads and rotors and a transmission flush. Just on $9,000 all up. Just wow. Now most of these are handled by leasing companies in the first 3 years. Good luck with the second and third owners. It would explain why I saw a CL with Brembos on it.

[MercurySilver]

i was booked in for a service (cant remember the time) but i do know i watched it go in 45 mins late
i was hanging around as i couldnt get a lift anywhere

they tried to bill me for it in the end on the invoice when i read it

ahem
i dont think so

she did not hesitate to take an hour off

[Dragoneletra]

Originally Posted by Rodge

^^ Regardless of whether that's the case or not, Is that an excuse to rort customers like they're doing ?

Certainly not. As I pointed out earlier.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by flappist

Yeh it is not like they are doing template company tax returns and regurgitating financial advice from seminars.

You won your Merc and GT-P in a lottery didn't you........

Been an accountant for 31 years and paid for both cars by hard work, keeping overheads down and giving good service and advice at sensible prices.
Had a bit of luck (like to think it was good investment on my part) but probably mostly luck, and the Merc was paid for mostly from sharemarket profits.

To be fair its not the dealership's fault that the DVD's to update the software on the GPS are $1,000 each retail plus GST, M Benz themselves set that price, but OTOH there was no offer by the service agent to discount the price and one wonder's what the retail mark-up on that product is ?

As for the 1.0 hour to take it next door all I can conclude is that I'm really glad I found out about that before it happened because as stated in my original post, by and large i've been quite happy with the service received and pricing of same and that covers the last 5 years servicing. I would be the first to put my hand up and say that Merc dealer's hourly rate is pretty fair at $120 per hour plus GST considering the very high standard of care they provide to customers and I actually really like the service manager there. Further, he was a huge help with the DPF problems I originally had with that vehicle, so I've been pleased to be loyal to date.

I guess the lesson for today is there's no room whatsoever for complacency and it pay's one to keep their eyes wide open.

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by Rodge

Been an accountant for 31 years and paid for both cars by hard work, keeping overheads down and giving good service and advice at sensible prices.
Had a bit of luck (like to think it was good investment on my part) but probably mostly luck, and the Merc was paid for mostly from sharemarket profits.

To be fair its not the dealership's fault that the DVD's to update the software on the GPS are $1,000 each retail plus GST, M Benz themselves set that price, but OTOH there was no offer by the service agent to discount the price and one wonder's what the retail mark-up on that product is ?

As for the 1.0 hour to take it next door all I can conclude is that I'm really glad I found out about that before it happened because as stated in my original post, by and large i've been quite happy with the service received and pricing of same and that covers the last 5 years servicing. I would be the first to put my hand up and say that Merc dealer's hourly rate is pretty fair at $120 per hour plus GST considering the very high standard of care they provide to customers and I actually really like the service manager there. Further, he was a huge help with the DPF problems I originally had with that vehicle, so I've been pleased to be loyal to date.

I guess the lesson for today is there's no room whatsoever for complacency and it pay's one to keep their eyes wide open.

Your last comment goes for everything and anything when dealing with service businesses in life.

I always get a quote... that way theres no surprises.

Hope the car is running well after some TLC.

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by csv8

I sorta agree with you..but when charged $120 an hour and an apprentice works on the car???? who is paid $15 an hour ?? then I suppose you have his supervisor to factor in, as well..makes it difficult to gauge real cost..

Why is it always assumed that the apprentice gets every job, on every car, every day?

And when something goes wrong, it is always the apprentice too.

Do people not realise that there are also tradesmen working as mechanics too? and that they occaionally make mistakes too?

[supershifty]

Originally Posted by flappist

Plus all his training.
Plus the tools he is using.
Plus his holidays/workers comp/whatever.
Plus the shed he is working in.
Plus all the insurances, OHS and other red tape.
Plus the fact that you will be charged how long it would take a tradesman rather than the extra whatever hours it took because he was learning and might have had to do it more than once or got someone to help him.

