The service department is a profit center, many of the new mega-dealers, especially the Asian franchises and most of the European franchises are real good at upselling service. They even have the new version of snake oil, the wonder coolant, transmission or engine flush. The local two point (Honda & Toyota) dealer even goes as far as to push the upsell while they're determining if something is under warranty or not. Seems to be a high correlation between those who turn down the transmission flush and those who had their warranty claims denied.
Although here in Iowa I have found a somewhat unique situation with the local Ford dealer, they're quite big, as far as unit count goes they're one of the top 5 in the nation. They have three Ford points that I know of and all are in a cities of 15,000 or less. The branch I've used is on our county seat (population 2,500 or so) about a block from the one stop light in our county. They have a 6 bay service department. They have fixed my truck for less money than the Honda/Toyota folks want to "diagnose" the seat belt issue on our Honda. Their Mopar point is in the county seat for the County to the North of us, they're a little pricey but seem to decent work.
So the really big question, why is a dealership in such a small town so big? I live in Garner Iowa which is the service truck crane capital of North America. Two businesses in town actively build truck bodies and cranes and install them on trucks, many of those trucks are purchased or at least courtesy delivered through our local Ford dealer but that's still not the big reason. The county North of us is Winnebago County Iowa, the county seat is Forest City home of Winnebago Industries. Somehow all those Ford chassis under Winnebago Motor homes, as well as the Dodge/Fiats come through our local Ford dealer.
Okay I'll admit it I sold cars for about a year and a half. Much of the problems we have with new car dealers is our own fault. 80 to 90 percent of the customers come in with an attitude that they're not going to buy a car unless they think you're losing money. So the folks that are good at convincing the buyers they are loosing money when in fact they're making money become the most successful, we have created a system that rewards the biggest liars, or at least in the big cities. Surprise surprise, it carried over in to the service bays. As we used to say on the sales floor "if they're not lying they ain't buying". When the average customer comes in with the attitude you're not going to make any money off them it creates a different consumer relationship. Those customers who came in with some knowledge, either what the invoice, spins and rebates are on the model they wanted or those who had basic negotiation skills would get good deals with less hassle and were usually happier with their cars (and their life) than the average I'm going to hurt you Joes. Many of these were local teachers and university employees as we had purchase agreements with the local teacher's and University's credit unions. It was amazing how the more educated were the dumbest to deal with. I think this is a reflection on the fact that the average wage earner in the US doesn't understand the cost of running a business and how much profit is fair. They feel that a dealer making $1,000 on a car is unreasonable because that's what they make in a week, not understanding that their employer pays them $1,000 but the actual cost of their labor for the week is closer to $2,000 by the time the employer pays the other half of social security, the workman's comp, unemployment, vacation/Paid Time Off, insurance and retirement. The problem with the credit union deals is we'd agree to sell them cars at invoice or $200 over invoice and let the Credit Union have the financing. The credit union members would still expect to negotiate thousands off from there. More than once they walked out on us and went to a competitor and bought the same car for more money and paid more for the financing. With the increasing capital required for a dealer franchise, and the return of estate taxes we can only expect that more and more local dealers will be controlled by fewer and fewer corporations and it will only get worse. The high cost of doing business and passing it on to your heirs will only continue to consolidate capital in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
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Today's Featured Article - The Nuts and Bolts of Fasteners - Part 2 - by Curtis Von Fange. In our previous article we discussed capscrews, bolts, and nuts along with their relative hardness and thread sizes. In this segment we will finish up on our fasteners and then work with ways to keep them from loosening up in the field. Capscrews, bolts and nuts are not the only means of holding two parts together. When dealing with thinner metals like sheet tin, a long bolt and
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