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Should we be worried?

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Alex Bruene

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Well, it was just a matter of time before this happened... Seems that one of our local "high-volume" dealerships is opening the doors to their sales department on Sundays... I can just see it now... somebody comes in to kick tires on a Sunday, and decides, "hey, maybe I should get an oil change while I'm here"... or but wait, parts and service are closed... sales people start to tell the management on Monday morning (since they obviously won't be there on Sunday) about "all" the people looking for service on Sunday... so then they decide maybe we should have somebody on for oil changes on Sunday... next thing there was some opportunity for up-sell, but the lube-jockey was not capable of doing anything other than lubes... so maybe a tech should be there on Sunday as well... and so on, and so on... /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/hitthefan.gif

 

 

So, should I be worried, or am I just crazy? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/icon_crazy.gif

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Depends on what you are worried about. When the whole Blue Oval went down Ford really pushed the dealers to have Saturday hours. I know my dealer loses money just opening the door on Saturdays. We normally schedule service work on Saturdays but our line techs are the ones that have to rotate Saturdays. There is no such thing as a "lube tech" in my dealership. From what I have been reading most Ford dealers have been slowing down. If we cant fill the bays Monday through Friday should we really be open Saturday and Sunday? Oh yeah, Wal-Mart and K-Mart are.

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I am surprised that you didn't already know that this WILL happen. Don't know when - but as sure as the sun rises, it is coming....

 

The idea is to provide the opportunity for customers to spend money. They will learn and they will, eventually, come...

 

Used to be that stores were never open on Sunday.... and rarely open late.... and never open on a holiday...

 

"Welcomb to de swahhhhhmp....".

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Well guys, I worked Tuesday through Saturday at the last dealer I was at, and I loved it. I have no kids so that was not a consideration. I wouldn’t mind Sunday through Thursday so long as my wife has at least Saturday off. I personally like to be able to go and do the business things that need to be handled during the week on my day off, so sign me up. But if the whole world goes to this mentality the only thing that will HAVE to be done during the week is anything related to government, there is no way you will talk them into working weekends.

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Thare is actually a law agianst car dealers in Illinois selling cars on Sundays. The owner of my dealer was actually one of the people that pushed the law and helped make it happen.

I agree with what you are saying Keith, but the way they see it is that they might be losing some buisness to other places that have more convinient hours to customers. If you let the customer decide to bring in his vehicle whenever he wants you will have a total mess like the place I left last year. The place would be totally dead all day long, and then there would be a rush of people coming in the door at 5:00-6:00pm wanting to wait for thier car to get fixed. You stood around all afternoon doing nothing. Do you go home and be the "Bad Guy" for turning down work or do you stay until 8:00pm and get home after your kids are in bed?

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Pfft. I just wont show up.

 

The last shop I worked at was open until 10pm, one day a week you would work from 8am to 10pm. It wasn't bad, if it was slow or we had no appointments, you would go home.

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Our dealership gives an 8 hour a day guarantee for working Saturdays. Which seems good, but in reality, they really just hold back a few appointments that would have been made during the week to make sure the Saturday schedule is full, and the guarantee doesn't need to get paid out too often... another reason I'm glad I don't work in the car shop.

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