O/T Car Dealer Service Dept...Rant

Our Dodge Caravan had been acting up and slow to crank. I check the charging system and it's putting out 13.76 volts. Static voltage with the engine not running was 10.5...OH OH I said.

The battery is 2 years old to the month. I remove the caps and check each cell with a battery hydrometer. One cell is completely dead the other 5 have a good charge.

Had my wife take the van to the dealer where we got the battery from. After running some tests they called me and tried to tell me the battery was good but the alternator was bad. They proceeded to tell me they did a load test on the battery and it was fine.

My reply was did you check the battery with a hydrometer? They said no! I then said to replace the battery and asked them to pro-rate the old battery. They called me back in 20 minutes and said we replaced the battery and your wife is on her way. After asking what the cost was the service manager replied. "There is no charge".

All this makes me wonder how good these electronic load testers are or how much the younger generation knows about what they are working on. An old carbon pile load tester would of showed the battery to be bad from the get go with no questions asked. Oh by the way they wanted $450 to replace the alternator. I told them it's warranted from some where else.

Had the same experience a few years ago. Had to jump my truck in the morning. After starting it, it was good for one start, but not two unless you let it run for awhile. Shop manager said the alt was bad, and they were replacing it. I said no, and started for the service area. Shop manager was hollering and pointing to the "No one allowed in service area" sign. Long story short - when I got to the truck, the tech who was working on it admitted that there was nothing wrong with the alt. Shop manager replaced the warranteed battery and was glad to see me go. That shop drove themselves out of business with their dishonesty.

John B,

This is a commendation for dealer service. My wife's Windstar van starting having starting problems. I took it the local Farmer's Co-Op where I had bought the battery a couple of years ago. Same as your results, the guy tested the battery and said it was good. Cleaned the posts and said if it failed again it would need an alternator.

On the way home, I noticed a strong smell of sulfur. Next day, I jumped my wife's car to get it started and then followed her to a Ford dealer about 15 miles away. Driving behind her in my truck, I could smell sulfur odor coming from her car. Dealer checked battery. It had a shorted cell in it that was causing the battery to overheat. We were fortunate that it didn't ignite the hydrogen and blow up.

I hate the expense at our local dealer, but I trust their expertise.

Tom in TN

John B you made a BIG mistake in having your wife take the car into the dealership. IT is a proven FACT that service departments take advantage of WOMEN!!! They know most women and many men know nothing about cars anymore.

So rather than making nothing on a warranty battery they tried to make some money on a alternator. They would have sold you the part at full retail and then full shop rate to install.

Friend had his wife call him while she was in Des Moines visiting her mother. Battery died in her Honda car. From what he says it is a real pain to get the battery in and out of the model. They had bought the car there in Des Moines. He told her to get the car jumped started and take it to the dealership where they bought the car. She and her mother where able to jump start the car. She did have jumper cables. She took the car in and did not call him back. She got home that night and was hopping mad at HIM!!! Told him he did not know anything about a car and all that crap. Turns out the Honda dealer feed her a bunch of BS about how the complete starting/charging system was bad. They sold her a new starter, alternator, and battery. Total bill was for $1900. HE drove the seventy miles back the next day. He raised enough heck that he made them put the old parts back on and just paid for the battery an installation. I think that was about $150.

So NEVER send a women to anywhere to get a car repaired. It will always cost you more money. You maybe OK at the local places that personally know you but in any urban area I would not do it.

So your question about tester is not what they where trying to do. They wanted her to think the alternator was bad. Then after they had installed that they would have came back and told her that the battery needed replaced too. It is a racket that is played all of the time on people that do not know much about cars/trucks.

It is not just cars/truck either. Neighbor lady bought a real fancy Areins push mower. I think she gave about $1000 for the thing. After a year it would not pull itself anymore. She took it back to the dealer where she bought it. They wrote her up an estimate that was for $300 to replaced the transmission. She brought the mower to me. It just needed the tractor drive adjusted. It just took a pair of pliers and 30 seconds to do. I did not charge her a dime. The dealer saw her driving a fancy car and dressed nice. That told them MONEY so they tried to scam her. By the way she is very well off but was really POed at the dealership that tried to scam her.

Sorry ladies but it what happends to women on repairs. I have had a few women farmers tell me they run into it on farm repairs too.

Obviously a hydrometer can only be used with a servicable battery, not one that you can't remove the caps or have access to the cells, aren't most of the common auto batteries like that today, sealed ?

