Dealership theory debunked

[D-CEL]

Tony,

That is a good rant! I had a similar encounter with the Dodge dealer in Thousand Oaks CA. West Oaks Dodge. Now out of business (Who knew? lol)
In 2004 I bought a brand new SRT4 Neon. Fun, fast and cheap commuter car. I liked it except for a recurring check engine light. On the second dealer visit, I made the service manager aware of the short in the wiring harness that was being discussed on several of the SRT forums. The info was promptly discarded. Over the next 18 months I was told everything from “a bad spark plug” to “We are going to replace all the valve-train, cam...” (To that I said “No thank you, it runs fine, its just a check engine light, don’t take the motor apart”). On my fifth visit for the annoying but non- performance or operation preventing issue, I calmly said to the service mgr “ If I have to come back here again for this, I’m going to Lemon law this thing”
The day I picked up the car from its sixth and final visit, the stated fix was “Replaced firewall wiring harness”
That very day I email a lemon law attorney all of my paperwork.
It took about 9 more months, but I got every penny I spent back , less $600.00. I had the car for over 2 years, put 43000 miles on it and it cost me $600.00. After I received my check, I had to drop off the car at that same dealership as they now owned it again. I met with the sales manager and handed him the keys. He said “Thank you” and that was it…? WTF? If it was my dealership, I would have had a bunch of questions, How, why, what could we have done better, something. But that was really the issue, they didn’t care and in the end it cost them the whole car.
I much prefer an enthusiast work on my stuff (if it’s something I don’t want to do myself). I find their motivation is completely different and the results much better.


Jason