Servicing & Repairs - Cars are "Too Technical"
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:20 pm
Not that this will come as any surprise to anyone of course!!
One of the biggest complaints by car owners at present is the apparent inability of Main Dealers to fix cars when faults occur. There's an article in this week's Auto Express referring to comments from 'an insider' who it reports has said that because the cars are now so technologically complicated, it is beginning to exceed the abilities of the Techies at the Dealership to fix things. Often a 'session' is set up between your car, the Dealer and whichever manufacturer's service team is needed and between them they try to sort the problem out - usually for the least amount of time and money spent!!
Dealers now often can't authorise any repair work as that has to be done by the manufacturer. As many of us know - and have been frustrated about - the fault promptly recurs because it was misidentified in the first case. But then as the 'insider' says, when the technicians are presented with a dozen or more fault codes it's almost impossible to know which one is the cause and therefore driving all the other faults!! With warranty repairs the pressure is to do it on the cheap rather than do it right......
An interesting comment in the article even says the Dealers need access to much better technical support themselves, and that the manufacturers and Dealer Sales staff should set much more realistic expectations with the customers.
.........and they still charge the earth for this poor standard of workmanship!! But it's not their fault!!
I have some sympathy, but not that much.
One of the biggest complaints by car owners at present is the apparent inability of Main Dealers to fix cars when faults occur. There's an article in this week's Auto Express referring to comments from 'an insider' who it reports has said that because the cars are now so technologically complicated, it is beginning to exceed the abilities of the Techies at the Dealership to fix things. Often a 'session' is set up between your car, the Dealer and whichever manufacturer's service team is needed and between them they try to sort the problem out - usually for the least amount of time and money spent!!
Dealers now often can't authorise any repair work as that has to be done by the manufacturer. As many of us know - and have been frustrated about - the fault promptly recurs because it was misidentified in the first case. But then as the 'insider' says, when the technicians are presented with a dozen or more fault codes it's almost impossible to know which one is the cause and therefore driving all the other faults!! With warranty repairs the pressure is to do it on the cheap rather than do it right......
An interesting comment in the article even says the Dealers need access to much better technical support themselves, and that the manufacturers and Dealer Sales staff should set much more realistic expectations with the customers.
.........and they still charge the earth for this poor standard of workmanship!! But it's not their fault!!
I have some sympathy, but not that much.