Around the wheel report cards

[GregKneupper]

I would like everyones opinion on this subject. Now I think that the report cards and the fact that ford is pushing maintenance real hard is a great thing for our customers and it is also a great way to pull in some extra money for the dealers and ford motor company. My issue with this subject is that it seems that is all I have been seeing in the ford commercials lately is them pushing maintenance items. I know my dealer has been advertising it real hard as well. It seems to me that they have left out that dealers also repair vehicles. My dealer has really been pushing us to sell brakes, tires, and batteries as I am sure your dealers have as well. The problem I have is that my dealer pays lower wages on items like that. I really dont do alot of maintenance because I am working on diesels all day long and dont have time to do maintenance work. I really dont care to do it because the wages are extremely low to do it. I know that alot of guys say that that kind of work is gravy work and for the most part it probably is. Here it is not though. They have really set it up where it is a money maker for the dealer and not the tech. We have a quick lube shop that does most of it and I really dont have a problem with that. I just feel like the real work that is done here is being left out of advertising. I didnt go to school and get a bunch of training to brake jobs and sling tires all day for as much as a worker at wal mart makes. When did it change from having your vehicle serviced by factory certified techs to instead come have your oil changed and your brakes and tires inspected by certified techs. Help me understand this direction for trying to sell maintenance so hard and leaving out the fact that alot more is done at flm dealers than just doing oil changes.

[Jim Warman]

I can think of many reasons why Ford doesn't advertise that dealers do repairs.

 

The one that sticks out the most in my mind is that you are asking the Ford spokesman (announcer, actor, whatever) to say "When your Ford breaks down......"...... 'Scuse me? When my Ford breaks down? It fucking better not.... It's a nearly new car.

 

Doctors don't talk about their mistakes... lawyers don't talk about lost cases and car manufacturers don't admit to broke down cars.

[Mekanik]

I agree with you. It seems like Ford it trying to turn the dealerships into tire stores. This all started around 2000, when Ford realized that the people that sell tires usually end up doing the brake repairs too, along with suspension work and other maintenance. Ford decided it didn't want to loose business to Pep Boys and other 'under car shops'.

 

I agree that we need to be competitive, but it isn’t really worth it for me to do a brake job anymore. I still sell brakes if they are worn out, but it just isn't as profitable as it used to be. I would rather be fixing something that is broken.

 

I agree with Jim that Ford and any other vehicle manufacturer doesn't want to spend millions of dollars on a commercial announcing that their over priced vehicle for taking the kids to soccer practice will leave them on the side of the road some day. It seems like Ford is doing so much work to get customers in the door to buy a set of tires or have a new set of brake pads installed, but I too wish that they would put out some benefit to having broken vehicles come in the shop to get fixed.

 

As far as the inspection sheets are concerned, I have always felt that it is important to look vehicles over, and I really don’t mind filling out those sheets; however I do get paid .2hrs for doing a multi-point inspection.

[BrunoWilimek]

Back in the "gravy eighties" it was normal for the service department to "carry" the dealership. That is, the work going through the shop paid for all the overhead in the dealership. Before the warranty wars in around 1985, 1 year 20,000 km warranties were the norm, so lots of retail work came through the door on fairly new vehicles. Warranty labour times paid well as they were figured out for the use of hand tools only. Techs who bought air tools could do the jobs much faster than warranty times and therefore owning air tools was a money making propsition. All this with labour rates less than 1/4 what they are now. Any profit made by selling new or used vehicles was pure profit. Times were good. By the early 90's, with the recession and all, money was beginning to get much tighter at many dealerships and car companies, so even though labour rates went way up, less profit was made. Warranties of 3 years/60,000 km meant that there was a lot more warranty work being done as the quality had really not kept pace with the longer warranty times. The dealerships could no longer boast that the service department carried the dealership and profits on sales also declined as incentives became the norm rather than the exception for the big 3 as Japanese sales and quality were a big jump ahead of the Americans. Fast forward to the present and we are in a much changed environment, where warranty work has decline drastically due to a marked increase in quality.(Yeah I know the 6.0/6.4 keep us hopping, for now anyhow) but otherwise, many new vehicles make it to the end of their 3/60 with little or no warranty work needed. The Japanese had it figured out long ago, that it was easier to train their customers to always return for scheduled maintenance, as their (formerly) better quality vehicles required so little in the way of warranty work. Belatedly, Ford, and their competition likely, realized that the only way to return their service departments to profitabilty was to retain their customers through scheduled maintenance and the report cards are the way they are working at doing this. You can look at them as a nuisance, or, you can embrace them as a useful tool to bring in more retail work. I choose the latter.

[GregKneupper]

Ok. You all have a good point and I agree that maintenance is important. It is a great way to make money, at least for the dealer. The pay for maintenance in this shop is horrid. I get about half the pay per flag hour for performing maintenance work. There is no incentive here for doing it. I guess that is why I am frustrated about it. I have no problem doing it but there is no real profit in it for the techs here. It did use to be gravy work and in a way it still is. It is no longer a profitable endeavor for me but only a real profit for the dealership. Again, I did not get in the business to do just maintenance work on vehicles. I enjoy the challenge of diagnosing and repairing vehicle as well as checking them over for safety issues which is actually what I use the report card for more than selling maintenance.

[Mekanik]

Let's not forget that vehicles require much less maintenance nowadays verses fifteen years ago. I believe that in years to come in most dealerships there will be one or two actual technicians and a couple handfuls of monkeys that can reprogram a PCM, rotate tires and change fluids.

[BrunoWilimek]

Ok. You all have a good point and I agree that maintenance is important. It is a great way to make money, at least for the dealer. The pay for maintenance in this shop is horrid. I get about half the pay per flag hour for performing maintenance work. There is no incentive here for doing it. I guess that is why I am frustrated about it. I have no problem doing it but there is no real profit in it for the techs here. It did use to be gravy work and in a way it still is. It is no longer a profitable endeavor for me but only a real profit for the dealership. Again, I did not get in the business to do just maintenance work on vehicles. I enjoy the challenge of diagnosing and repairing vehicle as well as checking them over for safety issues which is actually what I use the report card for more than selling maintenance.

I hate maintenance too. Had I known that after 30 years in the trade and being a Senior/Master/Diesel tech that the majority of my work would be repetitous oil changes, I could have gotten a factory job for more money and less hassles. Oh, wait, all the local factories have closed down now, so I would be unemployed. Never mind. I would much prefer straight out repair jobs also as I seem to be hard-wired to want to fix things that don't work or don't work properly and get a lot of satisfaction for doing so. I look to the example set by my father. He was a hairdresser who didn't want to be one. He was in school on his way to being a doctor when his mother made him quit school to help with the family business. She told him "I don't need a doctor, I need someone to help me in the hairdressing shop." Undeterred, my father said, if he was going to be a hairdresser, he was going to be the best one he could be. I still get women coming up to me who used to get their hair done by my dad, telling me nobody could do it as well as he could, and he has been dead for almost 30 years now. Therefore, I make sure I keep up with the training, do the best job I can do, even though I may not like some of the work coming in my bay. I have not yet found any other career that I would care to switch to, although I keep checking the want ads.