Another "the dealer is stupid" thread

Thanks for that suggestion. Are you saying just pump the brakes while backing up or am I pushing in the parking brake while backing up? Ira finally called me back, but only after I called Corporate and posted a yelp review. They left a message, I haven't had time to call them back yet but there's no way they are ever again touching my truck.

 

Yes just pump the regular hydraulic brakes.

 

Just curious, what if I back it off more than 15 clicks? I adjusted mine last month and it took about 25 clicks till it stopped dragging...

 

Then it wouldn't be correct IAW the Shop Service Manual.

I wouldn't worry about a slight drag. I also don't think that 25 clicks is going to make much difference. Do your brakes work satisfactory? If yes, don't worry about it.

If you use the parking brake on a regular basis it should adjust the brakes to where they should be. The "star wheel" is an automatic adjuster. The problem is if it is binding and doesn't turn freely or if the brakes are way out of adjustment it takes forever to tighten up the slack.

 

It works good now. I was just hoping i didn't mess up the brakes by driving it like that. I figured since it was automatic it will adjust itself eventually. The reason for the adjustment was that while I was doing a tire rotation, I noticed that the left rear wheel did not rotate freely and actually took some effort to spin it. So I decided to adjust it and learned what a PITA it was. What the factory manual doesn't tell you is to depress that little tang while loosening it....

 

The dealer is there to make a profit.
The dealer sends its techs to schools and passes that cost on to you.
The dealer doesnt want to get sued for half assed work so they ALWAYS try and fix anything that look seven somewhat sketchy.
The dealer is often the first (and sometimes only) guys with the proper computers and tools. (more cost to you)
The dealer charges 300% markup on small parts and 110% on larger stuff. This fact is pure robbery and I wont argue with you there.

I was a service writer for Harley Davidson for a few years. We never cut corners, we always did the job right. Not ONCE did we ever add unnecessary parts or swindle anyone. Replace a already brand new valve stem on a rim swap? Your damn right we did, because I dont want you coming back saying we broke the old one during a swap. RARELY, (but it happened) we would add additional labor charges to guys who constantly got in the way, questioned our mechanics and generally caused a slow down in production.

I was a service writer for Pep Boys....the mechanics there routinely had less than high school educations, diagnosed the wrong problems, broke stuff, smoked pot all day (ok, so did the Harley mechanics) and used the wrong tools on jobs they had no experience with. I watched a truck fall off a lift because the mechanic was too lazy to crawl underneath it and extend the fingers. I watched a guy with NO experience tear apart a S-10 rear end, install the bearings wrong and then lie to the customer saying it was a transmission whine.

So I wouldnt say the dealer is out to fuck you. The dealer is out to make a profit.
The large chain stores, Pep Boys, Firestones, Vavolines......those are the guys who FUCK you.

 

THIS

well played sir!!

 

after 35 years as a service advisor-manager at a Chevrolet/BMW, now a Ford/Hyundai-Kia franchises, do we have faults? sure, but we always strive to make it correct. as in anything else, you will have hacks/butchers (no offense to The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America ),but they never last long. hence the wheels on the bottom of their boxes. I just recently had 2 very good customers come in with unusual, yet out of warranty issue's. being the purse molester that I am portrayed as, I gave these 2 individuals an early Christmas gift by doing them under a warranty umbrella that we have at our disposal. so, the tech's involved, our stealership , my family, and myself, all made less money,( without any complaints from the techs, as they are aware that if it wasn't for our customers coming back, they wouldn't have a job) and my customers didn't pay a dime. pretty stupid on my behalf, as a dealer, and, as the title of this thread portrays, yet very generous to the customers that received the repairs. so in essence, are there dishonest stealers out there? a few, but not as many as one individual would think. because with social media they way it is now, there is nowhere to hide, or carpet to sweep their durty issues under anymore. good luck on your next visit!!!!

 

There are a lot of shitty dealers out there. I've been to a few. There are also some guys who do a great job, and have great customer service skills. I'll give a shout out to Rockingham Toyota. They have been great to deal with. One example that has stuck with me, was when my truck was almost 4 years old (out of warranty almost a year), and I had mentioned to the service manager that there were a few spots on my wheels that the paint was starting to bubble on (realizing that I'm already out of warranty), and without hesitation, he ordered me 4 new wheels.

