Dealership rant ----long--------

I posted a week or so back about calling a local semi truck dealership to get get pricing and availibility on a list of parts for a customers truck. I called the dealership because there was a question as to whether the truck had the correct parts on it and I wanted to avoid doing an exact replacement of existing parts turning the job into several trips into town to ever get the right stuff. Well three trips to town and I finally got all the right stuff....and now, three weeks or so later, I've still not heard back from the dealerships parts guy even though I was just 'fourth in line' when I called.

So, with a deep regret having to go there to get parts, I made a trip to the dealership today to pick up the magnetic pickup that makes the speed-o-meter work. I had called and was told they had them there, but when I got there I'm told they don't have it, and will have to order it.....so here goes another trip next week when it comes in.......

Next I ask if they had any of the indicator lights that show the function of the various switches on the dash since there were alot of them burned out. The guy started by showing me a few that they keep in a drawer at the counter. Nope, what this truck has is nothing like any of them. So, put the serical number in the computer. Usually when they input a serial number it gives a full parts list for that vehicle...not this time. According to the screen the lights have item numbers in the pics, but beyond that they don't exist. I drew a pic of them for the parts guy and he said he had never seen, or heard of anything like them. He did offer to do some more looking if I could bring one of the old ones in. Funny I know he wants to help find one but I think he's also just curious as to what kind of lights they are.

Next I ask the service manager if they have any kind of wiring diagram for the truck to help me figure out how the speed-o-meter pickup is supposed to be wired up. The truck had been used on a farm for several years (not roaded at all) and in that time the pickup had been removed and there's nothing left but a bundle of wires zip tied on top of the transmission. I was told that they have no wiring diagrams for any of the "older" trucks and the newer stuff is all on the computer...which isn't that great either. I asked what they do when someone brings in an older truck and was told that they sic somebody on it with a multimeter to do any wire tracing, etc. Now I can understand not having a diagram for the new 2013 model trucks, or even not having a service book for the engine specific to that brand truck. Since the engines are all made by a reputible engine mfg, the mfg has the manuals available from them. But how do you get away NOT having something as simple and necessary to troubleshooting the worst thing possible on a vehicle, the electrical system???? I mean seriously, somebody like me that doesn't work on a specific brand of anything all the time I can undertand not having a manual/diagram, etc, but the dealership, get real. Granted the truck is a '90 model but still, not having at least a generic diagram for every truck made is ridicilous....especially for a dealership that was around long before the truck in question was made. It still amazes me the stupidity of the service departments at these dealerships because you know they had the necessary manuals, diagrams, etc when the truck was new, so why throw said material away when it's not costing them anything for it to set in a book shelf until needed.....I mean all it takes is one job to more than pay for the space it occupies for all of those years.......Well, I say that, but further thinking on the whole matter and I understand the reasoning. Why keep a manual/diagram that would make troubleshooting a problem take 2 hours when they can throw it out and make the troubleshooting process take 2 days and bring them in way more money that way....Not to mention make the customer consider buying a new truck that will cost them even more to repair when something goes wrong with the computer or all of the new EPA mandated BS used on them nowdays...........

Top the day off by getting stuck behind every slow poke running 30 MPH in 45 to 55 MPH zones, on roads that had no passing zones anywhere in sight, the fact it was raining, and in the low 40's with the wind blowing...then discovered the mount that I used to drill the holes to mount the oil tank for the the wet line kit on the truck was unique (ie none of the 4 brackets were the same)so I had to redrill holes in all of them too, and it was just a ROUGH DAY all around..........

OK, rant over...........

you have a poor dealership i have worked at a dealer over 20 years we have books for trucks in the 80,s. If you talk to one of the guys on the floor they can pull a book out of there box with just about any info you need.Several of us could give you every torque spec you need and never open a book.

