Warranty

"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale) 06/10/2016 at 17:58 • Filed to: dealership, warranty, radio

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*Rant coming after image

So working for a dealership we see a multitude of pricing and payments going on for vehicle repairs. Like customer pay, warranty, extended warranty, insurance, and my personal favorite goodwill warranty. That last one bothers me so very much. It basically goes,

Advisor: “The estimate for this repair after finding out what is wrong with your car will be $xxx.”

Customer (with a car 2 years and 30k miles out of warranty): “That is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to pay that much. Why isn’t that covered under my warranty? I can’t believe something like that would cost so much!”

And then the advisor goes on to call their manufacture rep and see if they can get partial or all of the repair covered because a “good” customer is too cheap to fix their car. This just doesn’t sit well with me at all. I can’t understand people’s mind set on complaining on broken parts on their car costing too much money so that way someone else will pay for it or give them a discount. For example if something with my house (built in 1945) went bad, I wouldn’t call the builder, or the previous owner and complain that this is their fault and they should help pay for it because it is more than I want to spend. I would personally suck it up and pay for it, if it wasn’t and emergency I would wait and save up to fix it, or learn to repair it my self. Which I do, do. Because with my car I know I am out of warranty after 10 years, but only 40k miles.

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Yet when my A/C goes out, when my paint cracks, when my slave cylinder leaks, or anything else my only complaint is that it will be tough to afford all of this happening at the same time, but I suck it up and fix what I can and have a tech a work do it and I pay for it. I just can’t imagine having the mindset that a car isn’t a wearable commodity. It is going to break down. It is going to have problems. WELCOME TO VEHICULAR OWNERSHIP.

Radio in question (I believe)

What brings on this rant? Good question eventual commenter. In my shop we have 2011 Subaru Outback. Generally a good car especially since it has the wonderful 3.6R motor. Unfortunately at 5 years old and 104K+ miles later, the warranty won’t cover their radio that has gone bork. I did a quick check and their warranty expired 04/14/2014 and 36k miles. Subaru with radios is very VERY strict with radios and the 36k mile cut off. So when my advisor keeps asking about pricing for the radio it ticks me off. Customer pay pricing is steep at $1720.02 for just the radio. That is a reman exchange radio, but a new one if it were still available would have been in excess of $2100. Why should Subaru have to cover any of this? Why can’t people just say no? No I am sorry, you warranty doesn’t cover that. I can suggest a lovely company in town who will put an aftermarket radio in for you. But I got the call to order it cause Subaru is going to cover a portion of it.... YAY!!!

My only advice to you people is COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN!!!

If you are loud enough the pearly gates will open for you, a red carpet will unroll at your feat, and everything will be handed to you. Also apparently never take no for an answer.

*EDIT* This particular customer has only one previous repair order written for them. It was 2 weeks ago for a fog lamp (free) and an intermentant problem with the steering wheel switches.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:01

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The complaints usually work more effectively if you spend a lot of money there.

CaptDale - is secretly British > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 06/10/2016 at 18:11

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They have no history other than 2 weeks ago they came in for a fog light issue.

Boxer_4 > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:15

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My dad recently had a rear strut start to leak on his car (2012 Outback 3.6R, actually). Since it started leaking just as the mileage limit passed for the 3yr/36,000mi warranty, it would have been completely on him. However, he worked out a deal where the dealer good-will warrantied the bad strut and part of the labor to change it so long as he paid for the strut on the other side and part of the labor (I forget the exact deal). It worked out great, since he wanted them changed as a matched set anyway.

That customer complaining about the radio is out of their mind.

CRider > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:17

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Because Subaru would rather take a cut on the refuckingdiculous profit margins on a radio, than see customers go to the aftermarket. It also builds brand loyalty.

CaptDale - is secretly British > Boxer_4 06/10/2016 at 18:28

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Right, I see some reason to the goodwill thing. That is a reasonable request and I am sure your dad was very polite about it.

But is the crap like this radio where they should not be helping this fuck out at all. Or like the 2015 Sierra 1500 we had in the shop that we warrantied a ton of rear suspension work on cause the guy fucked it up jumping it at the Pismo Dunes. You could see the tire rub marks at the top of the wheel wells in the bed. Like that should not have been covered cause the guy is a retard, but we did any way.

DynamicWeight > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:29

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1700 for a radio!? I’m not the kind of person to complain unjustly, but that is completely ridiculous. Also, Subaru, and every other manufacturer in the world can go fuck themselves for straying away from the 1 DIN 2 DIN system. IT WAS FINE.

But some marketing/sales asshole (kill yourselves) realized “Hey, why are we making something easy to upgrade/fix when we can make it proprietary and charge thousands for it instead? Oh yeah, and when the radio technology improves, they’ll have to buy a whole nother car !”

Sneaky Pete > DynamicWeight 06/10/2016 at 18:33

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A-f&cking men!

CaptDale - is secretly British > DynamicWeight 06/10/2016 at 18:37

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I agree that price is stupid, but Subaru would have paid us back for that radio. That is their warranty price. I totally understand being upset with a price like that, but still. I am just tired of these costumers being loud assholes and my service drive just laying down and taking it.

Boxer_4 > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:38

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Exactly. It's everyone with their unreasonable requests that tends to ruin it for those people with reasonable requests.

extraspecialbitter > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 18:57

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Well, you’re in it for the long haul. The less people know about cars in general, the more this will happen, of course.

