Dealerships! RANT

[Bullitt]

There's always going to be people like that in our business; the bargain hunters, the Craigslisters,and so on. I get calls all the time with people starting off telling me how many cars they have and if they like my work, they'll let me do their other six cars, yet $100 sounds to expensive for them. I actually had an argument with a caller that thought his lifted F-450 Custom Dually should only be a $20 job. I just told him to go down the street and come to me when they put swirls all over it. This was also when gas prices here were at close to $4/gal and I would have spent $40 in gas just to get the job done.

 

[safetyman2010]

Funny how those car dealers seem to think the promise of lots of cars at a cheap rate of pay is supposed to entice us. Yeah, right, let me turn down all my full price business to do their cars cheap. Ha!

Yeah we had one this week that demanded we do a rush job for him to get a delivery out then bitched because he wanted a "dealer price". I politely told him we don't have a "dealer price" but we do work out volume discounts for customers that demonstrate that they can provide a significant and steady volume of work but until they do that it's RETAIL PRICING ONLY. He just couldn't get his head around the fact that I wouldn't drop my prices for ONE CAR. I also wouldn't run an account for him which also pissed him off to no end as well. These guys seriously don't get it. Best part, he was lamenting the fact that his "regular guy" just went out of business and I was "too expensive".

 

[safetyman2010]

What a business model to follow....take jobs at a loss and make it up in volume :think2:doh:rofl:scared::laugh:

Can't tell you how many times I have heard that from a used car manager in 15 years. You can't charge me more - you'll make it up on the next one! I had a guy demand once that I do a huge job for nothing (would have lost at least $100 at what he wanted it done for) at a dealership. We did a lot of volume there but might make $15-20 per car. So if we did it I not only would have lost my shirt on the original car, I would have had to do 6-7 more cars just to break even. I politely declined and walked out. You have to hold your own with these guys or they will walk all over you and bankrupt you in the process.

 

[backwoods_lex]

i think you guys are forgetting something, what is a detail to us is not necessarily a detail to them. Maybe a wash and wax and light interior protection is a good enough detail. (2-3 hours later you have cash in your pocket, especially if its just to fill the otherwise empty day)

Make no mistake here: it's pretty clear that the dealer was only willing to pay $10 an hour for the work. And once the work was done, he'd probably say something like "Eh, it looks alright" and "you're lucky you got the work".



Some dealers are indeed shady scumbags and I definitely dislike some that I have worked with/for. Having been asked to use a sharpie on missing/torn trim, flat blacking painted side mirrors, and seeing dealers knowingly sell vehicles with engines about to blow (and feeling good about themselves because the knocked $100 bucks off of the $900 extended warranty) makes me not so sad to see them getting the screws in the financial crunch. Boo hoo.



A lot of dealers like to think that they know a thing or two about detailing:hm.