Wayne, I know where you are coming from. I don't know what brand this dealership sells and am not asking, but as ohio dick stated, a GOOD dealership keeps manuals even if they are in a box upstairs somewhere. The first dealership I worked for in the early 90s had a library where the techs could research problems and take on-line training. The second dealership I was with in 2002-2003 subscribed to one of these computerized systems and immediately threw all the old printed manuals in the dumpster. I had no place to store them at the time or I could have gotten about twenty years of service manuals for nothing. I was hired there as parts manager. They were so stupid that when I attempted to build up a decent supply of fast moving parts such as brake pads, I got my axx chewed out! Yet I would often drive ten miles to the next dealership or Car Quest for the same parts. Sometimes four or five times a day. Go figure. I guess it mostly boils down to good or poor management and attitude. But there are times when it sure does make you scratch your head and wonder. OK, I'm done now.

I don't know what brand you are working on but they are a poor dealership if they don't have a wiring diagram. I am willing to bet that they do have the diagrams but don't want to take the time to get them for you or maybe no one knows where they are.

What model and brand are you working on??? The reason I am asking is that I have a lot of diagrams that I have gotten over the years. I have worked on a far number of trucks. My Dad ran a small truck fleet. I got to fix the difficult stuff that his guys could not fix. I have Pete, Kenworth, IH and Freightliner stuff. So I may have what you need.

Also lots of the accessories are the same from one brand to another. So your speed sensor very well could be wired just like one in another brand of about the same age. The transmissions and engines are all made by a few companies so anything that hooks to them could be the same.

That dealership is going out of business; you should start taking bet on when.
Wait till an individual comes in with a truck in the 60"s to 80"s and insists on a wiring diagram.

From a business standpoint you're their competitor sure you buy some parts but hurt their
repair business so why would they want to help you?Nothing new about dealers keeping service manuals and information away from J.Q.Public and
independent shops.Thats why I&T got their start making tractor tech manuals.
Perfectly understandable business decision for them not to hand out valuable service information.
No free rides these days.

Did you offer to pay for the info up front? I'm guessing not, and therein lies the answer. Why should they provide you the info for free? In their eyes, they have a capital investment in repairing vehicles, why should they help you do it cheaper for free. Same with the parts guy. From his perspective, looking up parts for a 20 year old truck is usually a waste of time, so he does not try hard, if he happens to find the part it usually does not sell anyway. I don't condone this, I think every person in the door should be treated as a potential customer, and are at my shop, but some people become jaded, especially in the dealer world.

This used to happen all the time at the Cadillac dealer I worked. We had manuals back to '77. If you were a good parts customer or patient, we would look stuff up or photocopy. Come in acting like we owed you something and we wouldn't have it.

I agree. When I was in service management for both Ford and GM, people would call all the time, describe a situation maybe with a warning light on, and ask what the problem was.

I would always tell them to bring the vehicle in and let us put it on a computer, even if I had a good idea of what the problem was. Two reasons. One, why should I give out our technical expertise for free, and, most importantly, if I ventured an opinion over the phone and it was wrong, then I'd be the SOB who didn't know what he was talking about.

I had a law professor in college who spent an entire semester hammering on the concept that there are at least two ways of looking at any particular issue.

On the one hand you may be their competitor,on the other hand you are a CUSTOMER and they MAKE MONEY from what they sell to you. Also, if there were no competition the dealerships would not be able to handle the work load, so it's still a win,win situation although some dealerships fail to see it that way. One dealership where I worked had more commercial accounts than I can remember and we made a lot of money from sales to them even though they got a discount. The parts manager, though, was like someone already mentioned, he wouldn't take time to look up a part if it was difficult to find or several years old. He would tell the customer that you could not get it anymore. I would look for a part because it kept customers coming back. When I moved to another dealership one of my old customers came in one day needing a piece of wiring harness. The other guy told him it was obsolete. I found the number, ordered it for him and when he picked it up said, "I ought to take this over there and show it to him!" Don't know if he did or not, but at least he went away happy.

I'm working on a 90 Kentworth with a Eaton Fuller transmission and a 3406 CAT. From what they tell me the magnetic pickup is the same part for both the speed-o-meter as well as for the tach. I've got the tach pickup out right now because it wasn't working but I'm hoping the reason was the gob of crap on the end of it. I'm going to put it back in it's origional place to see if it's any good. If good I'm going to use it as a test subject for hooking up the speed-o-meter before putting the brand new one in and possibly screwing it up. The guy is on a tight budget for getting this thing road worthy again because I've found so much wrong with it so I figure he can go without a tach for a few weeks to get a job done, but not without a speed-o-meter. If you've got a diagram you can scan in and send me I'd sure appreciate it since it would sure make my life simpler. My email is open.