It is amazing how so many PAYG workers think they are worth $lots and the whole reason their employer exists is to pay them as all other costs in runnung the business and providing all the equipment, buildings, electricity, communications and whatever else are covered by the "money tree".

That's a fair comment flappist No BS!

Way back in the '80s as an apprentice mechanic, I got supplied with 5 "Esso" cloth badges to sew on light blue cotton shirts to match the dark blue trousers. The badges were the extent of my "freebies" for apprenticeship. Shirts and trousers were bought at my expense, so were my steel cap boots and socks. Thanks go to my Mum for being able to sew!

No tools, no health care, nothing but the cloth badges!

Cheers!

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by Elks

The 1 hour min charge is a bit rich but....

They need to take a mechanic off another job, wash wands take off grubby overalls take next door walk back, yeah I know not far, re set up up for next task and start work. It's probably really 15 mins from tools down to tool up as crazy as that sounds. Then of course repeat. Because its gotta be brought back.

BMW Sydney charge $200 per hour, rents are high in the emerald city.

Then I was my local Benz dealer the other day and one of the service advisers noted that he just had an C63 in for. 60,000 km service. Including new front pads and rotors and a transmission flush. Just on $9,000 all up. Just wow. Now most of these are handled by leasing companies in the first 3 years. Good luck with the second and third owners. It would explain why I saw a CL with Brembos on it.

It was a one way ticket, I was originally going to pick the vehicle up from Beaurepairs at the end of the day and i would have thought the car groomer could have driven it next door after doing the wash . $200 per hour is getting up there a bit, I guess Sydney rents are astronomic !!

Geez those C63 rotors must have cost a fortune !! I'm probably up for new pads and front rotors soon, done 44,000 km's now. If that's the sort of money I'm looking at I'll definitly be looking at alternative rotor options too, I couldn't afford to run the car if rotor and pad prices were that crazy.

Thanks Brent. Car was immaculatly groomed and is running super smooth, especially big difference to the 7G Tronic transmission which seems to have recived a new lease of life after that flush and service. Real hot knife through butter stuff, nearly as good as a 6 speed ZF

[Dragoneletra]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

Why is it always assumed that the apprentice gets every job, on every car, every day?

And when something goes wrong, it is always the apprentice too.

Do people not realise that there are also tradesmen working as mechanics too? and that they occaionally make mistakes too?

But it's unaustralian not to blame the apprentice isn't it ?

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Rodge

As for the 1.0 hour to take it next door all I can conclude is that I'm really glad I found out about that before it happened

so its all just speculation on your part then??

do you know for certain that they were going to charge the hour, or did they just put a 1 in the column just to put something there?

talk about shoot first and ask questions later.

[Rodge]

^^ I saw 1.0 hr on the job sheet next to the task of taking it to Beaurepairs listed as a seperate item. No question whatsoever in my mind they were going to bill this as 1.0 hours labour. You have to sign the job sheeet authorising the work when you drop the vehicle off. Naturally I crossed that task off the job sheet. If it was 0.25 hour or N/C I would have thought that's what would be showing in the job sheet don't you.

[csv8]

I wasn't having a go at apprentices. They have to learn the job. Without apprentices, the future for car repairs/servicing wouldn't be good ...Cars have changed out of all recognition, when I started to drive, you lifted the bonnet, carby on the right, engine in the middle and dizzy on the left. Now, I lift the bonnet on my car and its wtf!!! and close it !!!
Apprentices are needed.....to all apprentices...stick with it...

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by flappist

It always appeals to my sense of humour that those who constantly scream about "1hr min charge" when maybe 20 minutes of work is done are the same ones who DEMAND "38hr min charge" per week even though they have smoke/drink/freshair/AFF/facebook/babble to mates on the phone/whatever breaks and actually do maybe 10-20 hours of productive work........

You really don't like employees having entitlements do you? You've had a rant on this topic a few times in the past.

