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It's hard to have respect for dealers sometimes.

5K views 22 replies 11 participants last post by  tonylumps 
#1 ·
I have had more people tell me in the last couple years that our local Honda dealer is telling owners to have their snowblowers serviced EVERY year. I don't think this is right. This past winter maybe I used my blower 25 hours and it was a wetter than usual winter.

yes , i will change the oil in the fall and go thru an inspection with lubrication points etc. But a full service?

I tell/show people how to do an inspection , encourage basic maintenance , do an oil change , and how to prepare their snowblower for the long lay off between spring and the next winter.

Honda really needs to clamp down on some of their dealers. I had one guy show me receipts for his services for the last 15 years. EVERY year his average service was about $250. In those 15 years they changed the belts 5 times. They changed the scraper bar and skid shoes 4 times ! They changed other parts as well. he barely used the machine as he had a plow service and only used his machine occasionally.

I serviced his 828 and found NOTHING wrong. No bad adjustments that would cause the scraper and shoes to premature wear. The belts ran straight and true and were in perfect condition. The machine was in excellent condition with low hours for a 25 year old machine. The owner just did what he was told and had it serviced every year and the dealer must have seen him coming from a couple blocks away.

he is not the only one. I have done enough services to machines that had previously been serviced by this dealer to see they are NOT doing the work they charge for, the corners they cut , etc.

This is one of the reasons I strive to educate Honda owners to take care of their machines themselves. It's a shame that this kind of business practice still goes on.
 
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#2 ·
Its not just Honda dealers. You name the brand, and there are questionable dealers who will charge as much as they can as often as they can. Some people dont care, they just accept whatever they are told and pay the bill. If you are dependant on dealers or shops for everything, and do not know how to diagnose problems, even if you cannot fix them yourself, you will probably get hosed at least some of the time by trusting what people tell you without question. If you want to split hairs, you can never go wrong changing every moving or wearing part once a year whether it needs it or not.

I just had my car in for its 5 year inspection, and was told after the car was in the service bay for all of 7 minutes, that I needed all the brakes and rotors replaced, plus all four tires, for a total estimate of about $2200.00. The car has 21000 miles on it. I told them I would like to see the condition of the brakes and rotors and tires while it was on the hoist, but was told, sorry, customers are not permitted in the service area and those parts are already back on the car. Not bad for 7 minutes.... I thanked them for the estimate and went on my way.

Pretty sad. I checked the brakes and it did need pads on the front, and rotors were kind of iffy on the inside surface. Rear pads had about 1/8 material left and the rotors were fine.

I went to my handy dandy small garage and had what needed doing for about 60% of what the dealer quoted using OEM Toyota parts. Tires are fine, no plans to replace them in the next year or so.

So its not just Honda and OPE its every brand and probably 50% of dealers and service providers.
 
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#3 ·
I have had more people tell me in the last couple years that our local Honda dealer is telling owners to have their snowblowers serviced EVERY year. I don't think this is right. This past winter maybe I used my blower 25 hours and it was a wetter than usual winter.

yes , i will change the oil in the fall and go thru an inspection with lubrication points etc. But a full service?

I tell/show people how to do an inspection , encourage basic maintenance , do an oil change , and how to prepare their snowblower for the long lay off between spring and the next winter.

Honda really needs to clamp down on some of their dealers. I had one guy show me receipts for his services for the last 15 years. EVERY year his average service was about $250. In those 15 years they changed the belts 5 times. They changed the scraper bar and skid shoes 4 times ! They changed other parts as well. he barely used the machine as he had a plow service and only used his machine occasionally.

I serviced his 828 and found NOTHING wrong. No bad adjustments that would cause the scraper and shoes to premature wear. The belts ran straight and true and were in perfect condition. The machine was in excellent condition with low hours for a 25 year old machine. The owner just did what he was told and had it serviced every year and the dealer must have seen him coming from a couple blocks away.

he is not the only one. I have done enough services to machines that had previously been serviced by this dealer to see they are NOT doing the work they charge for, the corners they cut , etc.

This is one of the reasons I strive to educate Honda owners to take care of their machines themselves. It's a shame that this kind of business practice still goes on.