I have an older, from the 60's, or early 70's meter with the load switch on it, it has the element inside that heats up and vents the heat through the perforated cover. Is that what you refer to as carbon pile load tester, same thing HF sells for around $20 ?

I've always had good luck with these, though you can't pinpoint a cell being bad, you certainly can tell when a battery is compromised.

Dodge dealer in Pinellas Cty Fl. Ripped me off for
over $800 before a mechanic who lived across the street wised me up. He told me which two sensors to replace for less than $25. Never buy another dodge after that.

YSort of, but the ones sold by HF are of very poor quality and not suitable for properly load testing a battery.

You doubt? Check out the size of the cables and clamps.

Dean

Same style of tester though, my older one is a handy tool to have, better quality likely, but I did buy a HF one for the other place, enough batteries there to need one.

The dealer told us a year ago, which was 10,000 miles ago, we needed a new alternator. That was on our 08 Dodge Caravan. I'm still running the old alternator with no problems.
A friend of mine was going to go to work as a service manager at the same dealership. He turned the job down because they wanted him to push repairs that people didn't really need. This is a big dealership who has probably 20 locations.
It sure makes you wonder???

Billy,
A true carbon pile load tester has a knob where you can increase the load on the battery to determine exactly how many amps it will produce. NOT the same as the hand-held, glowing element, fixed-load type you have. To be sure, if the one you have shows the battery is bad, it's bad. A carbon pile load tester is much more accurate, and expensive, if you can even get one these days. All the ones I've seen are integrated into a starting/charging system tester, which can vary the load on the battery to test the actual output of the alternator. I have one from my auto service days, and it will stay in my garage till I'm no longer able to use it.
Good Luck and God Bless

Dealers are as crooked as the day is long. We had trouble with the wiring harness ,truck wouldn't shift into high overdrive. Called dealer to set up appointment. Drove 130 miles to have the work done. Was quoted a price before we left. Service man changed the harness , walked us up to the billing department where we were told by the same gal price jumped up to another $145.00. She asked me how that sounded. You can guess what I told her. Price went back down to the original quote. Wrote G/M and got a call with in the week. Read em the riot act. I got all kinds of excuses .Was told it was an Honest mistake,as the gal figured it from her head ,instead of using a calculator . Told him that if he instructed his subordinate to do as he was told, but he went over your head and mind figured, he would be escorted to the time clock and out the door with his final check.
Like posted here. ya just got to watch em like a hawk. Never ever send the wife/ girlfriend into the den of thieves . Regards LOU.

Not only dealers some of these small shops will put the shaft to you. When I have a car or truck state inspected I never allow them to do any repairs unless it's a minor repair.

Hal

Horror stories abound. I took an Aerostar minivan in to the Ford dealer- it was overheating. They put in a new thermostat, and did a "cooling system flush" and tried to charge me $160 (this was in 1987, so would have been more like 400 bucks in today's dollars). Turns out they charge their full shop rate for the slosher, while it sits there and sloshes, unattended, for over an hour. Its like having another mechanic, that you don't have to pay! And they charged a half hour for changing a thermostat. After considerable ranting, they said we're putting the old thermostat back in, and told me to beat it. And don't come back.

I went to the auto parts store across the street and bought a thermostat for about 5 bucks, took the rig home, and couldn't make the job last longer than about 7 minutes, even working in slow motion.

And the name of the dealer? Courtesy Ford. Didn't know courteous people were capable of such language!

Wife got a new Camaro in Kentucky when she graduated in 1970- drove it cross country to California. Stopped for gas in some Podunk place in New Mexico, they conned her into a new set of tires. By dismounting one and showing her the tiny cracks on the bead when they bent it backwards, then showing her a new tire, no tiny cracks. They didn't mention that any tire will have the tiny cracks, as soon as you stretch the bead by mounting the tire.

We got new Fords in 1977, at PCA. Boss decided to use local dealer for service. I was the first to go in- $112 for oil change and a new headlight. That was the end of our dealer-service experiment- back to the local independent mechanic, who has always treated everybody right.

Very common story when a lady takes a vehicle in for service!

(quoted from post at 16:04:00 09/12/13) Not only dealers some of these small shops will put the shaft to you. When I have a car or truck state inspected I never allow them to do any repairs unless it's a minor repair.

