Peoples attitudes are funny.....

Having read the replies to my most recent post as well as other posts I've made over the years telling about bad experiences I've had getting parts or information from dealerships I've come to a conclusion. Dealerships are God in the eyes of many people and, as such, can do no wrong. They have no reason to help out customers and that's OK. Everyone that might work on a vehicle they sell is their competetor and should be treated as such, and that's OK too. Just because they pay to represent a brand name product to the public they have absolutely no reason to treat the customers that own that brand anything. Heck, based on the general train of thought, what if that CAT, JD, Komatsu, CASE, IH, etc, etc was bought (GASP) at another dealership, ten years ago, by someone else. Heck you aren't the origional owner, it was bought in Timbuck Two, not Timbuck Three, definately wasn't bought from or serviced by them for ten years, so why should it ever be their responsibility to spply parts or service to said machine since a 'competetor' sold and serviced it.....

That said given the train of thought often expressed, one man outfits like myself have absolutely no right to ask said dealerships to treat us like a customer, just as they would anyone else, regardless of how much we, or our customers spend with the dealership in a year. Even worse we should never ask for repair advice on a machine they have no desire to work on themselves, yet are still making money selling parts for. Funny thing is the dealership is no different than I am. They didn't make the product themselves, they aren't the only distrubutor/dalership in existance for that brand. That being the case why should the OEM ever give them repair advice on any of the products. Granted they pay a fee to be a rep for the company, which in essence makes them a customer for the OEM, but customer status seems to mean nothing so what does that matter?

Then we can take the whole matter a step further with sites like this. There are sites out there where people get paid for their advice, but not on here. That being the case why should Puddles ever give welding advice, John T legal advice, George in MD advice on repairing cast, repair advice from myself and others. Granted many guys aren't in business for themselves, but for guys like George and I we both run businesses and need to make a profit to stay in business. That being the case, and based on the thinking of some, anyone working on their own equipment is a competetor. That being the case why should any of us self employeed guys offer up advice on repairing anything to a 'competetor'? In this day and age someone on the West coast can very easily do work for someone on the East Coast, or wherever. In other words it makes no difference who, or where, someone is located since everyone doing the same type work is competing for our jobs....and we can't have that can we.... Thing is if we all acted like that the same ones that say it's OK for a dearship to do the same thing would be the same ones telling us, and everyone out there, we were a$$holes for not helping them out. Does the fact we aren't huge corporations with hundereds of employees make us any different than any other business? Based on my understanding of things it must........

In the end the size of a company should have absolutely nothing to do with the attitude of the company. Regardless of the circumstances every customer is the most important one, and if you treat them as such you will be successful. If there's any question about it, there are plenty of us on this sight that are proof positive that real, old time, customer service, and the word of mouth advertising it garners you, still works.

If they treat you right now, you might be a customer for a good sized purchase later... A good dealership should always be grooming their future customers.

You might want to send a letter to customer relations at the parent company. i.e. Kenworth.
If they sell/service more than one brand, send a letter to all of them.
Be prepared for some ramifications from the dealer, but as it stands, what can it hurt?

It's a change in business mentality. I call it the big box mentality. People are not as loyal to a brand or a dealer. Like many American businesses they act and manage for the short term. Some of it is more and more you're dealing with an employee that doesn't see a relationship between service and a pay check and probably won't be there more than 5 years or so. When you had mom & pop dealers your parts guy was apt to be family and had more stake in you leaving happy, today it doesn't really effect them. Also consider that the current government portrays people that are successful as evil and should be punished with confiscatory tax rates, don't be to surprised if they only want to deal with the easy and profitable sales, the law of diminishing returns will take effect. Even on some of the mom & pop businesses are going to decide not to work 70+ hours a week so they can be told they're unfair and need to be punished with higher tax rates and their business seized to pay death taxes, hey if you can't pass it to your kids why invest the blood sweat and tears?

Others may say we have moved away from religion and morality based ideals of right and wrong. More and more we look to government to solve our problems, years ago we looked to one another and learned to avoid situations that caused problems today we ask Uncle Sam to jump in and fix it for us.

Science has never been able to prove the existence or non existence of God, but has never been able to disprove man's need for a God and the ideals of right and wrong that belief in a higher authority brings.

