access the black box?

[Mike97gt]

My story:

I was young (16) and took my car to Ford to have my hood painted, side view mirrors painted, and to have a leak around the window fixed. Well, at the time, I had a big sticker on the rear window of a tachometer plus my car is bright yellow ... there were not many like it around at the time. Well, my friend calls me up (on the 8th day they had my car) and says to me What's up? I just saw you on the other side of town .. whatcha doin out there? I was PISSED!!! So my brother and I drove to the Ford stealership because I knew where my car was parked and I wanted to make sure it was there. IT WASN'T! So basically my car was ragged for who knows how long during that 8 day period. So, I go to pick it up and already had a story lined up for their ass. The service guy pulls my car around and it was FILTHY! Dirt all inside, on the floor, ceiling, every damn where. I said to him "I know someone was driving my car and I am not paying for the work you did" He says "nobody drove your car .. blah blah blah" .. Long story short, I told him I had written down my miles and took a picture (then looked at the current miles and subtracted like 300 in my head) and told him that I had X amount of miles then vs. now. I got $1500 worth of work for FREE.

Now, since then, I haven't and never ever ever ever will take my car back to ANY dealership EVER!!! I have learned how to do just about everything myself because of the principle of PEOPLE taking my car like that.

Now for the ironic part. Three years later, I am working at a Chevrolet dealership in the service department. One of our service writers quit and they got a new guy. It was the damn guy from the Ford service dept that three years ago told me "nobody drove your car". I confronted him and asked him about it ... he told me "yeah, those morons drove it .. pissed me off" I said WTF???? And that is how it goes.

I don't know if that will help you any, but it was a ****ty experience I thought I'd share.

that sucks.. there is no reason to drive a car for that many miles unless it has a intermintent fault. when I get somthing like that I call the customer to see if i can take the car home overnight. I don't have time to drive 20-30+ miles durring the work day. That car must have been damaged if they gave you 1500 back. The probally po5'ed the repair and let ford pay for it.


Back at another dealer I worked at we had a mint 96 cobra come in with under 10k miles and this was in 2001 I think so the miles were low. One 50 somthing year old tech thought it would be fun to cruise around the local collage campus with the top down for a few hours. He did not pound on the car but he did put 30+ miles on it and the guy was pissed. After that my boss came up with a road test route all cars had to go on when done with repairs. it came out to about 3 miles I think round trip and we had to do it. That way the car is road tested so we feel comfortable giving it back to the customer, and only 3 miles were put on.

We HAVE to drive the cars for certain repairs, No way I am sending a brake repair or a suspension repair down the road without testing it. I don;t care how good of a tech you are mistakes happen, and I rather find out on a road test then having the customer flat bed the car back.

90 percent of flat rate techs don't really care about driving around in a mustang, most of the problems is with the young kids they hire for lubes and small repairs, us flat rate guys are too busy trying to make our 40 hours to care about joy rides, personally if I was a service manager or dealer owner I would fire somebody out joyriding.

I am glad to see you learned to fix cars yourself. That is the only way to be sure that the work is done right and your car is not used as a lunch time toy. BTW it's not just dealers, the private shops are just as bad.

 

[jasonh_86]

that sucks.. there is no reason to drive a car for that many miles unless it has a intermintent fault. when I get somthing like that I call the customer to see if i can take the car home overnight. I don't have time to drive 20-30+ miles durring the work day. That car must have been damaged if they gave you 1500 back. The probally po5'ed the repair and let ford pay for it.


Back at another dealer I worked at we had a mint 96 cobra come in with under 10k miles and this was in 2001 I think so the miles were low. One 50 somthing year old tech thought it would be fun to cruise around the local collage campus with the top down for a few hours. He did not pound on the car but he did put 30+ miles on it and the guy was pissed. After that my boss came up with a road test route all cars had to go on when done with repairs. it came out to about 3 miles I think round trip and we had to do it. That way the car is road tested so we feel comfortable giving it back to the customer, and only 3 miles were put on.

