Fix it myself or take it to the dealer?

[dcmdon]

I believe Genesis does something similar.
Guess that’s why they are classified as premium brands.

The thing is that you can get a Genesis for 15k less than I will be paying for my Mojave. So I would think we would rank a bit of premium service.

Imagine the shock that the buyer of a 110k Grand Wagoneer is in for when they are used to dealing with Benz or Lexus and get the same run around that other jeep buyers get. Ha.

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[ShadowsPapa]

I have had similar experience in that I tend to get better service than the average person. I think it comes down to knowing how to work with them. I will tell them I understand what they are going through since I've worked as s service writer and a tech at a car dealer. When we talk scheduling I always tell them I'm flexible.

I will offer to them that if they can't reproduce a problem to come get me. Don't just write "could not duplicate" on the RO and go on to the next car.

My wife's Volvo had a noise. I told them that it varied with vehicle speed and got louder when you turned left. That helps them begin the diagnosis, but it also tells them that you know what you are talking about.

I am happy to find my way home or have my wife pick me up or happy to wait. Whatever is easier for them. I prefer to wait if there is going to be a diagnosis involved to avoid the "could not duplicate".

I've found that they don't even bother trying to sell me on a 30k service or similar that involves 3 things in the service book and 25 things they have added to try to make some customer pay revenue. (Your brake fluid is burned, we recommend a flush for $300. HA!!! No thanks, I'll buy a bottle of brake fluid and spend 45 minutes with my MighTVac)

That's another reason I prefer to wait for some things - if there's a question or they can't duplicate something........... otherwise things can go sideways. I have had a time when they said "we'll call you before the end of the day............." and that time came and went, and when I called the next day things had gotten confused or messed up going between people. Best to avoid some things than to try to sort them out later.

Yeah, been in their shoes for sure - had a very upset wife years ago when I promised we'd go to the state fair Saturday afternoon. Shop was supposed to close at 1 on Saturdays - guess what - that didn't happen. Let's see - keep boss happy, get customer on the road by sticking around another hour or..................(it was a family on vacation, because of the fair, hotels were booked, etc.)

These days my neighbor is the type that if my wife couldn't come up and get me - I could call my neighbor and he'd be happy to get me back home. Heck, several years ago my son was coming back from central Illinois and his car developed a rod knock. That's like 4 hours away. I was gone or something and my neighbor hooked onto my car hauler, met my son, hauled my son and his wife back to my place along with his car (I ended up doing a total rebuild on the engine) and neighbor never wanted anything back in return.

Brake flushes are easy - some old vehicles even have a selection for the ABS to set it into a certain mode for that. I've been doing brake flush and refresh for years since all of the major brake manufacturers (Bendix, Kelsey-Hayes, Wagoner, etc.) used to recommend annually then went to every 2 years. I've seen the results of fluid that's years old. Eats lines from the inside out, builds sludge next to the cups in master cylinders and worse. The pitting gets crazy.

 

[dcmdon]

That's another reason I prefer to wait for some things - if there's a question or they can't duplicate something........... otherwise things can go sideways. I have had a time when they said "we'll call you before the end of the day............." and that time came and went, and when I called the next day things had gotten confused or messed up going between people. Best to avoid some things than to try to sort them out later.

Yeah, been in their shoes for sure - had a very upset wife years ago when I promised we'd go to the state fair Saturday afternoon. Shop was supposed to close at 1 on Saturdays - guess what - that didn't happen. Let's see - keep boss happy, get customer on the road by sticking around another hour or..................(it was a family on vacation, because of the fair, hotels were booked, etc.)

These days my neighbor is the type that if my wife couldn't come up and get me - I could call my neighbor and he'd be happy to get me back home. Heck, several years ago my son was coming back from central Illinois and his car developed a rod knock. That's like 4 hours away. I was gone or something and my neighbor hooked onto my car hauler, met my son, hauled my son and his wife back to my place along with his car (I ended up doing a total rebuild on the engine) and neighbor never wanted anything back in return.

Brake flushes are easy - some old vehicles even have a selection for the ABS to set it into a certain mode for that. I've been doing brake flush and refresh for years since all of the major brake manufacturers (Bendix, Kelsey-Hayes, Wagoner, etc.) used to recommend annually then went to every 2 years. I've seen the results of fluid that's years old. Eats lines from the inside out, builds sludge next to the cups in master cylinders and worse. The pitting gets crazy.

I used to have a brake fluid reservoir cap for Saabs that I installed a tire valve into. I'd use a hand pump to pressurize the reservoir to 10 psi or so and then crack the drains on the calipers. Super fast.

That idea came in handy when I had my STi and would track it. The brakes would get very very hot and it was alway good to flush the burnt stuff out of the Brembo calipers.

You have a good neighbor there. I hope you are nice to him. ha. I have a similar friend who. will do anything for us. The problem is he won't let me help him out. It pisses me off.

 

[Drew18337]

Dealership. That way it’s documented

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I used to have a brake fluid reservoir cap for Saabs that I installed a tire valve into. I'd use a hand pump to pressurize the reservoir to 10 psi or so and then crack the drains on the calipers. Super fast.

That idea came in handy when I had my STi and would track it. The brakes would get very very hot and it was alway good to flush the burnt stuff out of the Brembo calipers.

You have a good neighbor there. I hope you are nice to him. ha. I have a similar friend who. will do anything for us. The problem is he won't let me help him out. It pisses me off.

Yeah, after all they've done for me - then when they ask if I'd take care of their cat and watch over things when they are gone they act like it might be an imposition and they want to pay me back.

I remind them I have FIVE cats here and taking care of their one - who largely just lays there when I'm around, is not only not an imposition, I feel like I owe them - and like cats anyway.

