Went there today hoping for someone to take a quick look at my car and the cel. Maybe raise it up and take a look under.... but for $160!! No way. You fella's need to drop that fee and it will help the dealership out. I got it checked out for free down at Midas a mile away.
yeah, the sales guys were really nice when we bought our STi, and more willing to work with us than SOG was, but we went there once for service, and it was total crap... SOG FTW for service. AutoZone/Advanced Auto/Mindas FTW for checking OBD codes for free -- Brian
Sounds like there's still some weaknesses at the service center of Classic that need addressing to be competitive.
My car wasn't in much of a state to do to many journey's. When I called the one on Peachtree Industrial they told me their machine wasn't working properly and the closest other one didn't have one. Just dumped at SOG and they sorted it out somewhat. The CEL popped up once today and dissapeared so I'm kinda unsure still.
if you come to classic please ask for me personally and i will help you out the best that i can. as for being charged for looking at your car or checking for codes that should be free. almost anybody can scan for codes, anybody can buy a generic scan tool. when the dealer pulls codes it is subaru specific with a subaru scan tool. also aftermarket places like autozone or many others can pull codes and clear them, but are they able to do anything to fix it? the $160 you were told is actually for diagnosing the problem after the code is found. also the $160 is the most you will have to pay for having your vehicle diagnosed unless the problem is a hard to find issue like electrical problem and in that case you would be notified and you can make the call on how far you want to go. most of the time your diag charge will only be around $50 or 1/2an hour labor time. everyone should remember that technicians are paid by the job and not by the hour, and it is a business. if technicians went around diagnosing everything for free they would go poor, as diagnosing the problems is part of the job of a tech. if you think it should be free then why didnt you figure it out on your own. probably cause you dont know how or dont have the tools. that is why we have techs anyway and thats how they make a living. this being said i dont appreciate how everyone always bashes classic for things that every dealer for every manufacture as well as independant shops aslo do. each dealer has a set labor rate wich determines what the charges would be. classic is at $102.95 an hour. what are other dealers labor rate in the area just wandering (SOG,royal,troncally)?
Well, 2 things. One; its fine to be proud of the work you do, and take personal investment in it, but two: trying to shame your potential customer base is not an effective strategy to attract customers. It'd be one thing if we were at your shop counter and making a stink about this, but we're not in your house right now. The fact is, Classic is being compared to every dealer and independant shops work practices, and while it may upset you that in your experience you're doing the same things they are and not getting a fair shake, there's a big descrepancy left. The $160 diagnostic, may include some sort of proprietary equipment involved, but when I can goto an independant shop and get a full guaranteed (meaning a 'whatever it takes to find it')diagnostic from ASE Masters with AEP, ASC, and EM for only $60, it bears legitimacy to point out and ask, or to make criticism. If more than 3/4 of the time the cost is only ending up around $50 under your shop, but your staff is quoting $160, you can surely understand why its a big turnoff for us? $100 is a great deal of money. Thats a professional tune, a high quality synthetic oil change, or even a couple tanks of gas .
correction ok guys, i talked with anna the service manager at classic today and she does not have any clue on why anybody was told of a charge of $160. at classic the diag fee is around $140 including taxes, but not everything will need to be diagnosed that extensively so the diag charge could be less, it just depends on the issue being looked at at the time. anna has informed me to let everyone know if you have any questions about anything having to do with classic just call her.(770)394-9100. ask for anna ely.
I was told by Ashley I think, or whomever the lady in the office on the far right of the service tunnel was. Would also like to add that just to compare with another dealership, SOG, they gave me Siegal's phone number to speak to him directly and then give him the cel code and he would have told me what it meant for free. I know your a business but sometimes losing a bit of money to get some good customer feedback is worth it. I don't remember being told that it was going to be up to $140 at all, and could be less. It seemed more like a straight up $160 charge regardless. And by no means am I bias to Sog, their negligence led to my car catching fire on the highway.
Woah, you can't just put that out there without elaboration! At least post a link to where you have undoubtedly told us all about this fire incident before. I get my Subie serviced at SOG regularly, so I would like to know if there is something I need to be aware of! Not trying to get this thread off-topic, but a fire? that's pretty serious... As far as dealerships go, it seems you just have to find the right people in the service dept. Some people, no matter what dealership, will try to get more money out of you. I've had extra stuff done to my car that I did not ask for (like premium fuel system cleaning) during regular maintenance. Now I know who not to speak to when I take my car back. I respect those techs who not only own subies, but have the balls to post on this forum, because they get no slack here!
