rocky213

well, i recently took my truck for a scheduled oil change.(which i usually do myself). and found that they did not change the filter. whats up with that? so, i am about to change out my trans fluid, filter and feul filter. I am wondering if the dealership is honest enough to do this work.
where have you guys found to be the most honest shops to do this work? i am a little leary of dealerships at this point. are they hard jobs to do yourself? or was my incident mearly a fluke?

Lenn

Just to play devil's advocate, how do you know they didn't change the filter?

rollingthunder

If you know for a fact that the filter was not changed, go TALK to the service manager. Chances are that "mechanic" will be fired. We had a "mechanic" who was wiping off filters, because he was too lazy to change them, it was about 5 months before we figured it out(found a brand new oil filter in the trash can), he was fired that day. And we changed the oil on every machine that he had done any services on the time he worked for us(at no expense to the customer)...


It's not the dealerships fault. It's the pos mechanic. You can't expect the service manager to know EVERYTHING that goes on in his shop, he has to have a certain amount of trust in his techs, which is sometimes violated.

rocky213

i use fram filters, and the same filter was still there. im pretty sure that the dealership would use a motorcraft filter. either way im sure that it was a fluke, one oil change probably did not hurt the truck. I now use the mobile one filter and oil. so i just do it myself. i am however due for the feul filter and tranny fluid/filter, and don't have my old mechanic anymore to do the work. i know it sucks but if the guy at ford was having a bad day, id hate to have him fired. so you would say that the dealership is good for the work? or am i better off learning?

SinCityFX4

That is fraud and most states have pretty killer laws on that angle. Take it back and have the Service mgr. pull hte filter, it wont be hard to see if it was the old one.

Make sure you are right first.

texasedition

Dealers wonder why they are losing all thier business to Firestones, and Goodyears.

rollingthunder

My friend don't worry about costing someone their job. It takes 1 minute to spin off the old filter and one minute to spin on the new filter. Having a bad day is not an excuse to put someone elses $30,000 vehicle at risk. It's simply not acceptable, again I'm not a auto mechanic, I'm a Deere construction equipment field tech and if I ever did not change a oil filter on a customers machine I would be trying to get fired......... It's simply not acceptable....


The problem with ANY service center is this. THE GOOD TECHS ARE NOT DOING OIL CHANGES. That is for the shop "", they are usually either PT high school kids or people who likely less mechanically inclined than you, but happened to apply at the dealership when they needed a body. And the problem with the firestones and goodyears is that the good techs at these places are few and far between because of high turnover, because they don't have competetive pay with the dealerships. Any monkey can mount and balance tires, it isn't rocket science(ok so series 30 tires on $2000 rims is a lil tricky).



OH and the dealership is good for the work, but make sure you politely bring up your questioning of the filter.... the price is worth it as the reason the other places are cheaper is because they don't FLUSH the trans, the simply drain and refill which is about %40 of the oil.


At very least request that the tech who did the last service on your truck not do this service, the tech number will be on your last invoice and should be in the dealers system too. If the manager asks why, say you think he may have not changed the filter....


Generally service managers are real easy to get along with, however the first thing a customer with a bad experience will do is chew out the service manager, it's simply not the way to get anything done.

cody ryan

i have to agree to take offf and replace it takes maybe a min they couldve put a fram filter on it for you idk why they would tho look on your paper and see what it says
for the trani flush watch them sometimes they say oh yeah we HAVE the machine to cycle the bad fluid out and good in but sometimes they just convienently forget.... i like getting exactly what i pay for not more no less thats why i also like doing myown work i know the quality will be good for sure

Lenn

I very much agree with everything Rollingthunder said. I am a big fan of dealerships after BEING a service manager for Volvo. Good dealerships are out there and for the most part, they will all work with you. If you have a bad experience... don't hold the axe over the dealership's head, address the problem with them. Maybe they have no idea what is going on at anything higher than the lube tech's level.

14088

One time this happened to me at my Ford dealer. I had a free oil and filter change coming and it was too cold to do it myself so I marked the oil filter with a paint stick because I have heard about people getting cheated out of a new filter. I took the truck in,sat in the customer service area till they told me the truck was ready. When I went out to the truck ,I looked at the filter and it was my old filter. I took the service manager out to the truck ,told him that I had marked the old filter then he took a look. He had another guy take the truck back in,changed the oil and filter and gave me 6 free oil and filter changes. The lube guy was fired. Mark your oil filter,it pays off.