Are you kidding me, dealer?!?

acuRAS82

acuRAS82

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Real quick ventilation needed. Wife brought her Q5 to the dealer for a maintenance check up. I told her, who told the service guy, DO NOT WASH MY (freakin’) CAR.

“OK, no problem”.

Wife picks car up after work, service guy says:
“Yeeaaah, so they didn’t see my note and started spraying the car with water... but don’t worry, they then saw the note before washing it and squeegee’d the water off.”

Sure enough the car has water-smeared-dust-streaks all over it. I’m not going to inspect it for swirls/marring. She’ll get a finishing polish before winter prep (was previously hoping to not polish again this year.

Doesn’t matter where the dealership is (this was one in a very snooty town). These people are bad, really bad.
 
Makes me have little faith in dealers. I just consider myself very lucky mine saw my sign and followed it. Sounds to me you have some paint correction coming up before winter.
 
acuRAS82 said:
Real quick ventilation needed. Wife brought her Q5 to the dealer for a maintenance check up. I told her, who told the service guy, DO NOT WASH MY (freakin’) CAR.

“OK, no problem”.

Wife picks car up after work, service guy says:
“Yeeaaah, so they didn’t see my note and started spraying the car with water... but don’t worry, they then saw the note before washing it and squeegee’d the water off.”

Sure enough the car has water-smeared-dust-streaks all over it. I’m not going to inspect it for swirls/marring. She’ll get a finishing polish before winter prep (was previously hoping to not polish again this year.

Doesn’t matter where the dealership is (this was one in a very snooty town). These people are bad, really bad.
Click to expand...
You need a rear mirror hanger: DO NOT WASH
 
I work for a dealer.

I wouldn't let the "detailers" that work there within 50' of my truck.

Seriously.
 
acuRAS82 said:
Real quick ventilation needed. Wife brought her Q5 to the dealer for a maintenance check up. I told her, who told the service guy, DO NOT WASH MY (freakin’) CAR.

“OK, no problem”.

Wife picks car up after work, service guy says:
“Yeeaaah, so they didn’t see my note and started spraying the car with water... but don’t worry, they then saw the note before washing it and squeegee’d the water off.”

Sure enough the car has water-smeared-dust-streaks all over it. I’m not going to inspect it for swirls/marring. She’ll get a finishing polish before winter prep (was previously hoping to not polish again this year.

Doesn’t matter where the dealership is (this was one in a very snooty town). These people are bad, really bad.
Click to expand...

Sorry bro, What color?
 
I will be getting new tires this coming week and I’m already in panic wondering if there will be any damage to my wheels. I will take pictures before. And probably not sleep well until after it’s done. I hate anytime I have to let someone work on my car.
 
Sorry to hear that OP. Maybe the do not wash hanger idea is not so bad. My dealer is pretty good about not washing my cars as they know how nuts I am. They take a big marker and write it on the windshield. I recently took one of them to an independent for a cam magnet job which they charged me $150 for vs the dealer that wanted $500 and I would never have thought an independent would be washing a car after service. Well I was wrong, lol. It's my bad since i didn't tell them. He knows now.

BSoares, I had 4 rims damaged on an Acura MDX at once at a firestone a few years back. You are smart to take pictures before. Try to take the car in clean so they can't say it showed up dirty and they couldn't tell if it the damage was already there. I took mine in for new tires during winter and they said the car was dirty so they couldn't tell. Anyway, I ended up getting 4 new rims from them but I would rather not have gone through the trouble.
 
PaulMys said:
I work for a dealer.

I wouldn't let the "detailers" that work there within 50' of my truck.

Seriously.
Click to expand...

I also worked at a dealer for a good stint. Scarier than the detailers is the fact that the car washes were done by the rotating staff of “runners”. I’d see cars in the pick up lane that had Zebra stripes where they completely missed patches of dirt swiping the wash mitt around.
God only knows how often they changed out the water, or if the wash mitts actually lived in the buckets instead of on the floor by them...

BSoares - make sure whoever’s doing your tires doesn’t use a rim-clamp style machine. No reason with modern tech your wheels should be at risk, but so many people just don’t care. Also, Can’t tell you how many wheels I see with double weights where the ”tech” clearly did a crummy job balancing.

I hate my industry... (Sorry, now I’m venting)

You could try calling ahead and see what tire equipment they’re using and we can see what the risks look like. I’ve got a Hunter bias for tire mounting, balancing (road force. :xyxthumbs: ), and alignments.
 
Rsurfer said:
You need a rear mirror hanger: DO NOT WASH
Click to expand...

I’ve been talking about getting one for each car but hadn’t pulled the trigger. Will absolutely do so with my next order. My car gets it’s new winter wheels put on in November... gotta happen by then.
 
fightnews said:
Sorry bro, What color?
Click to expand...
Brilliant Black.... EEEK!!

Luckily the car was clean before my wife took it to the shop or things could have been much worse... so clean to the normal earthling’s eye that I have to wonder why they felt the need to wash it anyways. Because it’s their “courtesy” to grind road dust and black paint together with a squeegee?
 
Sorry to hear this. Just hope that if any scratches where made they are shallow enough to be polished down with a finishing polish step.

