And THAT is what makes an intelligent buyer take care in selecting a dealer. There is a dealer 7 miles from the house who will never see my vehicles again, even if I have to pay extra towing to get warranty work done. The last 3 visits created problems that other folks charged me big bucks to fix. I have the message.


In short, a good dealership shop makes or breaks ANY brand. There used to be a Dodge dealership near me that I trusted when my boy bought a Ram. They changed hands recently and all personnel and entered the 'not to be trusted' column. Better before I was ready to buy than after!

 

Everything you said makes a lot of sense. It's a pity, truly. Without good techs, it's the consumer who really comes out behind. Hopefully that will change sometime soon.



Okay, true story.....I had a Dakota many years ago. It had never seen sale and the underside looked pristine. Then, on a trip to the beach, I drove through some ocean water a few times. The entire underside started rusting. No lie! I was blown away. I'll never do that again.

 

I have been racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats since 1974 and have sacrificed every truck to the salt gods. Bodies have improved by leaps and bounds but everything made of cast iron and aluminum takes a **** quick. My 13 and new 18 will never see it as I rent trucks now.

 

The dealership sets the tech's hourly flat rate (which varies a lot by region), but the manufacturer sets the warranty times. So if the job takes the tech 8 hours, and the warranty time is 4 hours, the tech gets screwed, and worked half the day for free. Warranty rates are downright criminal, and if you ask any former dealership tech why they left, that is usually the number one answer.

 

Our road salt up here in the winter does far more damage than driving in the ocean. If you've never seen it, it would blow your mind. Vehicles turn completely white from the salt spray (after they dry). And when the roads dry up, a few days after a storm, a car kicks up a big cloud of white dust as it drives down the road. It's as though they actually want to ruin our vehicles as fast as possible (not to mention bridges and roads). And most of that salt is running off into our waterways. Millions of tons of salt per year are going into the Great Lakes. It would be nice if the treehuggers would focus on real problems like that, instead of some of the BS that they whine about.

 

Having been there and done that, I have a slightly different take on it. Most tech's could beat the (Chilton/warranty) hour rate by wide margins, often by as much a 60% because of experience, training, and using the proper tools. When a new model year came out with neat and tricky stuff, the first few times a tech saw one the times might get out of whack, but I NEVER saw the spread you talk of.


Part of that probably comes from having a shop foreman watching what was happening and insuring all the hours were billed. Like the year GM put the thermostat UNDER the alternator tension bracket. Had to bill for 2 operations rather than the book single value (which did not take that into account) when replacing the thermostat.


That all being said, I did get out of that business 30+ years ago to move on to cleaner more profitable work environments.

 

The "Chilton" book rate is vastly different from warranty rate! Most techs can easily beat the rate on customer pay. I had days where I doubled my time (on customer pay). But warranty times are the exact opposite. If you haven't done it for over 30 years, you have no idea how bad the warranty times have gotten. It also varies by brand, and some are much worse than others. And not every job is bad; some you can still break even or beat by a little. But overall, even the best techs WILL lose time on warranty jobs (from the American car makers), unless they cheat. That can mean requesting straight time or diagnostic time that wasn't actually required, or sometimes outright fraud (such as putting a much more time consuming repair on the repair order than was actually performed). I never saw anyone cheat a customer in all my years as a tech, but I saw some very sketchy stuff on warranty work, and it's hard to blame them, when the manufacturer is screwing them on most warranty times. I'll have no part of a job that requires people to cheat to get paid for the hours that they worked. I've been told that some of the foreign makers are more fair (with their warranty times) than the American brands, but I only worked for American brands (and a couple years at independent shops).


You never "saw the spread" that I'm talking about because your experience (from over 3 decades ago) is completely out of touch. Hell, 30 years ago, some of the dealerships were still union, and still paid by the hour (not flat rate). That was a transitional time period for the industry, and the transition was to a business model that results in a chronic shortage of good techs. F them; they are reaping what they sowed.

 

I got your message loud and clear sir, I am just a duey dummy and so are the excellent technicians that work for the dealership I get my service at and clearly you worked for the cream of the crop.


Cheers

 

Ditto, at 57k my 2012 5.0 had 7 issues including the "ticking" and the rack - service wouldn't / couldn't find solution but I stayed with blue and traded for a 2017 5.0.

 

That’s because you got one of those complicated V8’s. If you would have stuck with the EB you would have been fine. Those V8’s are a ticking time bomb you know, all those extra parts and pieces are going to fail on you...... 😜😏🙄

 

Yup. Each to his own but really, there’s hardly nothing more simple than a turbo. I drive three of these things and they’ve all been rock-solid and deliver astounding power, reliability and fuel economy. Ford deserves a lot of credit for building a great truck for us. Yes, at 600,000+ copies a year, you’ll read about a few problems here on the board but my experience is that is not the norm.