ashley is a new service writer and may have told you wrong information. next time if you have any questions please ask for anna or myself and we will help you the best we can. if you were to call and ask for what a certain cel was i would have looked it up and told you what it was no problem for no charge. it is when i personally have to hook up the scan tool and get the code and then diagnose the code to figure out what is setting the cel that a charge is applied. ill give an example as to why a diag fee is charged. today a car came back after i had diagnosed it last time it was at the dealership. she came in last time because she stated she heard a noise when going around right hand corners. i drove with her and we did not hear the noise at the time yet i still raised the car and checked it out. i removed wheels and checked for anything unusual. i ended up finding that her rear wheel cylinders were leaking and had leaked onto the rear brake shoes which could make a noise while braking because the rear drum brakes were contaminated with brake fluid. i got her a price on rear wheel cylinders and rear brake shoes. we did not have the parts in stock so she said to order them and she would return for the work the next day. i did not charge her anything that day cause she said she was coming back the next day for the repairs. she did not show up untill today and she stated that she had taken her car to a khaufman tire and had the rear wheel cylinders and rear brake shoes replaced but still had a slight noise and she thought it was coming from the front of the car now in the front and wanted me to check the work that was done by khaufman to be sure they did the work correct, and see if i could find the noise again. in a nut shell i looked at her car and she took it somewhere else for reparis. i charged nothing to find the problem then got nothing in repairing the car, then had to recheck the work of the other shop. so i lost time looking at the car when i could have been making money working on something else. after rechecking the car i found that it was an axle making the noise. do you think i charged a diag fee this time around since she siad she was going to bring it back in a few days, i certainly did. that is why diag fees are charged. sorry to hear about your car catching fire. is your car ok, are you ok? what happen?
Yeah I posted a thread about it somewhere else in here. Poor oil change, cross threaded plug or something stupid like that. I see what you mean kingwrex but for alot of us subaru enthusiasts, ie wrxatlanta members and etc we would much rather have the dealership do the work on serious jobs like that. So if you gave us memebers the benefit of the doubt and let us off with free diagnostics I would definately be much more attracted to give you all my work. You're alot closer to where I live that Gwinnett and I would like to help another dealership enter the fray and cause some competition.
unfortunatley i dont make the rules as far as charges go. i cant do anything about that. on the other hand i am fair in what i do charge since charges do apply. if you decide to come back to classic and i hope that you do, please ask for me and i will assist you the best that i can.
i can appreciate the difference between a diagnostic with a fee and pulling CEL codes. If all they want is a code pull, then there are clearly other places to go. But I understand what you mean, because some folk don't understand there are plenty of things that can be wrong that you can't find using OBD. But, if all they do is pull codes and want a diagnostic fee, thats bad. king, You're the guy who helped on that install day with the exhaust in Kennesaw a couple weeks back, right? You seemed a cool guy.
I bought my car from classic, my salesman was great, but the service department really didn't impress me. When I purchased the car they said they were going to do some work on the brakes and radiator, it took about 3 days longer than they said, but thats not a big deal I understand getting parts in can take longer than expected. What I had a problem with is when I came back a week later with a list which include: alignment, brakes squealing, knocking sound, and the oil change I was promised by the general manager when I purchased the car; they kept my car for 2 days, when I came to pick it up they had washed it but it seemed like that was the only thing they had done. The oil change sticker was the same, but that could have easily been overlooked by a mechanic not used to doing oil changes. What really turned me sour on Classic was the alignment had not been corrected, no one even mentioned the knocking sound, and the brakes are still squealing to this day. The service manager would barely listen to me, he was more interested in whatever else he had going on. Classic showed me what they thought of my business so now I take my car to Royal or SOG for service even though classic is just a couple miles from my house.
Ya its a sti, but it only squeaks when I am going under 30mph, mostly in traffic or surface streets. I figured it was normal after awhile, my main complaint about classic was no one took the time to explain or talk to me about my complaints.
as said above classic has changed alot of the staff and things are looking better know. not sure who you talked to cause you said the service manager was a he our service manager is a she,it has been anna ely ever since i worked there and she is very customer service oreinted. give us a try again and ask for me (steven) i assure you things are different now.
the service manager i talked to was shane, is he just for the cadillac side or are the suby and cadillac dept the same?
Ya, I am sure it was him, he seem distracted while I was there, maybe I just caught him on a bad day?
really, well i will come to classic for my next service, micheal my salesman was great, and you seem to be pretty up on things, i have no problem giving you guys another chance
My car is there now getting worked on, it died on me yesterday. I hope to get it back today, they said I would, even though i brought it in after hours last night.
shane was let go because of different reasons. i am not inclined to go into detail. but as stated by axlejohnson shane seemed like his attention was elsewhere at times, which made some customers and employees feel as if they were not as important as the next. he started out great but went down hill. shane really is a great guy all things said. but he is not with classic anymore.