Ok, it was a Kentworth dealership, and given a bit of research you might be able to tell exactly what dealership it was. Even then which particular branch of the dealership would still be nothing but a wild guess. My point in saying that, is this. I have never, in my recollection, posted my experiences on here with the express intent to be malicious or hurt anyone's business. If that was my intent, I would have absolutely no problem naming names from the get go. Heck even when I posted aout my experiences with the Deere dealers awhile back I never named any of the dealerships I was in contact with. In this instance, in my post the other day about the poor customer service from the parts dept, I never named names, nor did I do so in my latest post about the computer not showing a part, or the service dept not having a wiring diagram. In either case it's not the dealerships fault the OEM doesn't supply the part, but it is their fault that the higher powers in their stupidty told, or allowed some idiot to get rid of service data for the line of trucks they service. That's just plain stupid, who ever caused, or allowed it to happen is just plain stupid and I would have no problem telling them that to their face. In fact I've told a few over the years they were stupid for getting rid of their old paper manuals thinking that every bit of info the need would be on the computer.Funny thing the guys working there agree with me but were given no say.....Saddly it's a VERY common practice for dealerships to do that sort of thing regardless of the brand, or type of equipment they carry. Unfortunately the guys that have to deal with the problems it creates have no say in the deal as they are 'just' parts guys or mechanics and as such 'know nothing about the business' so why should the guy sitting behind the desk in his suit and tie listen to them???

With that said, I only posted the mfg name in reply to a post offering the posibility of assistance so he'd know what I was working on.

In this case my main intent was first, to vent, just like many on here do. Dealing with things like this on a near daily basis is frustrating to say the least, and over time has gotten to the point that is simply pi--es me off to no end. I say this because the majority of the problems I, and others in the the repair industry, encounter seem to be made by guys sitting behind a desk that have a business degree, know how to add and subtract, but that's about it. They have been trained to believe that you have to make money regardless of the cost to the customer. Too, they have been trained that the bottom line is RIGHT NOW, and in many cases couldn't see the future even if they had a time machine. This results in a companhy attitude that you need to slaugher the customer when the time comes and to heck with anything else. Problem is, like a guy told me once, you can milk a cow for years, but you can only slaughter it once. In other words they are so worried about getting their steaks to eat right now that they don't understand they can take the time to simply milk the cow and have something to drink, and make ice cream for desert, for years and years to come.

Nowdays, to them, slaughering your the customer comes by charging full, flat rate prices for jobs that, in reality, only take half as long as the book says it should (one of the reasons Dad left the dealership he worked for years ago), stupidly getting rid of service and parts manuals that would make a repair easy. Instead, with no manual, and having to search for parts, the job takes three times as long to 'figure out' for the skilled tech, or ten times as long for the rookie that has wasn't even born when the vehicle was produced and has never had to use his head to troubleshoot, without a computer to support it.

In the end many people view the dealership as the do all, be all, for everything. In reality they are nothing more than another business that the OEM can drop on a dime if they don't toe the line, that will gladdly jump ship to another brand if offered a better opportunity, etc, etc. In other words they are a business like any other. As such if they don't offer good customer service, regardless of the brand or type of equipment, their business will suffer eventually, be it the loss of a dollar or the loss of a million dollars. In either case lost money is lost money.........but the guys in the suits and ties will gladly lose a dollar to gain a dime because their math works like that on occasion. Heck put them to buying grease. Went through it with one customer years ago that 'saved' money buying the cheapest stuff on the market. It cost them a bundle in time and parts within a year. The second go round they improved the grease a but but refused to listen to us because what we recommeneded was twice as expensive. In the end they let the plant manager make the decision and when the changed to our recommended grease they were able to cut their greasing intervals by two thirds. Basically the grease was twice as expensive but in the end buying it saved them money not only in material costs, but also in parts and labor costs to repair what problems caused by the cheaper product. It took me nearly 4 years to get that through the heads of the suits since it didn't create and immediate cost savings at the point of purchase.

