Im an ex-service writer, what do you want to know?

SHOdown220

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Ooof. Another reason to hate this business lol. If They changed my plan to where I wasn’t benefiting from the the recalls I’d honestly leave lol. Do you guys do a lot of extended warranty?

We went from paid on total sales across the board to a higher percentage but paid on gross profit for CP parts and labor and warranty labor. So far it seems....ok. averaging about 200 more a check but I really hate closing a big warranty ticket and knowing I'm only getting paid on the labor side.

I can't complain its still the best pay plan I've been on. I made 25k more my first year at this dealer than my best year at my previous dealer. And that was with less overall sales (smaller dealer now)
 

cidsamuth

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Years ago, I had a heater core go out on a VW Passat. I knew what it was, cause I could smell the coolant when I turned the heat on , and it would fog my window. VW had taken some bad press for heater cores and, though out of warranty, I called VW of America and they agreed to fix it as a courtesy. Good thing, as it was a very involved job.

Take it to the dealership, and they refuse to fix it (even though I explained its paid for) unless I pay a $78 charge to have dye put in the coolant that only shows up under black light so they could determine for sure where the leak was. I argue but end up paying and, what do you know, they tell me its the heater core after using the dye.

After fix, I get the car back and drive home. Once there, I find the pax side carpet SOAKED FULL of coolant. The tech had obviously just dropped the core while full and flooded the whole area. After calling and complaining, I chose to clean it myself with a carpet cleaner.

Then, it dawned on me as I looked at the coolant in the carpet cleaner tank -- they had used green coolant when the system called for pink. I brought the car back for the switch out, and then got a call a bit later -- they claim they used the pink coolant but the invisible dye had turned it green. I said, "Let me get this straight, cause I'm going to make lots of noise. You used new pink coolant, and the dye that was supposed to be invisible except under black light, turned it to a perfect shade of new green coolant?"

He called back a few minutes later and said they flushed the coolant and filled with pink as a "courtesy."
 

RedVenom48

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Electronic dispatching here. The techs don't get a say what they pull next. They get their previous recs pre assigned to them and we have a shop foreman that keeps an eye on what is in the queue and may assign a particular tech based on current workload or any number of other reasons. Its more fair for the techs but yeah if I could I would pick 3 or 4 guys to send most of my big jobs too.

Thankfully most of our guys are pretty good and I trust them. There are a few I want a 2nd opinion on every diag they give me or I know ill be telling the customer the job is gonna take longer when they pull it lol
Last dealer I worked at was on electronic dispatch. A few of the guys figured out how to spy on the RO stack. We werent blocked from entering RO numbers in. A few guys were getting good at figuring out when to auto dispatch themselves to get the gravy recalls and services. Also, a writer could preassign a repair order to a tech and it would look like the tech "got randomly assigned to the repair order".

Management didnt believe the few of us that tried to bring it to their attention. While I wasnt necessarily starved, I didnt get on the gravy train like some guys. It was a chronic problem in the world of Lexus, though some dealers were better than others.
 

SHOdown220

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Ooof. Another reason to hate this business lol. If They changed my plan to where I wasn’t benefiting from the the recalls I’d honestly leave lol. Do you guys do a lot of extended warranty?

Didn't see your last question, we have an in house (company wide) extended warranty company. They are fantastic to deal with, pay all data time plus diag and use all oem parts at msrp
 

Mpoitrast87

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Didn't see your last question, we have an in house (company wide) extended warranty company. They are fantastic to deal with, pay all data time plus diag and use all oem parts at msrp
It’s so nice to deal with a good extended warranty. We have one we sell and it’s the same as you described. One our techs seeks out cars that specifically have this warranty and he hammers those cars every time lol.
 

AustinSN

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Last dealer I worked at was on electronic dispatch. A few of the guys figured out how to spy on the RO stack. We werent blocked from entering RO numbers in. A few guys were getting good at figuring out when to auto dispatch themselves to get the gravy recalls and services. Also, a writer could preassign a repair order to a tech and it would look like the tech "got randomly assigned to the repair order".

Management didnt believe the few of us that tried to bring it to their attention. While I wasnt necessarily starved, I didnt get on the gravy train like some guys. It was a chronic problem in the world of Lexus, though some dealers were better than others.
FWIW, the advisors would do this to each other too. That used to piss me off worse than anything.

Because I was FNG, and I was "lucky enough" to have someone call in and schedule a timing belt, I'd come in the next morning and my job would be assigned under another advisor. Fortunately, I don't really play games like that and I'm bullheaded enough that I don't back down when it comes to money.

They definitely punked me on a well known customer who had the worst anger issues I've ever seen, someone moved the job to me and told me they had too much work. I've never been yelled at for letting someone know they have skipped both a 30k, and a 60k. To be honest, I've never been yelled at like that in my life. I got 2 thank you's from management for keeping calm and 3 techs told me that lady was the reason they refused to work with customers lol.
 

Mpoitrast87

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FWIW, the advisors would do this to each other too. That used to piss me off worse than anything.