For what it's worth not all employees treat their bosses as atm's. some do actually appreciate having a job in this current economic climate.

I'd suggest if you keep having the same issues with employees then maybe it's time to look at the common denominator in your workplace.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

You really don't like employees having entitlements do you? You've had a rant on this topic a few times in the past.

For what it's worth not all employees treat their bosses as atm's. some do actually appreciate having a job in this current economic climate.

I'd suggest if you keep having the same issues with employees then maybe it's time to look at the common denominator in your workplace.

No actually I don't have any problems with employees having entitlements at all. Many of mine have been working for me for over 10 years, one 28 years.

My amusement is the employees who think they they are the ONLY ones who should have entitlements.......

[pottery beige]

Originally Posted by flappist

Yeh it is not like they are doing template company tax returns and regurgitating financial advice from seminars.

hey.. you leave my M3 driving accountant out of this...


btw


he charges like a Merc dealer....

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by GQ_Smooth

Once of the senior managers (former owener) at work took his E63 in for a service, at Mercedes, their mechanic accidently hit a pole in the workshop and broke the front left Xenon light.

The dealership fixed it for free but told him it would normally be around $15,000 to supply and fit 1 Xenon light assembly.

$15,000 WTF.
Don't know if Chrysler's any cheaper, but if both of my lights are ruined in a crash, my car will be written off.
Bit rough really.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by pottery beige

he charges like a Merc dealer....

if its anything like the dealer in this thread, he must be cheap.

the dealer charges only $120/hr labour and yet still people whinge when they don't get freebies.

for what its worth, my ford dealer (who charges about $140hr) does freebies for me. i treat him nice, he looks after me. a simple concept lost on many.

[brydie76]

Originally Posted by flappist

Yeh it is not like they are doing template company tax returns and regurgitating financial advice from seminars.

You won your Merc and GT-P in a lottery didn't you........

Oh, I love the beating on the accountants. Because all we do is type in the perfectly compiled and presented data from our perfect clients into our perfect software, and spend the rest of the day drinking champagne and charging the client the lot. It's never like we have to spend hours going through tons of paperwork (in no order whatsoever) to see what the hell the client has done (and not even mentioned to us) to try and figure out the many and varied accounting/tax implications of their actions, and then when we charge them for that time, they blow up, because "I'm just a small business, we didn't know that this would cause troubles so why should we be penalised" etc etc etc- if they spent just 15 minutes calling us to ASK, they would potentially only have that 15 minute charge!!!! (No funnily enough, we don't charge a minimum 1 hour- my time is recorded to less than 10 minutes to ensure my clients are fairly charged for the time I spend on their work)

But obviously, because I'm an accountant, I'm just a very highly paid keyboard lackey.

Sorry, but I have had a horrid day (not unlike above scenario). And generalising my industry as one that feeds off templates/other people's work is a massive insult to the amount of study and qualifications we have to complete, and the often large amounts of work we do for minimal recognition. Hard to have a continually happy client when you work not only to their demands, but those of the ATO and AASB/ASIC. Every industry has its perks, but they also have their negatives. I don't generalise and belittle yours/any other industry/profession, a similar level of courtesy back would be nice : )

(If anybody wants to argue with me on this, PM me. Said my piece, not pulling this thread off topic any further)

EDIT- just wanted to add despite the above, I love my job. Which is why I'm willing to defend it even more

[csv8]

brydie 76,,,try my job, a nurse!!!! its not cups of tea and holding hands and sweet talkings!!!! I cop abuse from patients and relatives on a regular basis.....