Ok, I got long winded there, as usual...LOL. My point though is that if I had wanted to really blast someone I would have, I DO NOT CARE. If a problem can't be aired, and learned from, then there are much larger problems than origionally imagined. As such I am not worried about doing business with somewhere/someone or not, because regardless of how important they feel they are, there are always other fish in the pond... and if they don't want the worm I dangle for them then I'll move on to another pond and feed the fish there.......

Ok, it was a Kentworth dealership, and given a bit of research you might be able to tell exactly what dealership it was. Even then which particular branch of the dealership would still be nothing but a wild guess. My point in saying that, is this. I have never, in my recollection, posted my experiences on here with the express intent to be malicious or hurt anyone's business. If that was my intent, I would have absolutely no problem naming names from the get go. Heck even when I posted aout my experiences with the Deere dealers awhile back I never named any of the dealerships I was in contact with. In this instance, in my post the other day about the poor customer service from the parts dept, I never named names, nor did I do so in my latest post about the computer not showing a part, or the service dept not having a wiring diagram. In either case it's not the dealerships fault the OEM doesn't supply the part, but it is their fault that the higher powers in their stupidty told, or allowed some idiot to get rid of service data for the line of trucks they service. That's just plain stupid, who ever caused, or allowed it to happen is just plain stupid and I would have no problem telling them that to their face. In fact I've told a few over the years they were stupid for getting rid of their old paper manuals thinking that every bit of info the need would be on the computer.Funny thing the guys working there agree with me but were given no say.....Saddly it's a VERY common practice for dealerships to do that sort of thing regardless of the brand, or type of equipment they carry. Unfortunately the guys that have to deal with the problems it creates have no say in the deal as they are 'just' parts guys or mechanics and as such 'know nothing about the business' so why should the guy sitting behind the desk in his suit and tie listen to them???

With that said, I only posted the mfg name in reply to a post offering the posibility of assistance so he'd know what I was working on.

In this case my main intent was first, to vent, just like many on here do. Dealing with things like this on a near daily basis is frustrating to say the least, and over time has gotten to the point that is simply pi--es me off to no end. I say this because the majority of the problems I, and others in the the repair industry, encounter seem to be made by guys sitting behind a desk that have a business degree, know how to add and subtract, but that's about it. They have been trained to believe that you have to make money regardless of the cost to the customer. Too, they have been trained that the bottom line is RIGHT NOW, and in many cases couldn't see the future even if they had a time machine. This results in a companhy attitude that you need to slaugher the customer when the time comes and to heck with anything else. Problem is, like a guy told me once, you can milk a cow for years, but you can only slaughter it once. In other words they are so worried about getting their steaks to eat right now that they don't understand they can take the time to simply milk the cow and have something to drink, and make ice cream for desert, for years and years to come.

Nowdays, to them, slaughering your the customer comes by charging full, flat rate prices for jobs that, in reality, only take half as long as the book says it should (one of the reasons Dad left the dealership he worked for years ago), stupidly getting rid of service and parts manuals that would make a repair easy. Instead, with no manual, and having to search for parts, the job takes three times as long to 'figure out' for the skilled tech, or ten times as long for the rookie that has wasn't even born when the vehicle was produced and has never had to use his head to troubleshoot, without a computer to support it.

In the end many people view the dealership as the do all, be all, for everything. In reality they are nothing more than another business that the OEM can drop on a dime if they don't toe the line, that will gladdly jump ship to another brand if offered a better opportunity, etc, etc. In other words they are a business like any other. As such if they don't offer good customer service, regardless of the brand or type of equipment, their business will suffer eventually, be it the loss of a dollar or the loss of a million dollars. In either case lost money is lost money.........but the guys in the suits and ties will gladly lose a dollar to gain a dime because their math works like that on occasion. Heck put them to buying grease. Went through it with one customer years ago that 'saved' money buying the cheapest stuff on the market. It cost them a bundle in time and parts within a year. The second go round they improved the grease a but but refused to listen to us because what we recommeneded was twice as expensive. In the end they let the plant manager make the decision and when the changed to our recommended grease they were able to cut their greasing intervals by two thirds. Basically the grease was twice as expensive but in the end buying it saved them money not only in material costs, but also in parts and labor costs to repair what problems caused by the cheaper product. It took me nearly 4 years to get that through the heads of the suits since it didn't create and immediate cost savings at the point of purchase.