Can understand the thoughts to do a nice thing to wash the vehical for the customer. What I don't understand is why they don't get the knowledge on how to do a wash of the vehical. If they just used clean wash equipment and somewhat good quality products. They would at least don't make any crazy damage on the paint. The dealership should be noticeing how their vehicals on the lot gets worser and worser. Then it's pure ignorence from them to continue in what they do. What I also don't understand is where there is a huge problem on new vehicals and the customers don't get more angry so the dealership have to be changing their methods for the care of the vehicals while in there possesion.

I can say that how close the dealerships here in Sweden is with being an authorised seller of a car brand here. And there are not any independent dealerships that can sell vehicals without being authorised either. If they where to deliver new cars in bad conditions. They are very short lived here and loose their authorised seller of the brand if they don't make a change to the better. And that's what I don't either understand is why the car brands don't put pressure on the dealerships to deliver their vehicals in best possible condition. There seems to be places where this problem with the new car preps is state wide from almost every dealerships in the region. So it's strange that the car brands distributors don't get a knowledge about the conditions their vehicals is delivered in. Also if it's an authorised service dealership or mechanic shop and they damage the paint on the vehicals would not be long lived here in Sweden either as the rumors would spread fast and people would get the claims to the vehical brand HQ. And here it's where these makes their moneys on services on the vehicals with a warranty left on them. If they would loose the authorisation on this most would need to be closed. Most dealerships is not even doing bigger repairs on vehicals outside of the warranty as it's no money in it. That's a big downside here so all is not perfect in any way. And the mark up on the services during the warranty is crazy here in Sweden. You can save a lot of money to looking around on different authorised service mechanic shops when you are going to be leaving it in for service. But they are knowing what others has for prices so it's not easy to find these places. And doing services while the vehical has warranty left in an unauthorised shop is not smart either as you can get problems with warranty claims if needed. Also there are so much of hardware and software to be doing services on newer vehicals with warranty left. So it's mostly the authorised service shops that can afford them. The same goes with the independent service shops later on. They can't afford the equipment needed to be able to be doing services on all brands of vehicals. So they specialise on a few brands only and sometimes just one brand. It's not easy for an independent mechanic shop to be haveing up to date hardware and software to do either services or repairs as it's a huge cost. I mean you need many times to have the right software to even be doing a wheel change these days. With all of the sensors that needs to be recalibrated on some vehicals today. The same is for trouble shooting the vehicals is more of a computer work today. Have 2 stepcousins that works as mechanics on a Ford/MB dealership. They are away at least 1-2 times a year for education of new systems. Then they can be sended to more educations if they want to so they can be doing more and more advanced repairs and services on their brands they work on. And they don't have them together so they go on education on Ford and Mercedes separately LOL.

Rant is over LOL
 
oneheadlite said:
I also worked at a dealer for a good stint. Scarier than the detailers is the fact that the car washes were done by the rotating staff of “runners”. I’d see cars in the pick up lane that had Zebra stripes where they completely missed patches of dirt swiping the wash mitt around.
God only knows how often they changed out the water, or if the wash mitts actually lived in the buckets instead of on the floor by them...

BSoares - make sure whoever’s doing your tires doesn’t use a rim-clamp style machine. No reason with modern tech your wheels should be at risk, but so many people just don’t care. Also, Can’t tell you how many wheels I see with double weights where the ”tech” clearly did a crummy job balancing.

I hate my industry... (Sorry, now I’m venting)

You could try calling ahead and see what tire equipment they’re using and we can see what the risks look like. I’ve got a Hunter bias for tire mounting, balancing (road force. :xyxthumbs: ), and alignments.
Click to expand...

It's not just yours, Human error and carelessness can not be overcome anywhere.
 
acuRAS82 said:
Brilliant Black.... EEEK!!

Luckily the car was clean before my wife took it to the shop or things could have been much worse... so clean to the normal earthling’s eye that I have to wonder why they felt the need to wash it anyways. Because it’s their “courtesy” to grind road dust and black paint together with a squeegee?
Click to expand...
I know I'm lucky my dealer said they stopped washing peoples cars before I bought mine. I called up one day telling them not to wash my car when they had it. I figured they stopped because of complaints.
 
I have a 2019 Black Silverado. It came, heavily swirled. They buffed it 3 times and still full of swirls. I called GM. I’m having another dealer correct the paint. My question is, how often can it be buffed before going through the clear coat. The first dealer has 13hours buffing and they don’t dare buff it anymore.
 
it's so much easier for them to say my bad, then paying attention. don't get me started.
 
I just loved how they (Discount Tire) once did me with a brand new set of Chrome 22" wheels for my Tahoe.
Take the tires, and set them directly on the faces then slide them around and rotate them on the faces as they "butter" the beads with lubricant! Clowns!

I caught them with the first wheel, and told them do the other 3 that way you can pay me for the entire cost of the wheels. And yeah, there were some nice sleeks in that one wheel. The Carpro CQuartz DLX after hid them a bit.

Or when they threw new tires on my cargo, trailer, one wheel (smaller Valve Stem Holes on all) they forced a larger valve stem in.

Don't know how I made the 1640 mile trip across country from NM to WI without flatting, because a few days after the trip, the Valve Stem came right off! Snapped. Dummies!

As for tires-wheels, best to watch them like a hawk, standing outside no matter what.

They tried doing my father bad too a few weeks back (Pep Boys) with new tires on his 2005 VW Touareg. Weren't going to change the valve stems (non TPMS), 2 of which were 15 years old.
 
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