Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:54:12 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: legitimate beef - water under the bridge - or just plain wrong
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Nobody just dived under their PS vanagon for a second and *looked* ? ? ?
there's a junction in each metal line, inboard of the frame rail that's
about 14 inches inward from the outer part of the body, right about at the
middle of the sliding door.
a 4 inch piece of hose with hose clamps joins front and rear low pressure
lines.
there's a screw nut line fitting on the other one.
as suggested, just look at the labor figure on the bill.
if it's around 2 hrs. ...up to 3 max I'd say, that fits for replacing the
rear half of the lines, filling and bleeding the system etc.
on a 2WD you sure do need to remove the fuel tank to do the forward lines,
and labor to replace all PS lines would be more like 6 at least ....a
noticeably larger # on the bill you'd think for sure.
I suspect the poster was not charged for work not done,
but rather, that the service dept was a little unclear about what the
choices are ( 'all' or just the bad lines ) ...and didn't make it clear that
the front lines were still working, and the practical thing at the time, and
considering the size of the bill, was to just to the rear ones.
I don't think service departments at car dealers are very skilled at that
sort of thing, in general.
It's one of my business sayings even ..
people just want to know what their choices are. They are often not given
options ..
or not even fully informed about what work was done, and what was not done.
Customers can throw a wrench in things too ..
when a customer says "I just want it done right' ..
that can be code for 'I'm worried about what the total might be if you
replace all parts in my, say brake system, and I'm hoping by some miracle
you can replace all the parts in the whole system, but not charge me for
everything." ..
something like that.
the proper answer back to "I just want it right" ..is to ask if they really
understand what that might me for a final price on the bill, and if they are
actually prepared for that ..
it really helps to communicate clearly in the beginning about the whole
process and what the choices are.
My saying on that is ..
'the single most critical part of any car repair job is how you sell it."
that's where you manage expectations, where you educated them what their
car/van might really need etc..
I suspect the poster got what they paid for,
and it would have cost a lot more to do the forward lines ..
and the practical choice was do just the rear lines for that job.
other factors ..
they could have been buried in higher paying warrantee work, or something
like that ..
like they didn't really want to deal with the forward lines, but they didn't
want reveal that fact either.
That can happen at dealership service departments.
They are under so much pressure to crank out work.....quickly and high
paying ( I know a Honda dealer tech ...he produces 80 shop hours of labor
income per week....he's only at work 40 hrs a week though )
they will gladly make up some reason to not work on something that might not
be that profitable for them that day or that week.
what fun.
I don't think you got ripped off though, is what I suspect.
Scott
turbovans
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Stevens" <mtbiker62@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: legitimate beef - water under the bridge - or just plain wrong
> If you happen to do what I do, you still have the receipt for the work
> they
> did
> and charged you for. If so, you can call a dealer now to get an estimate
> of
> the TIME they charge for replacement of those lines and compare to your
> receipt. It MAY be that the dealer that did the work only charged for the
> work they did, not for what the VWOA manual states is the time allotted/
> recommended for replacement of the entire line system, which would then
> include removing the gas tank (more hours = +$$$).
>
> bob
>
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Mark <mbrush@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Not sure what to do about this one - eight years ago, I had my power
>> steering lines replaced by the dealer. Now I've come to find out that
>> they
>> only replaced part of the lines, they spliced in new lines in the back
>> and
>> left the old lines in the front (using hose and clamps to connect the
>> two -
>> I guess to avoid dropping the gas tank). I assume those lines are
>> supposed
>> to be continuous lines from back to front, but maybe I'm wrong (don't see
>> a
>> diagram in power steering section of the Bentley). The lines are now
>> leaking in the front and I feel like I'm circling back to a repair I
>> already
>> paid for. I'm inclined to just let it go, since it's been so long, but
>> if
>> it's an egregious error I think the dealer should at least know about it.
>> Or maybe it's not an error at all.
>>
>> Thanks for the thoughts -
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