[flappist]

Originally Posted by brydie76

Oh, I love the beating on the accountants. Because all we do is type in the perfectly compiled and presented data from our perfect clients into our perfect software, and spend the rest of the day drinking champagne and charging the client the lot. It's never like we have to spend hours going through tons of paperwork (in no order whatsoever) to see what the hell the client has done (and not even mentioned to us) to try and figure out the many and varied accounting/tax implications of their actions, and then when we charge them for that time, they blow up, because "I'm just a small business, we didn't know that this would cause troubles so why should we be penalised" etc etc etc- if they spent just 15 minutes calling us to ASK, they would potentially only have that 15 minute charge!!!! (No funnily enough, we don't charge a minimum 1 hour- my time is recorded to less than 10 minutes to ensure my clients are fairly charged for the time I spend on their work)

But obviously, because I'm an accountant, I'm just a very highly paid keyboard lackey.

Sorry, but I have had a horrid day (not unlike above scenario). And generalising my industry as one that feeds off templates/other people's work is a massive insult to the amount of study and qualifications we have to complete, and the often large amounts of work we do for minimal recognition. Hard to have a continually happy client when you work not only to their demands, but those of the ATO and AASB/ASIC. Every industry has its perks, but they also have their negatives. I don't generalise and belittle yours/any other industry/profession, a similar level of courtesy back would be nice : )

(If anybody wants to argue with me on this, PM me. Said my piece, not pulling this thread off topic any further)

EDIT- just wanted to add despite the above, I love my job. Which is why I'm willing to defend it even more

Which was my point exactly.

Nobody know what actually goes on inside every other trade/profession/business but unfortunately generalisations and assumptions tend to be the default.

When members deride motor dealers or mechanics they almost always have very little idea of what actually goes on.

So I am sure you, as an accountant, would give the same amount respect and courtesy to motor dealers and mechanics and of course the marketing and design sections of Ford as you would expect from others......

[rushing on acid]

Originally Posted by brydie76

Oh, I love the beating on the accountants. Because all we do is type in the perfectly compiled and presented data from our perfect clients into our perfect software, and spend the rest of the day drinking champagne and charging the client the lot. It's never like we have to spend hours going through tons of paperwork (in no order whatsoever) to see what the hell the client has done (and not even mentioned to us) to try and figure out the many and varied accounting/tax implications of their actions, and then when we charge them for that time, they blow up, because "I'm just a small business, we didn't know that this would cause troubles so why should we be penalised" etc etc etc- if they spent just 15 minutes calling us to ASK, they would potentially only have that 15 minute charge!!!! (No funnily enough, we don't charge a minimum 1 hour- my time is recorded to less than 10 minutes to ensure my clients are fairly charged for the time I spend on their work)

But obviously, because I'm an accountant, I'm just a very highly paid keyboard lackey.

Sorry, but I have had a horrid day (not unlike above scenario). And generalising my industry as one that feeds off templates/other people's work is a massive insult to the amount of study and qualifications we have to complete, and the often large amounts of work we do for minimal recognition. Hard to have a continually happy client when you work not only to their demands, but those of the ATO and AASB/ASIC. Every industry has its perks, but they also have their negatives. I don't generalise and belittle yours/any other industry/profession, a similar level of courtesy back would be nice : )

(If anybody wants to argue with me on this, PM me. Said my piece, not pulling this thread off topic any further)

EDIT- just wanted to add despite the above, I love my job. Which is why I'm willing to defend it even more

Change the majority of what you have said and insert a different profession and change the profession specific tasks and now you know how others feel when they are generalised as being rip off merchants, scammers, dodgey etc etc.

Business owners at the end of the day need to make a dollar or two just like an employee needs to take home a wage in order to survive. The hourly charge gets adjusted accordingly to compensate for the ongoing rises in the cost of running a business.

Flappist has atleast said some valid points to the defence of business owners which people need to take into account.

As for the OP. A gpg upgrade dvd is going to cost you $1000? go and buy yourself a street directory if your such a tight ***.
As for the 1 hour charge to take the car next door, have you in all of your wisdom considered that in order to print the Repair Order the service advisor needs to add some kind of labour charge and by putting an hour down is easier than 10 mins? but i guess we all cant live in the perfect world you do.

