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I Want the Dealer to Check My Car Over Before My Trip
Customers often visit service departments to have their vehicles inspected before going on a trip. That?s a wise and practical thing to do. However, this seemingly simple request is anything but simple for a repair shop. The issue is further complicated when you?re dealing with older vehicles.
Service departments can easily inform you about any obvious mechanical concerns with your vehicle. Many items are easily identified: worn brakes and tires, coolant leaks, alignment problems, etc. But, what about marginal parts that could last for a few more years or could fail without notice?
Consider this scenari You had your six-year-old car, with 140,000 kilometers on it, checked over by the dealership two weeks before driving to Florida. Still, three days into your trip, your radiator blows. The cost of repairs (including towing) is $400 US, plus the stress, the inconvenience and the lost holiday time.
Upon returning home, you visit the dealership that inspected your car. ?Are you going to reimburse me for the cost of the radiator?? you ask.
Dealerships, all too frequently, are faced with this type of scenario. Dealers don?t like surprises or disappointments any more than customers do ? especially when customers are out of town.
In the above example, let?s assume that during the pre-trip inspection, the dealer informed the customer that his/her car?s radiator ?is not leaking today, but it looks like it might fail.? Most customers would justifiably wonder if the dealership was trying to ?up-sell? the customer a new radiator.
Every part of this six-year-old car, with 140,000 kilometers on it, has wear and tear. If the service department ever suggested changing parts that ?might? fail, where would you begin and where would you end? This approach would cost the customer a small fortune.
Most dealers prefer NOT to sell parts based on speculation of failure. But this puts everyone in an awkward position if your vehicle breaks down.
What typically happens when a customer?s car fails while he/she is away on holiday and the dealership that provided a basic, pre-trip inspection service found that no parts needed replacing immediately?
The dealership is usually accused of incompetence in neglecting to predict a failure. The dealership, at the time of inspection, bypassed a repair sale, tried to save the customer money, and is now viewed negatively by the customer.
Consumers cannot have it both ways. If they want to save money by not replacing any questionable parts, they shouldn?t later blame the dealership when something fails. Once customers have made decisions about their radiators (or any parts, for that matter), and these decisions turn out to be wrong for them, it?s not the dealership?s fault. Service Advisors make reasonable assumptions based upon their experience and knowledge, but they cannot predict, with absolute certainty, when a part will fail. Not even doctors can predict when a body part will fail.
If you want a dealer to inspect your car, you should make your expectations absolutely clear from the start. If you expect to hold the dealer accountable for ANY part failures that may occur on a trip, then advise the dealer accordingly, prior to the inspection.
I would not recommend this approach, as you could be setting yourself up for an unnecessarily large repair bill. Instead, you should want an inspection that will err on the side of not spending your hard earned money, based on speculative part failures.
As a consumer, you must decide which scenario is best for you. If you want total peace of mind while away on holiday, it might behoove you to spend the money and replace that ?iffy? radiator.
Of course, by driving newer vehicles, you can avoid many of the surprises and repair costs that are typically associated with older vehicles.
Ken Shaw Jr. is President of the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association and is a new-car dealer in Toronto. E-mail comments to president@tada.ca
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