Because I was FNG, and I was "lucky enough" to have someone call in and schedule a timing belt, I'd come in the next morning and my job would be assigned under another advisor. Fortunately, I don't really play games like that and I'm bullheaded enough that I don't back down when it comes to money.

They definitely punked me on a well known customer who had the worst anger issues I've ever seen, someone moved the job to me and told me they had too much work. I've never been yelled at for letting someone know they have skipped both a 30k, and a 60k. To be honest, I've never been yelled at like that in my life. I got 2 thank you's from management for keeping calm and 3 techs told me that lady was the reason they refused to work with customers lol.
The guys I work with are pretty fair. And when we make an appointment for a big job w would write in the description "see john smith" so another advisor wouldnt take it. And we each have customers we refuse to work with. I know if I see a certain car coming im running out of the drive lol.
 

SHOdown220

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FWIW, the advisors would do this to each other too. That used to piss me off worse than anything.

Because I was FNG, and I was "lucky enough" to have someone call in and schedule a timing belt, I'd come in the next morning and my job would be assigned under another advisor. Fortunately, I don't really play games like that and I'm bullheaded enough that I don't back down when it comes to money.

They definitely punked me on a well known customer who had the worst anger issues I've ever seen, someone moved the job to me and told me they had too much work. I've never been yelled at for letting someone know they have skipped both a 30k, and a 60k. To be honest, I've never been yelled at like that in my life. I got 2 thank you's from management for keeping calm and 3 techs told me that lady was the reason they refused to work with customers lol.

We don't play games like that here, we all pretty much look out for each other. If a new guy comes in and starts changing appointments or something we put an end to that real quick. All of us keep a pretty close eye on our appointments or our previous recommendations. Every body slips up now and then not checking that another advisor just recommended all that work or whatever, but purposely changing an appointment from another advisor to you is stealing.

We had a guy awhile back that came in and after 1 week was doing more than any other advisor, all of us were skeptical but not sure exactly what he was doing. Customers kept coming in asking for him by name and we were like what the hell he hasn't been here long enough to have any clients, turns out he was looking at appointments days in advance that were blank, meaning they would go to whoever got off their butt and greeted them when they got there and calling the customers and telling them to come in and ask for him. We fired him.
 

svtfocus2cobra

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They definitely punked me on a well known customer who had the worst anger issues I've ever seen, someone moved the job to me and told me they had too much work. I've never been yelled at for letting someone know they have skipped both a 30k, and a 60k. To be honest, I've never been yelled at like that in my life. I got 2 thank you's from management for keeping calm and 3 techs told me that lady was the reason they refused to work with customers lol.

That was the one thing I always loved about the shops I worked at. If someone started yelling at me without cause then I didn't have to take it and I pretty much never did. If they were assholes and wanted to be rude or try to talk down then we no longer wanted them as customers so I got to run off quite a few people.

I've be thrown under the bus on multiple occasions though and have felt like I was wearing a 10 inch dildo on my forehead while talking to a few customers. The techs screwed me over big time and hung me out to dry.
 

Mpoitrast87

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That was the one thing I always loved about the shops I worked at. If someone started yelling at me without cause then I didn't have to take it and I pretty much never did. If they were assholes and wanted to be rude or try to talk down then we no longer wanted them as customers so I got to run off quite a few people.

I've be thrown under the bus on multiple occasions though and have felt like I was wearing a 10 inch dildo on my forehead while talking to a few customers. The techs screwed me over big time and hung me out to dry.
We were allowed to throw people out at my last dealer. It was so satisfying lol.
 

svtfocus2cobra

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We were allowed to throw people out at my last dealer. It was so satisfying lol.

It certainly is. There were some customers that came around a few times before they eventually got thrown out and when I would see their cars roll up my blood would start to boil because I knew what would be coming.

I had one guy that would come in and get super confrontational every time, and would accuse me of being a liar multiple times. His drunken rants usually made no sense so I mostly was able to just stay calm and endure it while trying to de-escalate the situation until one day he just went over the top. He was telling me I told him outside his small repair to his mirror would be $20, but that was just a rough guess as I made clear, and I specifically mentioned tax on top of that and I specifically didn't give him an exact price and I made that clear to him outside it wasn't exact but he didn't care. When it came out to $28 and some change he flipped his lid and started going off on me telling me I'm a liar and all that. I finally had enough and stood up from my desk and said "**** you! Get off our property now! I'm finished dealing with you" I didn't hold back and was actually ready for a fist fight because that is what he was trying to start. Turned into quite a mess and my boss, who avoided those situations like the plague, ended up having to confront the guy when he walked around the back of the shop and found him working in the back room. I got in-between them but my boss was furious, screaming at the guy and had a hammer in his hand. I was pushing the guy back while he was mouthing off and my boss actually thumped the guy by thrusting the hammer into his chest and pushing him back lol. That had me a little worried because it was certainly caught on camera and who knows how that action could be spun, but luckily the guy left after that and we called the cops on him because he was drunk and they were concerned he was probably coming back. The guy was just an all around drunken piece of crap. So all of that over $8 but I was relieved to see him finally go.
 

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