One thing I never dig-dag-dittilly-doodley understood is: over the course of a lifetime, the average person will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into their vehicles. Yet as time goes on and newer technology is introduced, people seem to feel less and less impetus in trying to figure out how these dag-don-dittilly things work.

They don’t care! They’re just happy throwing away their cash in hopes it will remain magically, and perfectly, beige.

V12 Jake- Hittin' Switches > DynamicWeight 06/10/2016 at 18:58

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I should be so lucky. My car has fiber optic stereo wires so you can’t touch it without messing it up.

CaptDale - is secretly British > extraspecialbitter 06/10/2016 at 18:59

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!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Best thing I have ever read.

extraspecialbitter > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 19:03

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Why, thank you!

CaptDale - is secretly British > extraspecialbitter 06/10/2016 at 19:14

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You’re welcome. If Oppo had COTD

DynamicWeight > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 19:55

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You may be tired of it, but my point here is that you’re blaming the victim. It’s subaru’s fault for pricing their radio so incredibly high, not the fault of the customer for being mad at being gouged. Which, I think, we can all agree a 1700 radio head is gouging. And also, I think it’s acceptable to be upset at a six year old radio failing. They shouldn’t fail that early regardless of the details of the warranty.

Part of the reason its important to have people in jobs like this is for this exact reason. A computer can’t go outside of it’s programming to realize when a situation is unfair or wrong, but a person can take time to judge and analyze whats going on and take steps to fix it.

All that being said, I hate dealing with my customers sometimes too, even when they’re right (maybe especially when their right), that’s just part of having a job.

shop-teacher > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 19:59

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I’m sure the goodwill repairs get abused, but there are times when it’s perfectly valid. Case in point, my father-in-law. With the exception of a ‘79 Datsun B210, he’s owned nothing but Chevys since 1969 when he got out of the Navy. For the last 30 years they have all been purchased from the same dealer, who does all of his service work. So when the stupid 3.1 in his ‘99 Malibu blew up at 5 years old and 25k miles, it made good business sense for them to cover the new short block (or maybe half of it, I don’t remember). He’s since bought another Chevy from the same dealer, but I guarantee if he had to pay full frieght for that short block, there’d be a Kia in his driveway right now.

CaptDale - is secretly British > DynamicWeight 06/10/2016 at 20:03

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I guess you are right on that fact. But you really should have hear these people. They complained about everything we did. FUCKING EVERYTHING. Then complained that it would take 2 days to get a radio. Then complained about paying for the work that we did today and that they shouldn’t have to pay for it till everything (including the radio) was fixed. Then they complained about how they could not pay and leave the car or take it and pay. Honestly sometimes it is better to lose a customer than to keep one.

And that is Kenwood’s pricing for the radio. Subaru doesn’t make their radio and has an exchange program for warranty radios through Kenwood and their various radio vendors (6 we currently use). So I blame them for their prices not Subaru.

CaptDale - is secretly British > shop-teacher 06/10/2016 at 20:04

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Kia would be even worse, but yeah that’s the kind of customer you help out. Not these assholes. I’d rather lose these people as customers than keep them.

shop-teacher > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/10/2016 at 22:20

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Agreed on all counts.

He had a Soul for a rental and loved it, but went with an Equinox which he’s very happy with.

DynamicWeight > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/13/2016 at 12:15

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Yeah, sounds like a Class A whiner. Sometimes it really is just them being an asshole. I’d be frustrated with most of those things, but the not paying for work already done sounds like theyre just trying to be difficult.

Wow, crazy on Kenwood then. I can’t imagine that’s what it costs Subaru though.... I mean, some of these Subarus are only 17k. So 10% of the cost is in the radio!?

The Stig's former college room mate > CaptDale - is secretly British 06/13/2016 at 12:59

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Buy a Lexus, never pay for anything again. Lexus will good will warranty anything.

Example #1: We just had a girl in here who bought a used 2010 HS250h with 92k miles. She has never owned a Lexus and has never purchased anything from a Lexus dealer (she bought her car from an independent dealer). Yet when she called Lexus to complain that the badges on her 6 year old used car were peeling, Lexus agreed to buy her new ones! So we replaced the front and rear Lexus badges to the tune of about $400 and billed Lexus for it.

Example #2: We repaired both sides of a 2008 IS250. Guy hit the guard rail with one side of the car and a week later did the same thing on the other side. That’s when he decided to replace his bald tires. Anyway, we get done doing $12k of body work to this car. He picks it up and takes it home. The next day he calls me saying his windows are scratched and the door doesn’t line up properly. Not believing it would leave like that, since it gets inspected by at least 3 different people before being delivered to the customer, i ask him to bring it in. He lives in a shady neighborhood- where an 8 year old base model Lexus is BY FAR the nicest car- and obviously someone had tried to brake into the car. All the doors and windows had the tell tale signs of slim jims and pry bars. He did not want to file a claim after just filing two the week before. i quoted a price of about $1500 to repair it. The Lexus factory rep just happened to be there, and upon overhearing the conversation, volunteered to have Lexus pay for it.

Example #3- hundreds of 10+ year old cars with rust that Lexus covers, even though the perforation warranty is long expired.

CaptDale - is secretly British > The Stig's former college room mate 06/13/2016 at 13:44

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Whoa, man if I could afford the one Lexus I’d ever buy (LFA) at least I know it’d be cheap to own.