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That's the truth. I had a local shop that I used from time to time, had ok luck with them. Then my kids Ranger had EGR issues. I took it to them because they said they could do diagnostics on it to determine the problem. They decided it was the EGR DPFE sensor. Replaced it - $170 just for the part. I pointed out to them that the *Ford* price on the part was $120. They were unimpressed. But the kicker was it didn't even fix the problem. They "guessed" at that point it was the EGR itself. And they didn't want the job of replacing that because it was "too rusty". Do I need to say that was the last work they got from me?

I then did what I should have done in the first place - made the time and fixed it myself. I think the valve was $45...

Thats what I was after, learn something everyday LOL !

My son in law had the radiator replaced on his Jeep Commander. They had to remove the air conditioner condensor to do the job. I think he said it cost him $450.00. Two weeks later he took the Jeep to another place for service. When he went to pay the bill, they had added $139.00 to remove some of the refrigerant saying the system was overcharged from the last garage.

Go figure!

Good Morning John

I had taken my Wife to San Antonio Texas for a Dr. appointment . On the way home we lost oil pressure , it was around mid night , I had just changed my oil before the trip so it was clean .
I couldn t see the oil on the dipstick . After checking everything I could ,I had a trucker send a wrecker to tow us in .He towed us in to Fort Stockton ,Texas . The next morning he towed us to Odessa ,Texas to a Dodge dealer . This was a new Dodge Van . The Dealer Mechanic drove it around to the stall to check it out . Came back & told me it was the sending unit , not covered by warranty . I told him to fix it after quoting the cost. I was going to pay the tow truck driver off But the Service guy said just put it on the repair bill & have only one charge , when I got the bill they had added $25.00 dollars ,Asked what it was for ,they said for paying the tow truck off, I told them that I wasn t going to pay that extra money . I chased the guy clear around the dealer ship.
Finally he took it off because I raised such a fuss they wanted me gone. I told them if they were so proud of the Dodges that I would sign the title & they could have the crappy thing .
Never will buy anything that says DODGE on it again.

RANT OVER

John in Az.

(quoted from post at 17:20:16 09/12/13) Good Morning John
Never will buy anything that says DODGE on it again.
John in Az.

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Got smart like that back in about 1990 or so. Had no end of trouble with a Dodge Dakota truck, it was the last Chrysler product we've ever owned. Broke my heart because my first car was a '66 Plymouth that was great.

That Courtesy Ford wasn't in Las Vegas, was it?

When I was a Claim Adjuster working vehicle service contracts, there was a Courtesy Olds and a Courtesy Pontiac in Las Vegas. They were the among the biggest crooks we had to deal with.

I also have a carbon pile load tester. Allen. It was at the dealership when I started working there in 1958. After I quit in 1995, the guys that were running the show didn't know how to use it and said it was no good. Used their little glow element type and threw this good one out, after damaging it some. I ended up coming across it again as a friend of mine picked it up when they threw it out. He gave it to me. I still have it and use it a lot for , like you said, testing batteries, loading systems when testing alternators plus a lot of other uses. Every battery has to be load tested at a rate that represents it's capability when battery is good while compensating for temp of battery.

There's a Courtesy Ford near me in n/w WI, too. Only good from them in my few visits, though.

I don't put much faith in the load testers...or maybe in the people running them. I've got a battery in my truck that I was told was weak and should be replaced... 3 years ago.

My nephew has a 2000 Dodge van he bought new. It's getting close to 200K miles and never had the head off. He was struck in the side by a deer and had it fixed then he was hit in the rear and they totaled the vehicle. He had it state inspected and is still driving it.

The repair shop that did the inspection installed the wrong brake fluid after replacing the master cylinder. He took them to court and lost, they ruled in the repair shop's favor. I think the judges are crooks. He had another shop to flush the brake system and is still driving it. Hal

No, it was Courtesy Ford of Poulsbo, Washington.

I just googled it, and found it had closed in August 2011, after 30 years ("the anchor of the Viking Avenue Auto Row"), citing the continuing poor economic climate. Poulsbo/Bainbridge Island is an upscale bedroom community of Seattle, and I don't think they were hard hit by the economy- I suspect that it had more to do with running out of suckers.

The one common theme I see here is everyone taking their vehicles to the dealer for battery replacement. I thought we all had tools and were capable of these tasks. It seems like any job hired out these days keeps one on his toes watching out for dishonesty.

It does not excuse the scam, but if you do some research on how dealer techs are paid (or more accurately aren't), you would see why this stuff happens. The pay system is also causing dealers to stock their service departments with less knowledgeable personel.