MarkY

This reminds me of a dealer story. Back in 1989, I purchased a brand new 1989 Toyota 4Runner. When I was getting the lowdown prior to taking delivery, the sales schmo showed me the maintenance guide in the user manual and then the "dealer recommended service" since Toyota wasn't familiar with extreme Arizona conditions. The dealer service for the FIRST year was over $1000. This was in 1989.

I wrote a scathing letter to Toyota and copied the dealer. I received a nice letter from Toyota and "free" oil changes from the dealer for as long as I owned the 4Runner. Never collected on a single oil change as I never went back to that dealer.

Napalm

Things like this really grinds my gears

Moderators - would there be any consideration given to starting a thread to post up bad dealer experiences - so as to keep a tally of the bad dealers in areas.

I'm not necessary a fan of the whole social media justice warrior crap to read about but I am thinking there might should be some accountability and help for us the consumer.

Just so there is some acknowledgement that there is indeed bad dealers in an areas (dealers, service centers, tire shops etc) and perhaps more people will begin to vote with their wallets

SCrewYou

not only that, but i doubt he'll be going back to that dealer.

Takeda

After 1 year, and 19K miles, my air & cabin filters needed to be changed. I changed them myself.

msgtord

Ford has to put that letter out to dealerships every few years as service departments start to generate complaints due to the up sale of unnecessary maintenance. The quick lube places around here are really bad.

RL1990

Dealers pushing for unnecessary maintenance is partially due to the increased reliability of modern vehicles. As much as we think that cars and trucks are designed to fall apart after the warranty that is just not the case. Dealers are not making as much money on repairs or even maintenance because trucks and cars don't need them nearly as often. For years you were told that you had to change oil every 3,000 miles. For most people that was about 4 times a year minimum. Now, due to synthetics and IOLM, it's could be as long as 10,000 miles or once a year. I remember when it was a major milestone for you car/truck to hit 100,000 miles. Especially a domestic vehicle, this was something you would only see on Toyotas or Hondas. Even then you would've replaced a few parts a long the way. Now we complain when something breaks or needs repair with less than 100,000 miles on it.

Apples

A lot of these service writers seem to be working with info from 15 years ago, when 30,000 was the interval for trans fluid and fuel filter replacements.

Blackbuzzard

Can you produce any evidence for this claim?

msgtord

Well, I can say that the GM of the dealership I do business with told me that they changed the 3000 mile recommended oil change to 5000 because vehicles needed more miles on them to show any problems now days. Going from a recommended 3000 miles to 5000 miles had nothing to do with the condition of the oil. It was all about getting the vehicle in the bay to do an inspection, and find something to fix.

RL1990

Apparently you didn't read the rest of my post.