Need to know if I should let this slide or not. REASON: Dealer is highly respected in the area. Time and money is donated to kids, law enforcement and many more organizations. So, A lot of good is done for the community. PROBLEM: A few weeks ago, I went in for routine service and was advised that my brake pads were less than 3mm and needed immediate replacement. Due to cost, I went to an independent service shop in the area that was highly recommended. They charged me nothing and showed me that my pads were at more than 5mm, which is not even at half life, and said no work was needed. Now, I don't feel I can trust the dealership to do work on my HHR because now there is no way of knowing whether the work is really needed or worse, whether they even do the work that is needed but still charge me for it. My feeling is to just go to the independent for work and leave it at that but others are saying I should have the dealership investigated for fraud. How many other customers are they doing this to? I refuse to mention names until I know what course I will take. Just looking to get some of your input about this problem.

 

Sounds like a rip-off for sure. And I would say it is not an uncommon problem with dealers by the number of comments from some of the members here. However independent shops can have the same reputation for rip-offs.

Pushing for a fraud investigation will likely not bode well with the dealership, and may sour any relationship you have with them, and I feel it won't really result in anything positive anyways.

Me, I'd make an appointment with the Service Manager and have a one-on-one discussion about it, and see what his reaction is. It could be a case of an over-eager mechanic or service writer that the dealer would be happy to investigate if they value their reputation.

To help keep everyone honest, I always ask for the old parts to be returned to me after the work is done. Well, except for the old oil and filter

 

Thank you for the response. I believe you are correct about not burning any bridges behind me. Once burned, that path can not again be used. A meeting with the service manager is in order. Thanks again for your help. P.S., the independent shop I spoke of could easily have done the work, presented me with pads that were bad, telling me they were mine and then charging me for the work, having actually never changed my pads at all since they had more than half life left and I would have never known the difference. They, on the other hand, took me out to my car, showed me that the pads were good, put the wheels back on, performed a 27 point vehicle check and charged me nothing. They told me they would rather make money by having a good and honest relationship with their customers by charging for doing necessary work and not loosing money by risking the lose by cheating the customer.

 

Now that is a shop one can send their mother to. :)

Keep us posted if you can - it's an interesting situation for sure. best of luck.

 

I've seen the outer pads that looked like new but the inner pads are almost metal to metal. Are you sure both the inner and outer pads were OK?

I figure the caliper is screwed up on these but when I put the new pads in the piston seems to be working fine. I also check all the little bits that are supposed to move and have found some that were solid as a rock. Fortunately the replacement parts are easy and cheap to get and replace.

I have rebuilt and replaced calipers for some folks who have been convinced by their dealer that the original is toast.

Few have been to the point that I could not have just replace a few much less expensive parts on them and they would be fine again, but the customer is always right so I have reluctantly replaced them a few times.

 

I was thinking along the same lines as grizzly old man, is it possible that the dealer mechanic checked an inner pad that had one end down to less than 3mm while the other shop just looked at the outers? I have had pads that looked good except for one end (tapered wear).

If not, then I agree with the approach by Whopper. Go see the Service Manager and explain how you can no longer trust them (without any anger or provocative comments like "you're all crooks here").

Calling for a fraud investigation and getting one are two different things. This usually involves the state attorney general. He probably won't do anything (except for sending a letter to the dealer that they have received a complaint) unless there have been numerous complaints about the dealer from other people. They have limited staff and usually only investigate certain cases, usually involving many people or "politically useful" cases.

Steve

Steve

 

I agree you should sit down with the service manager.

I worked in three different dealers as an auto tech over 20 years. I have seen my share of underhanded repairs from time to time.

The dealer may not be to blame as much as the auto tech that checked out your car.

The auto tech tells the service writer what the car needs and it's the service writers job to sell it to you. Most service writers know very little about cars and a lot more about selling services to the customer.

The auto tech in most dealers get payed on a flat rate scale. Say a brake job pays 1.5 hours to do the job. If he completes that job in half the time he can get to the next job and do that one in half the time to make more money.

A good auto tech will see his pay at the end of the week at about 50 to 60 hours with only working a 40 hour week.

A flat rate tech without a conscience that needs more money that week will try to find as much up sell work as they can.

Most techs will only sell something you need but there are bad ones out there and I have seen lots of good parts removed from cars just to make money or using the shot gun method of diagnostic and repair. ( keep changing parts till the problem go's away and tell the customer he needed all these parts ) of course with the shot gun method the tech gets payed to replace each part.

You can make good money on the flat rate system but it does not promote honesty.

 

I generally like dealer work especially if I can get pricing near an independent garage. Sometimes the dealer, I feel, just knows your vehicle better.

My previous dealer, for my formally owed F-150 had service pricing just slightly higher than independent mechanics, and they always did top-notch work

My dealer now, for my HHR seems pretty high though, and like the above thread implies, maybe not as trustworthy. I got a price of $285.00 to change out my transmission fluid and filter (45,000 mile service) from the dealer. That seemed sky-high to me. A local transmission shop with a flawless reputation did the job for $130.00 out-the-door.

I'm now leaning toward reliable, knowledgeable independents, especially if they are like the one Dewstiller mentions.

 

If you read your Owners Manual, you would find no reference to 45,000 mile service. Unless you are driving a taxi cab the ATF is good forever. You ripped yourself off?

 

I also found that the dealer performs "recommended" service at 1/2 the owner's manual recommendations. Like transmission service and coolant system flush at 45,000 rather than the 100,000 interval. The dealer takes the car to some back room to do the work. At my independent service shop, I can watch to see what they are doing. The cost at the independent shop is about 1/2 the dealer cost also.