I've thought about making a cap for our Jeeps that I could do that with. Old school stuff you make sure the master is full and the pin for the metering valve portion of the combo valve is out and simply open a bleeder and let gravity work. On my old cars, I don't care if it takes a couple of hours, I do something else while it's working.

 

[Mac]

I think I read somewhere that Kelly on rt1 was now the largest Jeep dealer in the US.

 

[Free2roam]

Just got a call from my regular service advisor. Just checking to see how my Jeep is doing. Making sure part was ordered. Letting me know that when the part comes in hopefully this week. It'll be taken care of on Friday.

 

[Trickster]

The thing is that you can get a Genesis for 15k less than I will be paying for my Mojave. So I would think we would rank a bit of premium service.

Imagine the shock that the buyer of a 110k Grand Wagoneer is in for when they are used to dealing with Benz or Lexus and get the same run around that other jeep buyers get. Ha.

Oh don’t you know it.
At the local Jeep dealer here they are building an addition to the dealership just for the Grand Wagoneers.
There are going to have to “up” their appearance/attitude for these customers. Currently when walking into the service department and smelling the fast food being eaten at the counter by the service writers just won’t cut it.
Totally different experience at my local Volvo dealership, first class all the way.

 

[Trickster]

I do - I "cultured it" by being factual, not quick to get upset, trying to have logical discussions and backing up my requests or thoughts with research before going in. For me it's difficult because I do have a short fuse sometimes and can be VERY impatient when someone isn't up to the task........ but it helps when the other side is a smaller dealership and their people - most of them anyway, decent to deal with.
I only had my hackles raised there a couple of times - when I first went in with the steering TSB none of them had ever heard of such a thing and the service manager - I could hear him ask the service writer "does it have a lift" and I was thinking - oh, don't EVEN go there........... and when I had tonneau cover issues - the service writer was sort of a - well, he was always so negative until another guy walked up and said "yeah, I've heard of this and Jeep has an entire STAR team dedicated to these things". Things quickly went right after that.
If I HAD to go to the other dealership - say, this one closed, it would definitely be different. Less personal, bigger, more corporate acting and you do want an appointment to even get their attention.

Shops make money by keeping busy - so they can't have many people standing around just waiting for the next quick thing to come in........... they normally end up over-scheduled a bit.
When I bought my General A/TX tires (through the dealership - believe it or not, they beat the discount places) I had an appointment. They called and said the tires came in and I asked when they could do it. I expected maybe an hour, 90 minutes, whatever. So I waited. It was nearly 3 hours later. Wow - for mounting and balancing 5 tires??
Turns out they had 3 people come up to the door that morning with flats - two of them women who couldn't change tires (or wouldn't?) and in two of the cases they ended up selling new tires.
Not a wonderful oh happy day feeling, but I understood it. I could have been smart and dropped it off............ the service writer did come out to me 3 times apologizing for the delay. That helped a lot knowing they were aware. They had one tire guy that day, another out sick (still covid floating around) . It was what it was.

See now that’s all very reasonable expectations, so good on you Bill.
Small town or smaller dealerships certainly give off a better vibe.

 

[IamPro2A]

So I'll probably also check out the dealers in Laconia and Littleton. I'm about halfway between the two.

Our last 2 Jeeps came from the one in Littleton. Easy on and off the interstate, and there is a cigar lounge opening next door soon. Sales dept has been stellar. Have not used them for service yet. A friend who has had no qualms with service until he brought it in for the "free" lifetime state inspection after a year or 2. They supposedly wouldn't pass it because there was surface rust on the nonwear part of the brake rotors. After a lot of back and forth about that was not something that should fail a safety inspection, and if it WAS, then the rotors should be replaced under warranty, I think they finally agreed to cover labor if he paid parts, or vice versa. Either way it was dumb, because both he and his wife buy loaded new vehicles every few years, and now he goes elsewhere.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Anyone who believes rust on a rotor where the pads don't touch it is a problem shouldn't be allowed to even hold a wrench.

 

[IamPro2A]

Anyone who believes rust on a rotor where the pads don't touch it is a problem shouldn't be allowed to even hold a wrench.

New Hampshire has a pretty indepth annual inspection. It takes 30-60 minutes. Usually it costs $50-$75 to have this done. This dealer offers to do it for free every year for as long as you own the vehicle. I doubt the mechanic really believed the rotors were a problem, he probably thought the customer would believe it, and he could sell a brake job to recoup the money he lost on the free inspection.

 

[dcmdon]

Anyone who believes rust on a rotor where the pads don't touch it is a problem shouldn't be allowed to even hold a wrench.

How hard is it to change pads and rotors on these things. Assuming you do it while putting snow tires on and the Jeep is already off the ground with the wheel off, do you know how long it would take?

Just curious. Since I've lost access to a lift, I try to only do the stuff that actually saves me a lot of money but isn't a pain in the ass. Brakes are one of those items.

Oil changes didn't used to low hanging fruit, but costs have been going up and it seems that with a top mounted filter, the Jeep will be a piece of cake.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Not long.... no worse than many other vehicles I've worked on.
My brakes checked out almost like new even with about 20,000 miles on them so I expect some life out of these.

 

[bleda2002]

Well thank goodness for Black Friday. I got the torque wrench half off!

Now I'm debating if I should fill out the survey. They were polite and fast, but I feel like me losing a lug nut is sort of a red flag. Maybe 19/20 were on tight and correct but it's hard to trust them now. Losing one isn't a huge safety issue... but I've seen what happens when all of them start to back off at once.

Did you check torque immediately and find it lose or after awhile? I've had lug nuts I've put on myself and torqued back off 40-50 miles later. It does happen and they should have mentioned to check them after 50 miles or so.

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