Didnt you start another thread a couple of months ago bagging out your local Ford dealer for allegedly "Ripping you off or scamming you"?

[jd dad]

Originally Posted by csv8

brydie 76,,,try my job, a nurse!!!! its not cups of tea and holding hands and sweet talkings!!!! I cop abuse from patients and relatives on a regular basis.....

And then you come on here to relax and unwind?
To the OP did you raise this issue with the service manager at all? Curious what his response might have been

[Franco Cozzo]

With log book servicing, everything has a standard time in your little log book, the dealership will charge you that rate all the time regardless of how quickly the mechanic managed to knock the job out.

With 40,000km services when I was at Honda, it was listed as 4 hours or something similar, even with a valve clearance check, if you were good you could knock it out in 30-45 minutes.

Also people who work in dealerships or oddball workshops like me deal with the same cars day in day out, so they get good at working on those particular cars.

For me, I only work on current gen Mercedes Sprinters, I can strip out an entire interior besides dash in around 3 hours, which includes removing the stereo and its facias, put me on a VE Commodore and its a different story.

Our particular vehicles costs the customer $270,000, regardless of how long it takes, if we finish it before our build time or after, the customer will see $270,000 on their bill.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Rodge

To be fair, to date I've been quite happy with the pricing of and service received at the Merc dealer, (that could change when I get the bill for the work today), but I think I dodged a couple of bullets this morning when i dropped it off for a major service and gearbox flush.

This morning if I'd beeen silly enought to just ask them to update my cars GPS map I'd have received a bill for $1,000 plus GST for a new disc, (can you believe it !!), just as well I asked for a price indication. I am certain they would just pull out a disc from one of their 2012 model cars and load up my GPS with the latest map but they tried to tell me the new disc has to come from Germany blah, blah, blah.

Second bullet I dodged was the car is set for some new tyres and there's a Beaurepairs shop right next to the Merc dealer. I had previously asked for them to drop the car next door and had some Dunlop Sport Maxx TT's organised for the car but Beaurepairs mucked me around something cronic and i've made different arrangements with another tyre supplier for next Monday. Anyway, here's the shocker, I looked on the job sheet and this task of dropping it off next door, (which I thought they would do as a complimentary), had been set down with a 1.0 in the hour coloum !!!

1 hour of mechanics time to drive the car next door

What prices have you been quoted for updating you car's intergrated GPS system and have you got any similar scams you'd like to warn members about ?

So you own a Merc & went to a Merc dealership and now you complaining about high prices..... What do you expect owning a prestige car, the cost goes with the status.

[mik]

there`s no doubt there are people that will take advantage of you in the odd w/shop, but on the other side of the coin every car owner want`s everything done for nothing,
spannering is not always straight forward and mechanics don`t have a crystal balls, some jobs require a lot of investigation to find fault, people don`t see where the time wen`t,
a lot of the time jobs done are unsavoury dirty, back breaking jobs that the average punter does`nt wan`t to do or know about, and while people have a go at mechanics and w/shops for over charging , i don`t think they see all the stuff that goes on in a work shop regarding cost, or the bruised cut knuckles, burns, crap in the eyes, fumey enviroment that are often part of the job.

personally i think a lot of work shops/mechanics get a bum rap.
a lot of the jobs you see people report as i got ripped of have no clue how much time and effort goes into the job or what unseen work is done or what can go wrong.
not having a go at you Rodge, but i think an hour could be a fair cop i reckon, as mentioned earlier a mechanic has to clean himself up drive the car across the road or next door, i`m sure he won`t throw the keys to guy behind the counter from 50 feet away,
he might have to wait for guy behind the counter to deal with others before him, the same may also occur when picking up the car, most times i have been to a tyre dealer it`s not uncommon to get a 15 /20 minute wait while they deal with one customer, they usually don`t drop every thing to serve the bloke at the back of the que, and they are providing an extra service.

[brydie76]

Originally Posted by flappist

Which was my point exactly.

