So, my truck went in to the dealer today to have the drag link replaced under warranty in order to deal with the front end shimmy I was experiencing. No big deal... My wife would drop the truck off as she works in the same town as the dealership and I would take her car to work...no problem.

I decided I would call the dealership and ask them to reset my TPMS threshold to 55 PSI while it was there and the service desk person said they were pretty sure it couldn't be done but would check with the tech to confirm either way... I waited on hold for a minute or so... service clerk comes back and says "no, sorry there is absolutely no way to do this. It is set by the factory...blah blah blah." I then politely advised them that it can in fact be done and that if they are OK with it that I would send them instructions in how to do this. I was given the fax number and told that they would review any info I send over.

I then quickly referenced my goto website for all things Ford (FTE, of course ) and copied the detailed IDS path and steps (thanks sneakyF350 ) into a fax and promptly sent it to the dealership.

A couple hours later I call back to confirm that they received the fax and asked if the instructions worked. I was told the instructions were given to the tech, however, the desk had not followed up with the tech yet. I said fine and expected that i would get a call if it didn't work or if perhaps more info was needed, etc. No call.

At the end of the day my wife calls to tell me that the dealership wants her to pay $100 for the reprogramming of the TPMS!! I immediately ask that the service writer be put on the phone... turns out it is someone different than I was dealing with all day. He tells me that they had to reflash the PCM in order to reset the TPMS... I immediately call BS and indicate to him that I am the one that sent over the instructions to the supposedly "trained professionals" to tell them how it needs to be done and doesn't require a complete reflash , etc. and shouldn't take more than 5-10mins to complete the task. He then says "well it is a $20,000 computer and the tech's time, blah, blah."

We argue a little more and suddenly he says he will only charge $50 for the TPMS reset... I figure my wife want to get going so I agree to the $50 so she can pay and leave.

I will call the service manager in the AM and let him know that this is completely unacceptable! I don't care if they wanna charge $1000 for the reset, but they need to let the customer know what the charges will be prior to undertaking ANY work like this!!! If they had told me it would be $100 or even $50 I could have said "no thanks" and carried on about my business. Oh and when I check the truck at home... they let the air in my tires down to 53 PSI! I didn't ask for the pressure to be reduced, only the sensor threshold!!

Anyway, thanks for listening... I'm done now.

 

I feel your pain brother. One big dealer I have is awful, but my other 'hometown" dealer with not much sales is top notch. Plus they are great communicators, if I have info they are more than happy to look it over and figure it out for me.

My favorite part in the service experience is when your vehicle is done, but nobody calls you to tell you that info??? Why do I have to call YOU to find out?

 

Not for nuthin, but...

You came in, told them what you wanted and they said they couldn't do it. You said it could be done, provided instructions and asked them again to do it. You didn't say if you asked what it would cost so to my way of thinking you're on the hook for whatever they charge you. Do I think $100 is reasonable? Absolutely not, but you didn't clarify this up front.

Lesson learned I guess.

 

that is bull *****. I would love to have mine reset where do i find the info to do it. Im sick of having to push reset everytime I start my truck.

 

I would send them a bill for $500 for your "technical advice" that you provided.

I did that once to a doctor that tried to charge me $50 for being a no-show at an appointment. I sent him the $50 check wrapped in an itemized bill from me that showed him all my appointment dates and all the time I waited past the appointment time, also billed him by the hour for my work hourly rate for sitting past appointment times. Two days later, I received my check back (un-cashed) and a letter of appology from them for waisting my time. Since then, I have never been made to sit more than 5 minutes past scheduled appointment time.

Now your wife might have signed a repair order notifing her of any labor charges that may be incurred, if thats the case, you asked for it.

Payments and charges can go both ways.

 

My dealer did mine for free, without me providing instructions and washed the truck before I picked it up. I took one of their cars for a lunch run while they did the work. I would be looking for a new dealer if I got treated like you did...

Regards

 

I know where you are coming from, but let's be honest here.... the proper way to conduct business is such that I will not perform a service for you until I know you are aware of the associated costs and agree to those costs.