It's sickening how Dealers of all sorts, not just yard equipment, descend on the unaware to service equipment, and charge them outrageous fees. My wife had a 2011 Altima that had under 8,000 KM on it, and the Dealer was telling her she needed a brake service where they remove and lube the brake system....all for ONLY $600! After 3 attempts I went in and asked the guy...." Just how stupid do you think I am?"......Please guys.....try and refrain from answering that! But REALLY?! We called a Nissan Dealer in another city nearby, and asked if this would affect our warranty. They asked" well, is there something actually wrong with your brakes? He answered the question with another question.:hellno:
 
#6 ·
i believe what your talking about is the dealer or even some shops trying to up sell you on services that your vehicle doesn't need. pretty sure there is a couple video's on youtube that explain how most of the time it is all just BS but some people are too stupid to question it. pretty much if it is not on the service schedule in the service manual in the glove box then the dealer is making crap up. as long as you follow the schedule in the manual it should stay covered under warranty.

yup and that is usually how the best shops are but getting a bit more difficult to find good shops like that.
 
#5 · (Edited)
We all have stories and yes it is not specific to any dealer it happens across the board. I bought a Ford vehicle from a Ford dealership with only 11,000 km on the odometer, at 16,000 km i took it in for a engine oil change and was told i needed to change my brake line fluid. I have never, ever changed brake line fluid at 16,000 km on basically a brand new car ought from that same dealership, when i explained that and mentioned i wanted to see it in their service manual for the vehicle they dropped it down to it is not mandatory just a suggestion.

Enough said at that point....

For my snowblower i do a oil and spark plug change end of every season, general visual and lubrication and that's pretty much it.
 
#8 ·
Servicing Cub Cadet 3X 26

I do my own maintenance on my 3X 26 following the manual's instructions. This year in Beaver Creek Ohio we have had very little snow and what we did have was light (about 3 inches). I used the blower 3 times. I am wondering if I need to do maintenance on it this year. What do you think?
 
#9 ·
I do my own maintenance on my 3X 26 following the manual's instructions. This year in Beaver Creek Ohio we have had very little snow and what we did have was light (about 3 inches). I used the blower 3 times. I am wondering if I need to do maintenance on it this year. What do you think?
a dealer would say yes. I say inspect it and check maintenance points. you probably won't need too much. just check oil and shut off gas and run engine until it stalls out and you'll probably be good to go next winter.
 
#10 ·
The automotive and home & garden equipment markets seem to be built on the premise of low-margin sales, high-margin service. Sadly I don't see it changing anytime soon. Last time I had anything done at a car dealership that wasn't under warranty or recall, they knowingly replaced my battery when their records showed them my existing one was still under warranty. I paid for it and didn't realize until it was too late.
 
#11 ·
A service writer friend told me a story about how a customer confronted him “ I think you are taking advantage of women “. His response. “ we take advantage of everyone that walks in the door” at that point he was burned out of pushing the dealers over service agenda.

He worked at many dealerships and he said all have recommended service that was above and beyond the owners manual Maint. He also said most dealers have a couple of talented mechanics and the rest are parts changers. The parts changers make more money for themselves and the dealer as they sell lots of parts and labor. Eventually if problem persists if will end up being diagnosed and repaired by the talented wrench but the dealers parts changer made$$$ for the dealer

Unfortunately dealer service is about $$$ and the more you spend the more everyone makes as wrenches are paid by hours billed not hours worked. That is the incentive for over servicing



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#12 ·
yup. that's it in a nutshell. the old days are gone. it still pisses me off that people are taken advantage of. that's why i started my facebook group for Honda owners to help people save money by doing most of the maintenance and repairs themselves. if they cart it over to my garage i give them a fair price for labor and do NOT do unnecessary work.
 
