Oh I never noticed this post! so no doubt you know i'm gonna chip in with another long boring post......so grap a cuppa & biscuits,get comftable & I will begin................
In reference to alot of the question raised throught this thread...
Profit on new Fiat cars is very small(parts aint much better especially if 'rush' ordered),Fiat pay dealer no diagnostic time on warranty jobs,people with older Fiats are reluctant to take cars to dealer because of high labour rates(which is infact wrong as most dealer rates are cheaper than other makes,obviously there is variation to different parts of the country,however most dealers do cheaper labour rates for older Fiats......still want to run a Fiat dealership? certain your going to make a healthy profit now? alot of dealers are dumping Fiat for more profitable makes so the only other solution is to 'double'(or triple)up & be a dealer for another make at the same time.
There is little money in warranty work...the money is in retail work...take the stilo spring recall along with grande punto 'plate' recall,how many 'productive' hours of a techs time will this take up per week? One hell of a f*cking lot & this means there is less time for retail/sales work end result is monthly figures are low....still want to run a Fiat dealership now?
Another way of generating income is for dealers to sell other makes secondhand...a good salesman can 'sway' a potential customer away from that secondhand corsa in the sales lot to a punto
If not well a sell is better than none at all.
Dealerships are a business not a charity...they are there(like all business)to make a profit.Large dealerships (pendragon,arnold clark,vardy's etc) exist because they have the buying power in cars & parts,they also have the financial might for technician training(especially arnold clark who invest millions in training which is why alot oftechnicians with ambition go there from other dealerships)which costs around £3-400 per day plus lost labour hours for the duration of course plus still paying technicians wages...they also have to cover costs of all tooling,diagnostic equipment,refuse collection(including fluids).subscriptions to diagnostic software and the usual rates/electric,insurance,heating etc.
'faster-tec' mentioned base models for many reasons another reason is mobility cars which is big money to any dealership...because mobility only pays a set amount base models are popular.
I disagree with Jug on monkeys joining dealerships...all I see around(and hear)me is people getting the boot because they dont come up to scratch.Every technician is monitored & if a tech does not 'pull hes weight' it is noticed as every job is recorded with a 'efficency' ratio...if its low your out! There is also no 'lazy time' every technician has to account for every minute of the day! A dealership will not waste money training etc on a poor technician.I would say alot of technicians come from independants to large dealerships for job security.My 'coffee break' consists of a 15min break in morning & 30mins for dinner...thats of course assuming I get them & without interuption...I start at 8am and lucky to finish at 6pm,I no longer have dinner with my family as I often dont get home to 7pm or later.
Also people go to dealerships because they have the technical knowledge & back up that independants dont...I will take at least 2-3 phone calls per day from independents asking for free advice however due to loss of productive time you will find alot of dealers dont allow this anymore & simply request the car is brought in for inspection.
Salesmen.....will simply sell their sole to get a sell,promise you anything to get a deal however when your on a basic of around £3.60 per hour (if you dont sell you get pathetic wage!) with a family to feed it cant be easy.......oh my god i'm sticking up for salesmen
there is of course the 70 hours a week you have to work!
Remember very few salesmen have technical knowledge of cars(those that do make better salesmen in my opinion)so dont slag them off because they dont know the torque setting for steering column pinch bolt...their job is to sell thats all.
When you buy a secondhand car remember that its
secondhand.Dont moan about few scratches on it,tyres at 4-5mm & small holes in seat cloth...buy a new one if it bothers you that much the same as everyone else.
People that call dealers stealers(put it in the search box & see how many results you get) are generally found to be the ones that dont like to pay for anything or are pissed off because they have just had to pay a large repair bill due to their fault/got job done cheaper elsewhere but now its backfired & dealer has to sort problem out/abused service interval schedule.
Why oh f*cking why do people complain about paying £40-50 per hour when they are quite happy to pay plumbers/electricians/gas repairs £70+ per hour(I have recently been quoted £380 for 2 hours work by british gas...thats just labour price but am I constantly moaning about it?),happy to let solicitors charge them £40 for a letter saying "sorry there has been no response from the other party yet" (something wrong with a phone call here?) happy to pay £450+ paperwork for mortgage,happy to pay £120 for a ten minute house survey etc etc the list goes on.
If you can afford £9-10,000 for a car then you should have set aside a budget for servicing/maintence & unexpected repair bills.If you cant then why not buy a £7-8,000 car which you can maintain correctly,common sense really.
End of the day a good dealer will just survive,a poor dealer will fall by the wayside,but remember a few points before you slag a dealer...before you moan about the grumpy womanl on the reception desk think for a minute,how do you know its not because her husband has recently died or because her house has been repossed by the bank or her kid is sick or shes just simply having a bad day like happens to us all!
Another one is "£148 to fix a broken wire" you can f*ck off I aint paying you that".......fine,dont get your car back then! All the customer sees is large amount of money to fix damaged wire...what he(she)doesn't see is that he is aying for techs knowledge also the amount of wiring checks that had to be done and partial removal of dashboard to get to this wire.Myanswer to this is "well sir you & 3 other garages you went to before couldn't fix it so hows about I break the wire I the same place and you take it elsewhere again or try & find it yourself" the cheque is always wrote out immediately,and yes I have put the fault back on a car before because customer would not pay....& yes they did return.
So your alloys are scraped? are you 100% sure they weren't when you brought the car in? Recently had bloke said I scratched his alloys which was quite funny really cause the prick had his keys in his pocket - he forgot to leave them which was pointed out when he came back in shouting....nice try mate but not good enough (he came in to get wing mirror glass changed by the way) but dealers get this on a daily basis....ok I admit accidents do happen but how do
you tell if claim is genuine or not? Now the customer is getting you sued & threatens you physically.....still want to run a Fiat dealership now?
Why do I come on this forum? Despite what alot of people think its not to defend dealers (although some get unfair abuse but some do deserve it!) but because I think Fiat are putting alot of efort into raising the Fiat name,getting away from the "my mate in the pub says Fiats are crap so they must be" attitude of alot of the public.I also think alot of techs get unfair abuse,there are some excellent technicians around & they deserve more credit than they get...which from the public is always none.
Also I like to dispell some of the myths about Fiats & of course help people if I can.I dont always get it right but hopefully put them in the right direction & lets not forget others on this forum itself which (as I have said over & over again) makes this a great forum to belong to....i'm happy to be a part of it & enjoy spending hours here everyday even if Ido get abit p*ssed off at some comments but hey no doubt some of you think same about me
End of the day we are here because of Fiat cars,our love of them & working on them...if dealers/techs/public gave bit more credit/support/respect to each another we can assure Fiats name will go on well into the future while others collapse as is already starting to happen around us!
Ian
p.s.you can wake up now