I was expecting a call back from the dealership to inform me if my instructions would work... I never received such a call, they simply went ahead assuming I am willing to pay $100 for 5 minutes of work ($1200/hr). While I did not specifically ask for the price to do this, they should have provided it prior to doing the work.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I will call the service person that I was dealing with throughout the day today and see if they will be a little more realistic about the charge to do the work. even if they were to charge me .2 or.3 of an hour at the regular shop rate that is still reasonable, but not .6 of an hour.

 

I'm kind of susprised they reset it at all.
When I inquired about reseting TPMS (before I settled on a DRW). They basically said no...... Didn't care if they could, just won't....

The liability BS line

 

I need to elaborate on this a bit. First off, I'm in no way taking sides either way, but rather just want to add some context into the discussion.

Average national labor rate is approx. $92 per labor hour. Warranty or customer pay, the repair or work performed is normally broken out into tenths ( .1 hours) or 6 minute intervals.

Now having actually worked in a dealer back in the day for roughly 5 years as a driveability tech, I feel that I have the proper credentials to speak to this, along with ASE and Master Certifications. So this is a perspective from that point of view.

It takes approx. .3 (3 tenths of an hour) to reprogram. So ( .3 x $9.2 per tenth) = $27.60. Now, add in checking/verifying tire pressures, which you must do, which adds let's say an .1 hours (there's no 1/2 tenths), then road testing, another .2 hours, or an additional 12 minutes to verify that you can confidently return the vehicle to the customer without having the TPMS light come on 5 minutes after they left the dealer.

The tech may also decide to run KOEO and KOER (key off / engine off, key on engine running) self test after the road test to make sure no DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes) were set. If he's a competent tech, he would do this. This adds another .2 (two tenths) to the procedure performed. So now we're up to either .6 hours, ($55.20), or .8 ($73.60) if KOEO/KOER are run plus tax, etc.

Throw in a few minutes in this case for the tech to understand that yes, you can actually reprogram TPMS to a different limit, which btw he isn't getting paid for most likely, and has an hour wrapped up into this. The customer feels they shouldn't have to pay for this, and the tech isn't getting paid for the time he has invested

Did the technician just learn something, yes, but that doesn't put food on the table, at least not today. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but simply stating the reality of the business. On a side note, the tech makes approx. 20-30% of what the dealer labor rate is, depending on seniority, skill level, etc.

Is it fair to call out the dealer on the cost, absolutely, and with a little luck, everyone learned something today. However, by all accounts no one is particularly happy.

-Paul

 

I agree with what Paul says. Its like when somebody comes in our quarry and says "I only need half a ton" Well to get you that half a ton, we have to pull a loader off the bigger trucks and load your little truck. Then the scalehouse has to weigh you with a ticket. But somehow people get mad when you charge them for it because they see huge stockpiles of it out there. Do I agree with $100? No. But the $50 I do. Another example is "I paid $50,000 for this truck, and I better get some all weather floormats for free." why? The whole point of business is to serve customers and make a little profit on top.

 

Then put air in the tires, that is after all what the warning is about!

 

That's a little harsh...My sensors were tripping with 65 pounds in the tires. I had the threshold lowered to 55 psi and have not seen a warning since. I was not going to run 70 psi to turn off the warning.

Regards

 

Sounds like a Seinfeld episode ...

 

How is that harsh? Thats what the warning is for and why it comes on everytime you start the truck. If you want it to go away then put the correct amount of air in the tires, pretty simple fix!!

 

Well, either way, both sides could have handled this a little differently in order to eliminate the confusion/bitterness. Life must go on, and I can't dwell on something that in the Grand Scheme of things is really quite minor. I will still call the dealership this morning to let them know my thoughts on this and see if anything comes of it.

However, I am still left to wonder, what the TPMS threshold was actually set to as my tires had 52 & 53 PSI in them when the truck was home last night and no warning light was on. I wanted the threshold at 55 PSI so I could run the tires at 60 without setting the light off.