Where Oh Where do I get my warranty work done?

Maintaining your car No Responses »
Jan 312010

Often when visiting with friends and customers the subject of service and warranty comes up regarding different makes of vehicles. It’s important to consider your time and convenience when purchasing a vehicle. If you buy a vehicle that requires you to take it 35 miles for service, does that fit your lifestyle? Many times I’ve had people tell me that they do their own service, or their vehicle never needs warranty repair. I agree, a majority of vehicles never need anything except for routine maintenance which can be done many places. However, vehicles are complicated; they have over 20,000 parts on average. Most parts are designed to last the life of your vehicle, but sometimes things go wrong.

So, here are some things to consider:

Does the dealer offer free loaners? The Birdnow Dealerships do for as long as you own a vehicle that was purchased from us. A customer told me the other day that he had to rent a vehicle while he had his vehicle serviced at a metro dealer. The rent was $175.00 for the four days his car was in the shop.

What happens if there’s a recall? The average vehicle needs to be checked at a dealership four times and those numbers are basically the same for American brands as is for foreign brands. Most customers only hear of safety recalls such as is the case right now with millions of Toyota models. Many times there are what are called “campaigns” where the manufacturer sends you a card asking you to stop so a dealer can check something that might be a problem, that is different than a recall.

How much is the dealers labor rate? The Birdnow Dealerships offer just as good of service, with technicians that have the same levels of training, if not more, for a fraction of the labor charged by many other dealers.

In conclusion, here’s a story that I think will really drive home what I’m describing. One day a customer came in with a GMC truck that was a year old and still under warranty. He wanted to trade for a new Chevy. Trading every year isn’t unusual, but his reason was a bit unusual. He’d become angry at the treatment he’d received at the GMC dealer he’d bought his truck from. He left angry, telling them he’d never be back. When he got home, he opened the phone book to look in the yellow page for another GMC dealer. He was unpleasantly surprised to see that the closest one was 45 miles away!

2/1/2010 UPDATE:

WOW! I just listened to the president of Toyota beat around the bush for ten minutes on the Today Show about the problems that over half the Toyotas have with accelerators that stick. This problem has been happening for around ten years. He wouldn’t guarantee that the repair they’ve come up with would fix the problem. Also, does anyone else wonder how a problem they’ve been aware of for ten years can all of a sudden be fixed with a washer under the pedal and that they’ve come up with this in less than a week? He referred to this as a rare problem….I hope no one I know experiences that rare problem!

Posted by admin at 4:23 pm Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Extended Warranties update!

Maintaining your car 2 Responses »
Jan 112010

(Click here to read the earlier post about extended warranties.)

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

US Fidelis suspends sales of service contracts


by Matthew Hathaway
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Wednesday, Dec. 30 2009
WENTZVILLE — After laying off hundreds of workers at its massive call center
this month, US Fidelis announced Tuesday that it has stopped selling extended
auto-service contracts.

Meanwhile, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is seeking to amend a lawsuit
against US Fidelis to include additional allegations of deceptive practices
that, according to a motion, were directed by the company’s owners, brothers
Darain and Cory Atkinson.

Company spokesman Ken Fields would not answer a reporter’s questions about the
viability of the company, and he denied a request to interview US Fidelis Chief
Executive Chris Riley.

As recently as April, US Fidelis had boasted about 1,100 employees and claimed
to be the nation’s top seller of extended auto-service contracts, which often
are marketed as “extended warranties.”

The firm was an industry leader, and in the St. Louis area it spawned dozens of
rival companies started by or staffed with former US Fidelis employees.

As with US Fidelis, several of those companies are being sued by Koster for
misleading consumers. On Tuesday, Koster’s office sued four more area
companies: St. Louis-based Carhill Enterprises, which does business as Consumer
Protection Services; St. Charles-based CarSafe, which does business as Dealer
Preferred Warranties; St. Louis-based Dealership Services; and Maryland
Heights-based Dealership Warranties.

Fields, of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm, did provide a company
statement attributed to Riley. In it, he said the company had suspended sales
and was focusing on reducing the number of customers who cancel their coverage.

The company has blamed a tide of recent cancellations on the economy as well as
what it considers to be unfair criticism levied against it by consumer groups
and the news media.

“As a result, hundreds of good, hard-working people have lost their jobs and
the St. Louis area has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in annual economic
impact that our company provided,” says the statement, which credited the
company with delivering “more than $280 million in annual economic impact in
Missouri.”

Although sales have been suspended, the company says it still employs more than
200 workers — including customer-service and account-resolution agents who work
with existing customers, which the company has said number more than 300,000.

Keeping most of those customers from canceling is important, but it may not be
enough to keep the company viable, said Philip Jehle, the former chief
financial officer and vice president of operations at US Fidelis. To survive,
it needs new customers.

“If they’re not selling, there’s no revenue,” Jehle said.

US Fidelis customers pay in monthly installments, but that money doesn’t go to
US Fidelis, Jehle said. That’s because the firm gets its money on the front end
— in full and in advance — from companies that finance customers’ purchases.
When those customers cancel, US Fidelis must pay the finance companies back.

Cancellations aren’t the company’s only concern.

On March 6, 2008, Missouri’s then-Attorney General Jay Nixon sued the company
for violating telemarketing laws and for mailing consumers deceptive sales
letters. Litigation of that lawsuit stopped when Missouri joined a multi-state
investigation of the firm.

That investigation now includes at least 43 state attorneys general.

