Main dealer upselling gone mad

[trade vet 703]

Heard this today...Our guys drop an Audi off at the dealer for a warranty claim early today.The reception desk only has glammed up girls looking like they were going ‘on the town’ and the workshop is cleaner than a Michelin Star kitchen,all very impressive.Later on in the morning emails are coming in wrongly advising extra work including timing belt at £650 ? ( £500 labour ) ,This is bordering on attempted theft,but main dealers appear to get away with it.

Next.....Our guys wife takes the family jeep into Volvo for a recall/warranty job.Later on she gets an email saying it’s done.However,the email includes a cringingly bad walk around video provided by the fitter who is clearly ill at ease doing it.The guy is saying it may need a new DPF and a tyre when it doesn’t.He is also praising the car but not making sense,saying things like ‘the steering wheel is in good condition’ etc

You could not make it up,Volvo must have employed some consultant to come up with that,unbelievable!

[Mojo121 229]

I'm genuinely wondering how many people have actively noticed this, trade vet? I had no idea but my contact with main dealers is very very limited. I'm going to take a guess that a lot of these tactics are new and definitely suspect. Probably a pretty good article for the magazine to be honest.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Mojo121

[umesh 336]

All main dealers doing ' health checks ' to up sell, some video's I've seen are good but as said some really should not be posted /sent to customers. 

 

[Tadams 29]

A mate of mine works in a main franchise dealer (well known Japanese/French Brand) The tech's are actively targeted on up selling and can earn a percentage of the cost of work they advise on the health checks and the reception staff on what they can sell to a customer.  

This usually means that if a brake pad is close to an advisory ... in goes down as one and if a tyre is 3mm so an amber in goes down as a red etc.. It's a real shame main dealers need to make their branches profitable by taking advantage of a not so savvy customer but when you run the risk of getting a a disciplinary for not advising enough work you can see why a tech's hand is forced.  

[BHM 994]

Apart from collections courtesy of Dealer Auction thankfully my experience of main dealers in the last year has a couple of Zafiras in for the free heater modification.

An hour after dropping off my phone pings with a link to an appraisal. It appears my freshly MOTed Zafira requires £700 of work!!!! You can just click a button to authorise the work. On closer reading it’s made up of the usual optimistic shite such as A/C service, replacement tyre pump (?) oh yes, and £267 for front discs & pads (parts about £50 from the local factor). On collection when I queried them about their fault finding and optimistic pricing I was brusquely told that if a customer complains they immediately discount by 25%. The jumped up little tart, sorry I mean service receptionist, thinks £200 for discs & pads is a good deal - no wind the average family man shits himself at MOT advisories 

[andymc1973 199]

its even worse when you've sold people a perfectly good car and it goes into these charlatans for a health check

[grant8064 219]

Just now, andymc1973 said:

its even worse when you've sold people a perfectly good car and it goes into these charlatans for a health check

We've just had an 11 year old car go into one for a health check because his missus is a service receptionist there (so that's going to be an unbiased report).

Clean MOT last week and FSH, Peugeot claim it needs £550 worth of work doing 

We've told him as a gesture we'll do half the work and he can cover the rest but we're using our garage and sourcing our own parts...total cost £72 in bits and an hours labour. Sp that's just a 5X mark up Mr Peugeot.

[Rory RSC 596]

6 minutes ago, andymc1973 said:

its even worse when you've sold people a perfectly good car and it goes into these charlatans for a health check

+10000000000000000 

[Tadams 29]

To think because they have a big forecourt and a brand logo the glows at night and salesman that where suits they are to be trusted more than your average independent dealer... If only people knew the truth about the inner workings of these big dealers hey.. we would probably all sell a lot more cars ! 

We try and tell all our customers that in a franchise your a number but in an independent your a name .. cheesy i know but it's accurate 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Tadams

[trade vet 703]

2 hours ago, twerp said:

Anyone else remember 1-2 year old unrecorded but substantially damaged and rebuilt 'Direct from Main Dealer Audi' coming through BCA ?

Often not in the catalogues 

 

What about VW Financial Services,you can get some crap coming through there and get caught out buying on line.I think the last one our guys rejected ( with difficulty of course) was a late ish A3 with an engineers report,it apparently just did not look right as it came off the wagon.Then they found it pictured on line in its rally sport clothing !