I can't understand the 'perfectly understandable statement' be it a dealership or an individual. Maybe it's just the way I work, but when someone askes me for repair help/advice, I give it, regardless of who they are. That said, as far as this particular dealership goes, I typically work on heavy equipment so I'm not hurting their business one bit by working on one 20 plus year old Kentworth for a customer. Especially when it comes to doing something like a complete brake job, and installing a wet line kit for his dump trailer. They have enough NEW trucks sitting around broke to worry about, they don't give a crap about the old stuff....see the part of my origional post about that.......

Two I fully intended to buy nearly $1500 dollars worth of parts from them in the beginning but the never called me back. Granted I will often call around and price shop, that's just good business, and I guarantee you the dealership does the same. In this case I know common parts like brake shoes, etc are all coming from the same major suppliers/mfgs. As a result with the usual retailer markup, they are usually competetively priced regardless of where you go. That said, I fully intended to pay the dealership price for them, even if they were a few dollars more then 'aftermarket' parts houses, becuase it would actually save me time and money in the long run by having all of the right parts the first time around. In this case they obviously didn't want my business because after a call to order the parts and then a second call to add to the order, they didn't bother to call me back. If they don't want my business I'm not going to force it on them, nor am I going to spend an hour driving to place an order for ALOT of parts only to find, like I did yesterday, that they don't have them in stock. One customer call, one trip, that's all it ought to take regardless of the equipment brand or type........No excuses........

That said I don't know of any dealership that really wants to work on 20 plus year old equipment. In fact I have gotten calls for heavy equipment work from customers that have been to a dealership with their old machine and been told to call me by said dealership because the dealership guys didn't know how to, or didn't want to, work on the old stuff. Funny thing is often the didn't know how/want to was actually "couldn't" because they didn't have the special tools needed to do the job. For instance Dad worked at the CAT dealership for several years so he has a pretty good idea what they do and don't have in the tool department. If they had an old D9G come in the door right now for final drive work they do not have the tools to press the drive sprocket on and off, I do. In fact the tools I've got were custom made, by Dad and I, to do a job for a customer because they aren't available commercially any more. A dealership might go through that trouble for their biggest account but for a single customer it's not going to happen. That's where guys like me come in to play.

Again the whole 'us and them mentality' doesn't set will with many people in the repair business, and those with said mentality could do alot more business if they would get their heads out of their a$$es and realize that. Over the years I've given out alot of free advice, I've called around to places as far away as California and gotten information also. In the end when someone helps me out I'll be the first to recommend them to a customer if needed, and do it often. At the same time if you are so concerned with the bottom line that you won't offer up something as simple as a wiring diagram then far be it from me to ever recommend your services to anyone. The way I see it, if your in business you have to make a profit, that's a given, but if your so worried about making a huge profit that you forget how to offer up customer service, then far be it from me to help you out by offering my customers up to you for you to screw them over in your quest for a huge profit, and make me look bad for recommending you. To that end I recommended a customer to someone else awhile back. I've never had any problems with the company, nor had any reason toe doubt their practices, but my customer got royally screwed over when the final bill was more than double what he was told it would be (and he got no calls telling him of further problems, etc). Needless to say I did some asking around, heard more stories of the same business practice from others who had done business with this place, and as a result I won't be recommnding that company to anyone anymore.... I don't know about you, but even one rcommendation from someone that puts nearly $3000 in my pocket is a good one, and one that puts that $3000 isn't so good. You'd think that these business would want as many $3000 recommendations as they can get, evn if they come frommone customer that had a good exprience with them and only spent $200 in parts and asked for a copy of a wiring diagram...........In the end you can't beat word of mouth advertising, so EVERY customer is the MOST IMPORTANT ONE YOU'VE GOT.........