We HAVE to drive the cars for certain repairs, No way I am sending a brake repair or a suspension repair down the road without testing it. I don;t care how good of a tech you are mistakes happen, and I rather find out on a road test then having the customer flat bed the car back.
90 percent of flat rate techs don't really care about driving around in a mustang, most of the problems is with the young kids they hire for lubes and small repairs, us flat rate guys are too busy trying to make our 40 hours to care about joy rides, personally if I was a service manager or dealer owner I would fire somebody out joyriding.

I am glad to see you learned to fix cars yourself. That is the only way to be sure that the work is done right and your car is not used as a lunch time toy. BTW it's not just dealers, the private shops are just as bad.

I get what you're saying on that and I understand it. If I had a major problem that the car needed to be driven for, then no problem, i'd just go with them.

It's just stuff that they do sometimes, such as minor jobs that dont affect driveability but they "say" it does. But oh well, if they damage my car or make my tires bald then they can pay for it

As long as the job is done right and without any unnecessary driving, then i'm fine.

 

[Mike97gt]

I get what you're saying on that and I understand it. If I had a major problem that the car needed to be driven for, then no problem, i'd just go with them.

It's just stuff that they do sometimes, such as minor jobs that dont affect driveability but they "say" it does. But oh well, if they damage my car or make my tires bald then they can pay for it

As long as the job is done right and without any unnecessary driving, then i'm fine.

I think you should go over your car with the service writer really well when you drop it off, make sure he sees the condition of the tires, make usre you leaft no rubber on the rear quarters and show him the clean quarters, that way if somebody pounds on it you might have rubber on the quarters as proof.

I know what you mean about minor jobs going out for a road test.. I have seen mustangs get road tests for radio problems, trim installs, oil changes and such.. that is just wrong and there is no reason for it.

 

[Shiroelex]

http://www.davisnet.com/drive/products/carchip_products.asp
I have one of those, and it works great. I've had it since I bought the car. It told me my roommate decided to do a few errands with my car while I was on vacation once. Errands that required 7 extreme G accelerations, and top speeds of 90+. Suffice to say, I take my keys with me everywhere now.

 

[SamMan]

I thought little black boxes were on bleach blondes and airplanes ...

 

[xseler8]

I'd like to comment about dealer service. I use Schlenker Ford in Hamburg, Pa. 150 round trip for me. This is the best agency for service that I ever used. I get the same tech everytime. I depend on him & trust him.He takes pride in doing the job right the 1st time-everytime. He test drove my Procharged 02. I asked him if got a chance to boot-it.(and I would not mind if this guy did it) His reply was we are resonsible for the customers car. Abusing or joy riding is not acceptable.
Also,when I pick my car up it's parked in a safe area to advoid any problems. The service writers are professional and straight shooters.I enjoy using Schlenker Ford service (since 2002.) I'm very lucky here. I've been driving since 1963 and have more service horror stories than most people.

 

[merc123]

I had a dealership do the same thing as far as mileage and I asked them about it. They just told me that the tech has to drive it around to make sure this that and whatever is fixed. They'll probably tell you the same thing so I wouldn't worry about it.

Then again, the assistant service manager took my car HOME and I got it back with over $300 worth of missing stuff. I couldn't do anything about it and the police wouldn't help so I had to take a loss on it. The dealership told me to never come back and to stop accusing.

 

[DTNODYA]

that sucks.. there is no reason to drive a car for that many miles unless it has a intermintent fault. when I get somthing like that I call the customer to see if i can take the car home overnight. I don't have time to drive 20-30+ miles durring the work day. That car must have been damaged if they gave you 1500 back. The probally po5'ed the repair and let ford pay for it.