Ok, I got long winded there, as usual...LOL. My point though is that if I had wanted to really blast someone I would have, I DO NOT CARE. If a problem can't be aired, and learned from, then there are much larger problems than origionally imagined. As such I am not worried about doing business with somewhere/someone or not, because regardless of how important they feel they are, there are always other fish in the pond... and if they don't want the worm I dangle for them then I'll move on to another pond and feed the fish there.......

Like I said before, I don't condone their behavior. Everyone in the door should be treated as a potential new customer.

But again, why should they be expected to give you something for free (information), that they paid for either monetarily or by bloody knuckles? This is also part of the new government/internet mentality, "Everything should be free."

Some of this is not "new" back when I was young and started restoring old tractors in the mid 1970's I would ask for information and they saw me as a young dumb kid or something ? I would often get answers like bring it in and we will look at it for you. This was not going to be free and I could not afford to pay their labor rates and plus I wanted to learn for myself. I also suspect that they didn't have a clue either !

I think you are running into some of this yourself. You likely know more then they do and they don't have a clue about what you want.

Move on and find another dealership. Still might be a good one left to support.

Well I'm one that gave you what I guess you consider a negative response,if you wanted cheerleaders only you should of hired a few like the Dallas Cowboys do.
I'm not a big fan of some dealerships and the way many operate but the facts are in todays's mechanical world they have the upper hand and staying in their good graces is important if you work on and/or own one of their brands of machines.Even independent shops now can sign up for a service manual/tech service over the internet and they pay monthly for it.Friend of mine runs a garage and he pays a flat monthly fee for the service,people get mad at him if he doesn't let them use it for free 'since he has it anyway' thats BS in my opinion he pays so those getting it from him need to pay too.
Paying for knowledge isn't exactly new Doctors and Lawyers really only have their knowledge to sell and they paid for it with years of schooling so the dealerships pay for their knowledge by paying a franchaise fee and some pay extra for the service information also."We're all in this together" is a bunch of bull in the business world as it should be I'll bet that McDonalds doesn't give out any information to Burger King about the hamburger business.
And an independent shop/Dealership service addvice
relationship will always be one sided with the Dealership giving and the Indpt.Shop receiving.

I think you hit upon part of the answer when you said the employees are told their time has to be used to make the dealer money. They probably have had their tail chewed as to how to use their time while on the clock. If the owner is a control freak the employee does not dare deviate from dealership policy less they want to be canned. I don't think it matters in terms of manufacturer. For all the hollering about Deere the local dealer will answer questions on something that is thirty years old and in my case this spring they pulled a mechanic off a paying job to talk to me over the phone. A "red" dealer in the area will not do that. Make arrangements for their shop to look at it or figure it out on your own. "Blue" shop not much better unless they don't want that particular job.

dealing with a certain Case dealer years ago the parts man gave me the parts manual for my size of tractor. he did this when they changed over to micro fiche. he said i was the only one who had that model.

Would you hire and have someone working for you thats not using their time to make you money? I sure wouldn't.If they're not going to use their time to make me money I don't need them around as they are a detriment to me and my other employees that are working to make me money.
They need to go get a Gov't job.

Wayne,I'am not standing up for dealerships or bad mouthing you but something you should know, understand by now.I don't care what brand it is.Example=you have a dealer,open since 1960,95% chance he has info(parts-service)on a 1960,1970,1980 idem and newer.You have dealer new in 2000,80-85% chance nothing on anything older then maybe 1985-1990. Because the books facts are not easily out there now.Someone in the family has owned or managed a ag or auto dealership since 1935,so that is the backing of what I said on new VS old.

Yes, I realize this. Thing is I personally know of several dealerships that have been around for ALOT of years, (meaning 40 or more) that canned nearly every paper manual they had when the 'world' went to computers. In fact one dealership I do alot of business with did it with their parts department less than 5 years ago when they did a renovation. Had I known at the time they were doing it I would have offered to take the manuals off their hands, but as it was they all went into a big dumpster. Now they struggle to find parts for any of the older stuff. Think about something else, with the old paper service manuals, amny had hand written notes in them for this and that, and the parts manuals had the same. It's one of those deals where nothing beats experience, and the experience could be passed on with the manual. Now, with the advent of the computerized manual, the ability to note this or that has disappeared becuase you can't add or subtract from the content of any computer based parts or service manual I've ever had the displeasure of using.