One dealer that I won't go back to is Ira of Manchester. This is mostly an example of bad customer skills, as the issue I had wasn't directly caused by them. I needed my windshield replaced, (I've had this done before at Rockingham) and asked if they had a shop they used/recommended, and if they let the glass guys use their bays (it was winter, and ground covered with snow). They gave me a number to call, and I set the appt. up. Upon pickup (it was at night), I noticed the interior was filthy (you can normally eat off my floor). Salt, and grease stains on my light gray carpet. Not happy, but I cleaned it up, and called the service writer, and let him know. Next day, I'm driving down the road, and an end piece of the winshield cowl flies off. I stop, and secure it as best I can. They F-d it up during the install to the point where the tab was mashed, and was now unusable. Again I called, and let them know I wasn't happy about this, and wanted the piece replaced (the piece costs like $14). I told the service writer that I thought the glass guys were hacks, and didn't want to deal with them, I just wanted to have Ira take a look at the piece, and order a new one, and I would have been happy. So he sets me up with an appt. to stop by in a few days, but a day before leaves me a voice mail saying that I should just call the glass place. They were not directly responsible for the hack job, but they're name is tied to the place that they recommended. As far as I'm concerned, they should have at least checked the condition of the truck, before I picked it up. Maybe like six months after that I noticed that they had also hacked up the plastic cover on my passenger's side A pillar. Looks like they carved up the edges with a utility knife to make the windshield fit.

 

Newest update, after posting a poor review on yelp and complaints with the BBB and toyota corporate, IRA Milfords general manager finally called me back, after about 2 weeks. He had me on speaker with the service manager and wants to try to fix things, so I'm going to go back 1 more time and let them try to fix the problems they've caused. I've managed to adjust my parking brake to a usable state but it's still not great, I really don't know what they did to it but my braking hasn't been the same since I was there last.

A few other things I"ve found, first is minor, they never reset my maintenance required light. More concerning is after reviewing my service invoices I found that in march 2015 they claimed I had 3mm of brake shoe remaining. In june that went up to 4mm remaining, and just this past month that went up to 5mm remaining!

So...either they didn't check and lied, they checked and are so incompetent they can't measure, or my brakes are magic. I can't wait to hear what their explanation is for that.

 

I suppose they used the WAG approach to measuring your brake lining. Wild Assed Guess.

 

This is my theory. My wifes Acura RDXs rear brakes went from 8mm to 6mm to 7mm in the last 3 service appointments. I pointed at it and laughed at my wife and told her that her brake pads grew.

 

Same thing happened on my wife's car when it was serviced at the stealership. The brake pads got way smaller a few weeks after I replaced them. The next time in for service they were thicker. I told her they must have gotten wet.

 

They are retaining water....

Next they will be bitchy.

 

At the dealership I worked at we had a checklist of things to inspect and every car that comes in needs to have their brake linings checked. I'll be honest, sometimes when a car comes in and its just a lube job and some other stuff without tire rotation, I cant stick the little green/yellow/red lining guage in between the rims to measure the pads or drums. So eyeballing would be the best way to go. Usually what I would do is look at how much material is left from the inside of the wheel and compare it to my gauge. I can get pretty close that way. Other times we would be so busy and in a hurry that I just take a quick peek just to make sure there was some material there and make my best guess. Or I would pull up the previous repair order and get the info off of that.

In addition, depending on what brake lining tool the tech is using, some of them will measure 2mm to 12mm with 8 increments. While others will use a cheapo gauge with only 3 increments (ex 8MM, 4MM, 2MM). So if the tech goes to measure a brake lining with 7mm, they will just put down 4mm because the 8mm guage doesnt fit.

In other words, most techs don't really check it, especially if its a lube tech. Most flat rate techs measure it (at least where I worked) since most brake jobs are gravy jobs.

 

Eh, as much as I hate to say this its on us owners. I always hate using shops to do anything. If I can do it myself, then I will. Unfortunately since my job requires me to move quite often my tool selection is very limited. It seems more often than not a special tool is needed to complete a job every now and then and I have to take it in. I,ve only found 2 shops over the past that I've trusted. The rest, sucked!

 

For a final wrap up of this thread, I went back to the dealer today and they actually fixed everything. The service manager made a remark something along the lines of "I'm not sure what you did to try to adjust the brakes, but they were put together wrong." Basically, whatever monkey worked on it last put the rear brakes back together ass-backwards so they weren't adjusting themselves and weren't letting me adjust them using the star wheel. SO... for nearly 2 weeks now I've been driving around with just my front brakes stopping my truck. Yes, I know they do the majority of the work but trust me, the rears make a big difference. If you don't believe me just try it yourself, disconnect your back brakes and see how safe you feel.

I'm happy with the end result but still pissed off about the whole scenario. Somebody who didn't know any better, like my 80 year old father, would have just kept driving it or would have paid toyota more money to try getting things fixed again. If I hadn't raised hell and posted reviews and complained to BBB and corporate I wouldn't have gotten them fixed and would have spent more money and more of my time fixing them myself.

I'm never going back there again, they fixed things this time but they probably put their best guy on it. Who knows who's going to do things next time, could be a monkey, could be a person who knows what they're doing.