I've got a great relationship with most of the equipment dealerships that I usually deal with, and rarly have any problems getting repair information from them when needed. In fact I've known many of the guys in the various shops for years and have watched them go from brand to brand, etc in that time. Thing is I work on alot of the old, and odd stuff, (ie old friction cranes, cable -vs- hydraulic equipment, equipment with non factory attachments, etc,) so they are thankfull that I am out here doing it instead of them....See my reply to Traditional farmer for the reasons... In the end we are all in the repair business, it's more than big enough for all of us, especially when your in more ofa nich market like I am. So, just beit doesn't mean cause I don't still either buy, or get customers to buy alot of parts. Ultimately one guy can be as large of a customer as their biggest account because I represent the buying power of dozens of small customers, anyone of which I can send in another direction if the need arises. So, treat me right and you get my business and my customers business, treat me wrong and I'll take away a dozen customers in a heart beat. I did it to a pump repair shop years ago. Within a year advising other customers and other mechaincs that I know, I cost them WAY more than what it would have cost them to stand behind their warranty and repair my customers pump when it failed a second time due to their screwup. Now I've got a shop that treats me right and they are currently in the process of completing a $7000 plus repair for one customer, and will get the next repair, and the next, and the next, from me. Not to mention all of the others they have gotten from me via my recommendations to others.

Like my ending to Tradional Farmers post, implies, every customer is a waling billboard, therefore, EVERY CUSTOMER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE TO WALK TORUGH THE DOOR........PERIOD........

You hit it on the head in the first post- they are trying to force the old stuff off the road so all the trucks will have the EPA mandated BS, part of the EPA mandated BS is a computer, before to long you'll be plugging in your truck and downloading data so the government can tell you how much money you owe them for using the roads your tax dollar and fuel charges paid for, also so they can know you're not running off the books and pocketing $ and not telling them.

Many truck and implement dealers have become large multi location dealers. They want to minimize their costs so skilled labor is replaced by semi skilled with computers, that's a cost issue. Additionally they don't want to hold parts inventory, having money parked on the shelves is harder and harder to make money on. They have better accountants and business management- every department needs to make money. Parts departments are up against wholesale jobbers, aftermarket and internet sales, all of which won't give you technical data either. To many people milked them for information and went elsewhere for parts. Why should they train you to do your job?

Reminds me of the time a customer who did a lot of his own repairs and some for friends and neighbors. He came in and asked a simple electrical question, I gave him the answer he needed. Service mgr sent him a bill for my time I had spent. Upon orders from mgt of course. Guy presents bill to friend whose tractor he was working on. Friend comes in with bill in hand. Says no way am I paying this charge. OK , forget it. Next month, send him a bill again. Friend comes in and this time lays it on the line. I quit working for that outfit, went down the road a half mile and went to work. Two years after I left, place closed, about four more years whole corp bunch sold to Titan.

If you have a pick up with two wires on it, one wire will run up to the speedometer, and the other is a ground. Some of them are grounded to the frame and some run back to the dash. I worked on some KW's in that time frame, but I've got trouble remembering two weeks ago forget 20 yrs. Just don't overtighten the sensor, they break easily, other than that they are hard to mess up.

Well you're always on here badmouthing some dealer or the other how their mechanics do shoddy work,bad service etc etc so I'd guess you do it around the area you live also.Stuff like that travels fast and I'm sure it gets back to them so you're proably on their unoffical Blackball list of who not to help and who can blame them?
Making friends at parts places,dealerships and the like will get you alot more than butting heads with them and its a game the independent shop will almost always loose in the long run especially this day and time with everthing being so specialized.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't think it would be too complicated but I've got way more than two wires tied up on top of the transmission and was hoping for a diagram with some color coding, etc to make the whole deal alot easier.

If the truck owner has a G.P.S. like a garmin why not use that for the speed-o-meter? In my Peter-bilt there is hardly no difference between what the speed-o-meter tells me and what the G. P. S tells me plus the miles traveled are within a mile or two also. Armand

I will look tomorrow. I got in too late to check tonight. I think I should have something. Dad had several early 1990s Kenworths with Cat 3406 engines. I worked on the wiring on them all of the time. The liquid calcium really plays heck with the wiring around here.