Wayne,
I doubt as a one man show you would put very much of a dent in a huge dealership operation. From my experience, guys like you handle a lot of the work that dealerships would rather avoid anyway.

How would these dealerships know whether you are working on your own machine or someone elses. You are still buying parts from them, which makes you a customer. You actually buy more than a normal through the door customer, as you are working on machines all the time.

Luckily for me I havent had to go the Ford/New Holland dealer for parts in two years. So who would be the better customer, you or me? You would surely spend more in a year than I would. They havent made a cent off me in that time.

I do understand your complaint, because I see the same thing. The New Holland dealer I use is hands down the best dealer I have ever used. They look things up, they will help, lend me tools, etc. And because of that, they know when I need a part I come see them. The JD ag dealer is pretty good, but not quite like the NH guys.

The JD construction dealer(AIS Michigan) has to be the rudest people I have ever seen. Asking for filters and parts really seems to be an inconvenience to them. Other people have told me the same experience. Seems they want to deal with the big commercial accounts not the little guy. I even asked the local JD Ag dealer if they could get me my dozer parts so I wouldnt have to deal with the parts people at AIS. They most of Michigan, so not too much choice.

Rick

Not necessarily a negative response, just a different attitude than I am used to dealing with.

As far as the whole 'we're in this together' deal, your way off track. I don't know what you do for a living, so you may not realize it, but nowdays many, many major manufacturers have a 'competetor' making something for them. For example, Deere and Hitachi compete with their excavators, but a Hitachi excavator is made by Deere. Deere and Leibherr compete with their track loaders but Leibherr makes all of them. Cat handles cranes for Linkbelt but their excavators still compete with Linkbelt excavators. CAT owns Perkins engines and for the smaller diesels, market them under both name brands, with only slight differences, if any. For instance the 3054 CAT is sold as a CAT, is yellow, and has CAT all over it, but open it up and nearly every part has Perkins on it. Years back, I believe it was CAT and Komatsu both that had another mfg making forklifts for them. Identical machines but with different paint schemes, and made by a third party who was also a competetor in another sector of the industry. At one point I know CAT made parts for other mfgs for use on equipment that mfg made that competed with the same type CAT equipment. Ford used to have othr mfgs make tractors for them that were nearly identical to the same ones the company made for themslves. Heck Deere did the basically the same thing making their tractors with Yanmar engines while Yanmar made their own tractor to compete.

Then, because of guys (the competeror) like me that work on, and keep the older equipment running (that the dealerships have NO desire to work on themselves) companies like CAT came up with their CAT Classic parts line. It's sold in a CAT box, made by whomever, and makes them money on sales for machines they would otherwise lose to an aftermarket company.

Then look at the truck industry. For years CAT and IH competed with their engines for the heavy truck market. Now CAT has Navistar (the old IH) making engines for CAT's trucks that are, or were, based on a CAT design.

Now look at the filter market. WIX makes filters for several major companies and markets the same filter under several name brands. Used to be someone that wouldn't buy a Donaldson filter would buy one from CAT, all the while Donaldson made CAT's filters.

One step further, look at tires. It's been awhile since I looked at a listing of tire mfgs, but out of hundereds of tire 'name brands' there were only a handful of actual mfgs making all of them.

Ultimately in todays 'world economy' everyone has to work together to make money. Granted very few of them are going to offer up a true trade secret such as the reciepe for their burger sauce to the other burger joint, you'd be suprised how many there are out there like CAT working with Navistar on a CAT based, Navistar branded engine, along with many others working together to come up with the latest and greatest design that they can't affored to do alone.

Basically what it all comes down to in a world economy we are all in this together, wether we like it or not.

Sometimes it is not that obvious with people as to who will spend some money after a partsman spends 15 to 30 minutes to look something up. I've worked in places where management has told the employees in no uncertain terms that there are some things they don't want to be bothered with. Sometimes the employees are expected to have ESP to know the outcome before they invest any time in a look up.