Ok, so I told you all about my bird and the fact that I thought the key lock cylindar was going out again on it. So I limp her up to Puckett Chevy in Prattville, and I let them know the deal, said they would cover it if it was in fact the cylindar.

Get a call few hours later and they tell me that the cylindar is fine, that the negative side of my battery cable was completely coroded. Ok, now being that I just swoped batterys not even a week ago, b/c my security light stayed on all night and killed it, must of been a fluke, hasn't happened again, so I swop the batteries from the Camaro to my car. The Camaro's possitive side was seriously corosive a month back and I cleaned it really well, baking soda, bottle of battery cleaner. Looks good, haven't seen anymore, so my car has NEVER seen corosion on the cables, they are always clean. So the dealer cleaned both of them up, checked my cylindar to make sure and said everything was fine.

$75.00 later to clean a dang cable..grrrrr.

Here's the part that I'm peved about:

Clint goes to get my car, and the service dude "Marty" who I talked to earlier, I never mentioned a word about my car being modded, and he would not shut up about how good it sounded, and he and the tech that worked on it liked the mods I had done, and hadn't seen one that sounded that good in a while. All good right? Then he happens to mention that they got a LS1 SS in not to long ago and he said he drove it and romped the crap out of it, saying "it was a beast", and all this to Clint. Clint's like ya okay, he doesn't mention the mods either. Just thinks the guy is a idiot.

Are we reading between the lines here? Then he says they test drive all the cars before the customer pays for the work, some little road around the dealership. Uh huh, what else ya gonna tell me? This is why I WILL stay with my car if it ever goes to another dealer. I do not trust them, and with him saying that makes me very suspicous, its just a respect thing, take better care of cars that arn't yours. I had the same problem at Capitol Chevy in Montgomery, the tech was telling me how everyone who heard it run liked it and something to the effect wanted him to take it for a "test spin", and just oh I was hot after that, I took the car home w/o letting them test drive it.

Let me catch them doing that, they woun't like the end result. "End rant"

Greenfire

 

Yeah!! You go get 'em. Dealers!!!

 

Yeh, I hate the dealerships too. Heck I was more worried about them even doing work under waranty! LOL...

 

That sucks! If you eever have any trouble in the future you ought to come up to the ham. Courtesy Pontiac has got the biggest service center that I have seen around here, and they have always got to much work, and to nice of cars to be test driving rides. This is where I bought my car, but I dont use them. This may sound like a contradiction, but I belive to do the job myself to know the job is done right to begin with(unless the motor blows,etc..).

 

I used to work at Capitol a few years ago, and I can say that there are a few who will dog your car. It's mostly the guys in clean-up, or the porters who move the cars around. Us service techs would usually treat customer cars just as we would our own. Look out for the guys MOVING your car, not the one's fixing it.

Now, the cars that were fresh off of the truck, that's a different story...

 

That sucks. Dealers will screw you with the prices. Most will charge you $65 just to look at your car. I went in one time and told them I needed my computer flashed with the factory program back in it (before I got HPTuners). They told me they would need to hook it up to their diagnostics machine to determine if there were any problems first and it would be $65. I told them NO just reflash it and yet they still insisted on hooking it up to their stupid diagnostics machine. I ended up having to talk to a manager in order to not have to pay the additional $65. What retards!

-Sly

On a side note it's good to hear that your car should be fixed now!

 

Yeah car is fixed, just need to clean the ICA and I should be good to go. Track opens friday, but I didn't get to order my MT ET's in time, so I may just watch. Dunno, I really need to burn some tire off. LOL


Greenfire

 

My Nittos came in today

I'ma be burnin' 'em down on Fri.

 

I buy a lot of parts from dealers, in my business I have to, believe me most of them have complete disdain for their customers, even the ones that just buy parts. I have purchased 2 GM products in the last 3 years but I wouldn't spend a dime in either for any type of service.

 

Oh yeah, dealer service depts are a ripoff. When I was at Capitol, the going labor rate was $75/hr. The Chilton's manuals that they use to set their flat rate labor are full of crap. Customers would get billed for twice the time it took to actually fix their car.

Most of us techs were pretty cool towards the customers, you know, being honest with them about what they needed. It's the service writers that're crooked. I swear, there's one there who could sell a refridgerator to an Eskimo.

Don't get me started about the parts dept. Don't get me wrong, I have friends who still work there, ( I get the hookup ) but the average customer pays a buttload for parts there. There are some parts that have a 300% markup. $13 for an oil filter? Give me a break.

People have no clue how their cars work nowadays, and they place WAY too much faith in the people they pay to take care of them. That's where sites like this one come in...

Bottom line: DON'T GO TO DEALER SERVICE DEPTS! 99% of time, it's a ripoff.

 

I'm so jealous!


Yeah dealers cost too much money, I get my parts from GM Parts Direct, a lot cheaper IMO. I shop around a lot before I settle on a price for something. Like an opti spark $300.00 at Capitol, and I paid $185.00 I think at Advance.


Greenfire