Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 17:59:26 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: [NVC] VW warranty scam
In-Reply-To: <bfb5ccc40706081319k1f254bdeu66f7a4d5e2dc7dd7@mail.gmail.com>
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I wanted to stay out of it, but since it's Friday... here's my two cents:
You are fighting two things. The corporate culture of the specific company,
and perhaps moreover you're fighting the culture of the retail OEM
automotive industry. The whole system of dealerships is backwards. On one
side you have the OEM which aims to sell the highest quantity of cars as
cheaply as possible while matching engineering goals with money(vehicles
last to the day of the warranty). On the other side you have dealer
franchises trying to sell the highest quantity of cars as expensively as
possible. But they're also trying to do as little mechanical work as quickly
and cheaply as possible for both warranty and non-warranty. They try to
match the allowable limits of warranty claims to OEMs to return the highest
dollar/time figure from each revenue stream possible from the land the
dealership sits on. Where is customer satisfaction in this? Yeah they have
customer service desks, but they do so to shield the techs working on cars
from customers. If a tech screws up, you talk to a service manager, he
causes enough of a delay to collect more information on your complaint and
he himself adds another hurdle between you and financial restitution. This
can involve playing the regional service manager off of the OEM, it might
simply be talking to the tech in order to invent a valid excuse for
something.. either way, the information gap widens even further and you're
very likely to get screwed. The problem is, all of these people are
performing their jobs as designed. A dealership can sustain HUGE amounts of
customer dissatisfaction compared to most other automotive businesses
because of their size, the gap in information, their purchased position in
the sale, and the faith in a brand that people place with them. It's
powerful stuff. Scamming customers is part of life in that segment of the
industry, not for all certainly, but cut through the BS and it's true. The
techs generally have a dislike of their jobs, all pressure, low pay, no
pride in their work because it would slow them down, and this manifests
itself in a bizarre hatred of the customers themselves. I know plenty of
good techs, but the good ones that are also good guys won't be working at a
dealership long whether they plan to or not. Sales turns people over like
hotcakes, and the pressures/rewards in all but the highest level corporate
positions is getting worse and worse.
If you are buying cars by country or brand within the last 5 years, the
information gap is WAY too wide. For example. The new Golfs are getting
great reviews, and they handle really well. The suspension is great. The
engineering team that did the work was lured away from Ford after they did
such a good job on the C1 platform based Focus(euro, not US which is C170)
suspension. BTW the wonderful mazda 3 is also a C1 Ford platform vehicle.
Anyhow anyone might think to themselves "sweet these VW engineers know their
suspension stuff well, this is great" and you'd be right... but last week
they were working for Ford, and next week who knows.. the brand is utterly
meaningless... you MUST learn enough about the vehicle to have a chance of
actually judging it on it's merits at the right level.. low enough to be
meaningful, high enough to not be nitpicky or consume a ton of brain
time/space/effort.
The gap between the consumer and brand is intentional, they want you to
associate simple terms like quality, responsibility, etc to the brand, they
don't want you to understand what you're buying too deeply... that would
cost them more both because requirements would go up, but also because the
cost of sales would go up, the less the customer knows, the easier they are
to impress. The gap between country and consumer is largely
circumstantial(although Puerto rico tourism has been pushing the rum lately
in time with the pirate movie) but it is simply not true that within the
useful spectrum of information, one can supplant a large percentage with the
country of origin alone.. it's wasteful to do so when it's so easy to narrow
the information gap and lower the risk from that level. Within the
dealership, the gaps are smaller, but there are many between the face at the
counter and the brand you think you're talking to.
It's funny how this applies. This is the entire reason why Bostig exists in
the first place. One of our customers told me that his friends sometimes
think he's crazy for spending 17k on a nice syncro and then another 13k with
us to repower it. But in the end what else can you buy for 30k that has the
capabilities that it now has in 2007? Nothing. And he said "for me, you guys
offer better customer satisfaction and more value than a big car company
can". We only exist if we can generate customer delight. We cannot exist on
satisfaction and we cannot survive customer dissatisfaction. In 2005, Bostig
lost less money than General Motors.. does it mean we actually "made more"
because we lost less? Dunno but it's hilarious to joke about.
The last time I replaced a seized 98 passat turbo was because of the oil
line coking problem that VAG corrected with heat shielding, but the dealer
told the customer it was his fault alone. He brought the car to me for a
look, I found the TSB and dealer notification letter online, told the
customer that he could have the turbo replaced for free by VW under the
notice... he said thanks but I want you to replace it for me anyhow, I'd
rather pay you than get it free from those @*!#&($s
As far as syncro reliability... I don't think they are unreliable at all..
what is the largest contributor I think is that many are not driven daily...
which makes cars more reliable, not less. Partly because you actually have
longer drive hours per incident, but also because sitting kills.
Jim Akiba
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