#14 ·
So...tales about Dealerships...I have one. I won't say it's name, just to protect myself. Wife took her car to the dealership for an oil change, and they always pull the wheels off. Had the winters on, with plastic hubcaps over top.She drove the car for about 3 weeks, until it came time to swap over the tires for summer. I nearly fainted when I saw the passenger front wheel...with ONLY 2 nuts on it. ONLY 2! She had been driving highway speeds a number of times with it. So, to the Dealership I go, furious. They start arguing with me that I lost the remaining 3 nuts. " I don't think so Tim!" for the Home Improvement fans. " Our mechanics would NEVER do that" the Service Manager told me. After demanding it be repaired, the same mechanic was called to take it into the shop, and fix it. I actually watched him reach into his tool cabinet, and pull out the 3 missing nuts,and put them back on. The reason I KNOW that they were the ones off the car originally was.....now think about this.... one of the missing nuts was a locknut, and they only come in a set of 4. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears, when he came out with the car and said " he found some". Haven't been back there since, and never will. And, will never buy one from there either.:sad2:
 
#15 ·
My daughter brought her 2016 Buick Encore ( Still under warranty ) for a safety inspection last week. ( Actually I brought it in but she picked it up. ) Going to try to make this short. The bill was for over $900 so she called me. I said "don't pay anything I'll be right there." So I started taking the bill apart. They charged for 2 days of car rental because they had to wait for parts, I got them to scratch that off immediately because vehicle warranty says free rentals. They charged her for an oil change when the vehicle wasn't due for one. They said they had to change the oil because of the defective part on the car ???? scratch that off too. They charged her for parts they said weren't covered under warranty and I proved them wrong there too. Final bill $48, $35 for inspection and $10 for turning rear rotor plus tax. I was going to press them for the brake rotors but the guy was already very red in the face and didn't want him to have an aneurysm pop and splatter us with blood.

Then she get's in the vehicle and it dies before she can make it out of the dealership. So she calls me again since I had already left so I turned around and went back ( Wasn't very far yet ) I told her to leave it where it was, right at the entrance with 4way flashers on and we went back in at the dealer. The first guy I dealt with "Dylan" Promised me that this time he would make sure everything would go smoothly according to warranty. They gave her a new XT4 for 2 days and they took care of her real good. Bill was $0 when we picked up her Encore and everybody was disgustingly polite. Even the dealership owner was there to apologize to her personally. I think I must have hit somebodies nerve.
 
#19 ·
considering they clearly screwed the car up since it couldn't make it out without breaking down again they better throw in something extra for the inconvenience. bad enough that you had to go to the dealer to straighten them out. $10 to have rotors turned is cheap. i think i usually end up paying $20/rotor when i need any done which is why i don't get it done often.
But i do like warning people about them people on social media. i have heard a lot of bad stories about them so I'm sure they have lost a lot more than 700 dollars of business because of my story.

idiots.
yup. lots of video's on youtube about places like that and dealers trying to upsell you on services that you usually don't need or at least not yet. they really need to make laws against shops/dealers lying to customers just so they can make more money because that is what it is in most cases. heck most of the time the person upselling you on the stuff is just BSing their way through it.
 
#18 ·
I've had good luck with my Ford dealership, though I had to rein in one of the mechanics. He was telling me that my engine had oil leaking down the side of the engine-acting quite serious. He could fix it, he said! I told him to leave it alone. Most engines have some oil leaking down the side and it doesn't use even 1/4 quart in 5,000 miles. Besides that one instance, the Ford dealership here is cheaper than the local mechanic shop downtown, and their work is better. I didn't let them do a "50,000 mile complete service". A lot of that "complete service" is profit for them so I just had the oil and transmission fluid changed.

I have recently found a local guy with a lift in the garage behind his house and he's quite reasonable. You bring him parts and he charges you to install them. This requires a bit of mechanical know-how, but it saves a bunch.
 
#20 ·
Mechanics profession is mostly on the job training. You start at lube filters Than progress to brakes. Then Powertrain. And say a “mechanic”. Has mastered brakes. They will try to replace brakes on every car they inspect cause they know that. There are some great wrenches but many not good


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#21 ·
It is the same way with surgeons. They know how to cut and they like to do it. So if you go to a surgeon for an opinion, he will urge you to operate because that's how he knows how to solve the problem. I've just had to encounter two surgeons in my time and they both did a decent job with no infection afterwards.
 
#23 ·
I really feel sorry for some people who have to depend on these so called Pros.They just don't have the time to learn .They are to busy making money and the service shops take advantage of them.My relatives and some Neighbors are like that .when I try to give some advice .It goes in one ear and Disappears And the same problem every year So I kind of give up on them now when they call I tell them That looks like a job for a Pro.shop.I am getting to old to even maintain some of my own equipment .
 
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