Back at another dealer I worked at we had a mint 96 cobra come in with under 10k miles and this was in 2001 I think so the miles were low. One 50 somthing year old tech thought it would be fun to cruise around the local collage campus with the top down for a few hours. He did not pound on the car but he did put 30+ miles on it and the guy was pissed. After that my boss came up with a road test route all cars had to go on when done with repairs. it came out to about 3 miles I think round trip and we had to do it. That way the car is road tested so we feel comfortable giving it back to the customer, and only 3 miles were put on.

We HAVE to drive the cars for certain repairs, No way I am sending a brake repair or a suspension repair down the road without testing it. I don;t care how good of a tech you are mistakes happen, and I rather find out on a road test then having the customer flat bed the car back.

90 percent of flat rate techs don't really care about driving around in a mustang, most of the problems is with the young kids they hire for lubes and small repairs, us flat rate guys are too busy trying to make our 40 hours to care about joy rides, personally if I was a service manager or dealer owner I would fire somebody out joyriding.

I am glad to see you learned to fix cars yourself. That is the only way to be sure that the work is done right and your car is not used as a lunch time toy. BTW it's not just dealers, the private shops are just as bad.

I don't know what they did to 'erase' my cost ... but any loss would have been better than a lawsuit.

I know what you mean about test driving cars .. I have test driven many cars when I worked at my last job and some cars I would put 30-45 miles on. That is what my MGR (Service) told me, so I did. Hell, I can remember five or six times of me getting stranded because whatever POS I was driving broke down on me .. lol .. I was all good though because I was 'on the clock'. Also, it helps the techs determine whether something is even worth working on .. I get all that .. My problem is that there were four people in my car 'joyriding' in an area that was not anywhere near the dealership.

We had a guy (tech) decide one day that he was going to keep the keys to a 03 (brand new at the time) Corvette Z06, and then come back at night to 'borrow' it for a while. This dumbass gets out of the parking lot, gets sideways, loses control and ramps it on the curb. Needless to say, he got fired, but it was damn near a CSI investigation to figure out who took the car.

I just have trouble trusting people with my car because of SOOOO many experiences (directly or indirectly) I have had. Sounds like you are a good tech that cares about actually getting the car fixed, and fixed the best you can. Not one that tries to sell you stuff that doesn't need to be fixed. That was one thing about dealerships that burned me up more than anything ... even than my car incident. And regarding private shops .. they are WORSE by far!!!

 

[Mike97gt]

I don't know what they did to 'erase' my cost ... but any loss would have been better than a lawsuit.

I know what you mean about test driving cars .. I have test driven many cars when I worked at my last job and some cars I would put 30-45 miles on. That is what my MGR (Service) told me, so I did. Hell, I can remember five or six times of me getting stranded because whatever POS I was driving broke down on me .. lol .. I was all good though because I was 'on the clock'. Also, it helps the techs determine whether something is even worth working on .. I get all that .. My problem is that there were four people in my car 'joyriding' in an area that was not anywhere near the dealership.

We had a guy (tech) decide one day that he was going to keep the keys to a 03 (brand new at the time) Corvette Z06, and then come back at night to 'borrow' it for a while. This dumbass gets out of the parking lot, gets sideways, loses control and ramps it on the curb. Needless to say, he got fired, but it was damn near a CSI investigation to figure out who took the car.

I just have trouble trusting people with my car because of SOOOO many experiences (directly or indirectly) I have had. Sounds like you are a good tech that cares about actually getting the car fixed, and fixed the best you can. Not one that tries to sell you stuff that doesn't need to be fixed. That was one thing about dealerships that burned me up more than anything ... even than my car incident. And regarding private shops .. they are WORSE by far!!!

Trust me I know why you feel the way I do.. I have seen customers mustangs get abused by other techs. it's hard to find somebody you can trust.

Nobody can Borrow the cars at my work, we have a big giant gate and tall fences around the place. We have to all the inventory has the keys in the ignition, customers cars have he keys inside the building.