Car Maintenance by Tony Green

Car in need of reapir

On the whole most people visit their car dealerships to get maintenance done in their vehicles. The idea is to aim and be proactive about taking care of your cars and to avoid break downs on the road. In any case, a long time had elapsed since the car had been serviced. The car had been running well so today was the perfect time to catch up.

Once I arrived I sat down with my sales consultant and he pulled up my vehicle history to go over what had been done on my car in the past. Most people would assume they are checking to determine if there are any urgent recalls I needed to be informed of. In my cynical view, hopefully you are not as sarcastic, they are figuring out justifiable ways to extract as much cash out from my visit as possible.

I believe since new car sales are slow with the weak economy the car dealerships are trying to boost profits upon the revenue on service. I can understand their logic but their business model is not my problem.
For the record, I am fine with paying for needed upkeep on my automobile; however, I question what is necessary in terms of the nature of the repairs. The goal seems ensure a certain amount of money is extracted every time I enter the dealership regardless of the initial intention of my visit.

I used to hope when the charges came out I would look at the final tally and nod my head before authorizing them to do the work. I say used to because when I actually did see the bill I thought to myself, 'How do you come up with that number and what are you going do to my vehicle to warrant this expense'.


In addition, there was the gimmick of my service consultant printing out three pieces of paper with my three options. I assume the intention was to make me better about the cash I was dropping for maintenance when my cars have run well since I bought them. In the end, I was getting racked with either of the selections.
In my view, I figured if I were in the extremely high income bracket or if I were independently wealthy I wouldn't be concerned with maintenance costs and would own cars manufactured by BMW or Lexus.

As an experiment I would love to take my car to another dealership and get my automobile serviced. The most typical response should be, 'this car is in great shape', since the car would have been worked on the day before. What I would get is, 'well sir we recommend after so many miles....,' or 'our technician has informed me', or 'after so this amount of time the factory recommends...'you get the picture.


If you had not been able to tell I still suspect these guys are all out get my money. I should state I do not question my cars are in fine working condition. I just wish I could leave with a better feeling every time I drive off in my recently serviced vehicle.