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So you have to take your car to the dealer for a recall.
thecardoc3
Member Posts: 5,747
What are your feelings about them doing an MPI (Multi-Point Inspection) for free or otherwise while your car is at the shop? There are plenty of shop managers who are making it a requirement for the technicians to perform these inspections, (unpaid for the time that they take) in order to of course drive up sales and supposedly offset the poor compensation that the technician as well as the dealership typically get for doing the recall. In the trade you will find two highly opposed perspectives with management and techs who thrive on just doing services on one side (Pro MPI's) and techs who genuinely make their career focus to be fixing the broken cars (Against the practice) on the other. As you consider this shouldn't the techs really be compensated fairly for just attending to your needs in the first place without having to find additional work?
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And then the manufacturers have their own flat rate books for warranty work.
If a tech is working for "free", then you'd think the state wage and hour division would be interested. There must be reams of paperwork out there on this issue.
And where are the class action lawyers?
I like free so if I get a free inspection along with my recall work or oil change that's good. But I also fall victim to the "your bearing is failing and you should fix it now" syndrome. I'm at the shop already and it's a big hassle to go home and research the issue and try to second guess the tech and then bring the car back to the shop. And so I get it fixed, rarely trusting that the tech wasn't just padding the dealer's pocket.
I rarely ever think about how the mechanics are compensated, because I have no contact with them (or, very rarely), and it's really none of my concern. Going to an independent shop is different, because I often have contact with the actual mechanic working on my car (and yet, still no interest in how he gets paid).
I do wonder sometimes about the compensation of my local McDonalds worker.. maybe, because I've done that job before, and hope never to do it again.
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At over 100,000 her SUV blew out a spark plug. Threads and all.
She is upset because she recently had it there for some routine service and "they must not have checked my spark plugs".
They gave her an estimate of something like 5000.00 to fix her SUV which seems out of control unless I'm missing something.
I suggested she look into having a heli coil installed but I know a lot of places think that is a slip shod way to do a repair. Me, I've had them installed twice with good results.
It's funny how some people can't blame misfortune of just bad luck and not on a shop.
Nobody (that really knows what they are doing) "checks" plugs anymore, nor should they. Attempting to check the plugs causes tiny scratches in the porcelain insulator of the spark plug. The high secondary demand voltages that are achieved in today's engines to generate a spark will break down the insulation between the porcelain and the plug boot where the scratches are resulting in a carbon tracking and a misfire which would not have occurred if they had been left undisturbed. That means if you touch them, you need to replace them.