Nobody know what actually goes on inside every other trade/profession/business but unfortunately generalisations and assumptions tend to be the default.

When members deride motor dealers or mechanics they almost always have very little idea of what actually goes on.

So I am sure you, as an accountant, would give the same amount respect and courtesy to motor dealers and mechanics and of course the marketing and design sections of Ford as you would expect from others......

Of course I do, have you seen me having a go at dealers/mechanics/any other career or profession here or anywhere else? I think Rodge raised some valid points over things such as minimum time/labour charges, and whilst it was other people who did more of the bashing, you chose to take a very low swipe at Rodge by degrading and generalising his (and my profession). I believe it was pretty uncalled for given the tone of the thread.

And I know what it is like to own/run a business. Close family member has since I was 5 and I have done the back end finance and business operations stuff for them for a while now. So I know what pressures you guys are under, and respect that. But it doesn't give you all an excuse to write off employees/professions as lazy or ungrateful. The majority of us deserve more respect than that thanks.

[Rodge]

Originally Posted by brydie76

Of course I do, have you seen me having a go at dealers/mechanics/any other career or profession here or anywhere else? I think Rodge raised some valid points over things such as minimum time/labour charges, and whilst it was other people who did more of the bashing, you chose to take a very low swipe at Rodge by degrading and generalising his (and my profession). I believe it was pretty uncalled for given the tone of the thread.

And I know what it is like to own/run a business. Close family member has since I was 5 and I have done the back end finance and business operations stuff for them for a while now. So I know what pressures you guys are under, and respect that. But it doesn't give you all an excuse to write off employees/professions as lazy or ungrateful. The majority of us deserve more respect than that thanks.

Thanks mate and for your previous post...it was a long day yesterday and had a lot to get through, other than the problems encoutered detailed on here so I appreciate you articulating an appropriate response to Flappist's "insightful" post. As you suggest, the time taken dealing with missing, incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information or lack thereof is often very significant amoung a myriad of other issues dealing with small and medium sized business' and the owners. Many people are really good at what they do but completly hopeless with their record keeping.

I think the hourly rate of the M Benz dealer is very reasonable, especially in the context of the facilities they offer, (its probably gone up from last year, I havn't got the bill for yesterday's work yet), that'll be interesting and i'll post that up when it arrives, but like you I manage my business in 10 minute units. Some have raised the issue of the mechanic having to clean up e.t.c. e.t.c....just to clarify that, they have to clean up anyway and there's seat and floor covers placed so the leather doesn't get dirty e.t.c., he then drives it to the grooming bay and I would be the first to say I always appreciate that the vehicle is returned in immaculate condition, (sure they build this into their prices somewhere, probably in the charge to hook up to the MBenz diagnostic machine), but I really would have thought as the groomer is driving the vehicle back to the front of the building for customer pick-up anyway, that it wouldn't have been any more than literally a couple of minutes extra work to drive it next door.

I suppose its quite probable there's a standard charge to deliver the vehicle either to the customer or anywhere else and that's where the 1.0 hour comes in.
Seems to be the only logical explanation and no I won't be asking the service manager, he's a good guy and unless the bill is a shocker i don't especially want to rock the boat.

Regarding the $1,000 for the GPS software update, that's a systemic M Benz parts pricing issue, while i'm surprised, I guess I shouldn't be.

When I picked up the vehicle I had a friendly chat with the service manager i've come to know quite well. He said it was very quiet in the luxury vehicle market here. It occurrs to me that Mercedes-Benz are carrying on with their business operations methodology in much the same way as they were before the global financial crisis hit. I think the GFC has fundamentally changed the business landscape, perhaps forever, and customers expect better value per se.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, mine is that with the extremly high pricing of their vehicles, its unfortunate that they don't look after their customers a bit better with more realistically priced GPS updates and a modest kindness delivering a vehicle next door shouldn't be too much to ask as a complimentary in the context of a major service.