Last week, Koster’s office breathed new life into the state lawsuit by seeking
to amend the original complaint. The amendment would include allegations of 40
current and past business practices that violated consumer-protection and
telemarketing laws.

Koster’s office now accuses US Fidelis of deceiving consumers through the sale
of controversial and unregulated coverage plans that require consumers to
purchase an auto additive. That practice, which is common among
service-contract brokers based in the St. Louis area, was first made public in
August when the Post-Dispatch published a story about the prevalence of what
Koster has since dubbed “the additive scam.”

Additive-based warranties, unlike extended service contracts, do not need to be
refundable or underwritten by insurance companies. The additive-based plans
cover fewer repairs, it’s easier for companies to deny claims and consumers
often are unaware that the product they bought wasn’t, in fact, a service
contract.

Posted by admin at 5:06 pm Tagged with: , , ,

A good idea to avoid home and vehicle fires

Maintaining your car No Responses »
Dec 262009

I’ve added some pictures of what can happen to a vehicle if you leave chargers plugged into the outlets. Actually for years I’ve unplugged electric items at home that I know aren’t going to be used for a while for the same reason, or while on vacation.

In most cases, if there’s a short circuit, just like in your home, a circuit breaker will trip to avoid a fire or shock to a person (shock regarding your home 110 volt circuits, not your vehicle) What can happen, however, in your vehicle or your home, is what happened to the vehicle in the pictures. The charger itself got hot enough to melt and start a fire, but it wasn’t drawing enough power to trip the circuit breaker. The fact that the vehicle was in the home’s garage could have even created more of a disaster.

At the dealership, over the years, we’ve encountered a few situations also where those chargers actually drew enough power to discharge the vehicle battery over a few days. That’s always inconvenient, to have your vehicle not start after sitting at the airport for a week!

Posted by admin at 8:20 pm Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Extended warranties

Maintaining your car No Responses »
Oct 142009

What’s the scoop on extended warranties?

I notice lots of ads on TV, spams on my email, cards in the mail, even phone calls wanting to sell the above.

Here’s what you need to know. I personally don’t buy extended warranties on anything. But, I would buy one on a vehicle. Here’s why. A vehicle is very complicated, and it’s not a throwaway item. Consider a higher priced item such as a refrigerator. It sits in the corner, doesn’t get bumped over the road, go from 25 below to 100 above, and only has a couple of moving parts, but an extended warranty might cost as much as 25% of it’s purchase price. On the other hand, a good extended warranty for a vehicle will only cost 5 or 6 percent of the purchase price.

Here’s the most important information of all, if you decide to buy an extended warranty. Buy it from the dealer that you expect to get your service at. I could tell you stories of other extended warranty “companies” that:

  • Made us wait five days before an adjustor could come and look at the broken part.
  • An adjustor that examined a vehicle, left, and told the warranty company he didn’t think the vehicle had been serviced properly. (not the case at all) but coverage was denied.
  • A company that denied coverage after we had taken out the transmission because they’d already paid another dealer to fix it.
  • A company that denied a claim because some total limit had been reached.
  • Numerous occasions where my staff had to wait on hold for up to an hour to get to talk to the company.
  • Numerous times that a company either went out of business or never existed in the first place! There are actually scams that solicit you to pay them and send a worthless piece of paper. The trouble is, by the time you try to file a claim, it could be months or even years later.
  • So many loopholes that we can’t get authorization on a repair that appears that should certainly be covered.
  • Not being able to get paid at all after we thought we had authorization.

Our policy, as well as most dealers, is that we’ll be happy to repair your vehicle, but you’re on your own to collect from a warranty company other that the ones we represent. Simply put, if you buy our warranty, it’s almost like factory warranty, we handle all the paperwork.

Remember that we’re interested in making sure you’re satisfied with and get a good value on a legitimate product. Our reputation is at stake as well.

Posted by admin at 4:47 pm Tagged with: , , ,

Ready for winter?

Maintaining your car No Responses »
Oct 032009

Here are some important service items to help you prepare for winter!

  • Check the level of antifreeze, it should be at least -35.
  • Flush and fill your car’s cooling system. Check belts & hoses
  • Check battery and charging system.
  • Check brakes.
  • Inspect your tires and have them rotated and balanced. Inspect front end parts and check for proper alignment
  • And of course, don’t neglect changing your motor oil. We recommend in nearly all cases to do this every 3000 miles.
  • A routine coolant system flush is quick, inexpensive and easy way to prevent sludge, lube the water pump & protect from corrosion. We recommend doing this every 5 years or 50,000 miles. We are aware that some manufacturers recommend longer mileage intervals, but we think to be excellent preventative maintenance to do this at lower mileage intervals.
  • Another item that is critical is a transmission flush. The need for this varies for various vehicles. For instance, a truck that hauls, tows, or plows snow should be flushed at 25 to 30 thousand miles. Cars can go as much as 60,000 miles, but in all cases should be done every five years. Again, this differs from what your owners manual might say, we are only using our years of experience to make these recommendations.

There are many things you can do to prepare for winter, but when it comes to the mechanical components of your car, you should trust our experts to analyze and tune-up your vehicle as needed. We’ll be happy to check most all that we list above at no charge. In other words if we find your belts, hoses, antifreeze protection level to be adequate, we don’t charge for that. You only pay for actual needed services!

Not only will you have peace of mind on the road, your car will last longer, run smoother, and use less gas.

Posted by admin at 1:46 pm Tagged with: , , , ,
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