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Thursday, September 20, 2018

The High cost of a free recall




I thought a factory recall was free.   Technically, the cost is to be paid by the vehicle manufacturer that has issued that recall. However, the funds generated by the recall is at the “recall rate” – less for the technician in flat rate hours and less for the dealership in revenue.

But now your local automobile dealership has found a way to make the recall pay for itself.  The recall notice is one of the biggest ways the dealer can get you to come in to the dealership since only they are allowed contractually to perform the recall.  At that time, when you and your vehicle are a captive audience, they suggest all sorts of repairs (not related to the recall) and recoup some money.  

On an average, only around 15% of people who buy a car from a dealer end up going back to them for service. They usually already have an independent auto repair shop they trust and have a relationship with.

When you take your vehicle to the dealer for the recall, they don’t give you a choice for their vehicle inspection. They make it seem it’s a requirement for them to perform the recall.

So, you go in for what you know to be a free recall and then get a phone call about all sorts of unrelated problems, and in many cases,  they are asking you for thousands of dollars for additional repairs.

A great client of mine took her Lexus for the air bag recall to the dealer (her assistant took it). She is home nursing a broken shoulder and not very mobile.
When the dealer called her and  told her they needed to do more than $3700.00 worth of other work, unrelated to the free recall, she nearly fell on the floor and almost broke her good shoulder!

They said the car needed an air filter, wiper blades, a steering rack and pinion, an alignment, differential and power steering system fluid exchanges, fuel injection service and the spark plugs replaced. Bingo! $3700.00 plus tax.

She couldn’t understand how a vehicle that had just had been inspected 3 months before could now need such an astonishing amount of money to put it back together!

The answer is simple. In a dealership, the distance from you to your car, goes like this. Owner, general manager, service manager, dispatcher, service adviser, shop foreman, team leader and finally, the auto mechanic who worked on your vehicle. Who is she supposed to contact regarding these suggestions?

By contrast, at an independent repair shop, the owner is often the mechanic or service adviser working on your vehicle. The owner at an independent repair shop, cannot hide. They have a great deal of skin in the game. They must be as close to perfect as possible or else. A bad review, maybe a refund or the possible loss of trust from the client.

I bet that you will be hard pressed to come up with the name of the service manager at the dealership where you purchased your last car. But, I bet you to know the name of the owner of most of the independent repair shops you’ve been to. You would probably say you know most of their names, right?

So, consider this, if you take your vehicle to the repair dealer for a recall and get a call back from them asking for additional work to be performed, please check with your existing auto mechanic to see how much and or if any of it is really needed. Chances are you may not require as much in car repairs as the dealer suggests.

Remember, small business’s work very hard to earn your trust. And twice as hard to keep it.

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