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April 1st, 2009 10:51 AM #1
another nice article from James Deakin...
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx...bCategoryId=72
Little shops of horror
BACKSEAT DRIVER By James Deakin Updated April 01, 2009 12:00 AM
Imagine being told by your doctor that you could only bring your children back to the same hospital where they were born every time they needed a check up or got sick, and any failure to do so would result in your child wallowing in unspeakable amounts of pain and suffering, and every last drop of responsibility for it would fall squarely on your shoulders. Ridiculous? Perhaps. But somehow, we’re expected to do it with our cars.
I’m talking about casas, which is the common term given to the dealer you bought your car from, and not a single week goes by where I don’t get a complaint from a reader or listener of my radio show about some really shoddy service. It mostly revolves around over pricing, incompetent workmanship, lack of service, or worse, being charged for work that has not actually been done, and let me tell you, consumers have had enough.
This problem is not exclusive to casas, of course, but the difference is that we hold them in higher regard than the local talyer and that they charge enough for their services plus they bind you to their services with the threat of losing your warranty if you don’t.
I’m certainly not suggesting that all casas are practicing this kind of deceit, but you would be surprised just how many unscrupulous dealers are still taking us for a ride. Literally.
You should have heard the long-winded explanation one time of why my car wouldn’t start after I paid my ten thousand-peso repair bill a few years ago. My God, NASA would have been stumped. And when it was already completely obvious that they had absolutely no idea what was wrong, they hid behind the we-will-place-it-under-observation-clause.
Another close friend brought his car into his casa in Alabang. Apart from the regular service, he asked them to rotate the tires. He had a feeling they weren’t being entirely honest so he marked the inside of each tire just to prove a point. As he went to pick up his car, he asked if they had rotated his tires. They said yes, charged him for it, and even gave him a written list of all the work that had been done and of course a list of everything that needs to be replaced. Guess what? They had not even touched them.
Let’s not go too far, our very own motoring editor, Dong Magsajo, recently brought his car into the casa because it was running extremely rough and getting a dismal 3 kilometers to the liter. No, this was not one of those artista-type converted American club wagons complete with toilet and bedroom, this was a garden variety 10-year old Japanese sedan. After a little poking and prodding, Dong was told point blank that he needed to replace his engine. He was naturally upset, so we did happy hour. After a couple of cold ones to drown out the pain, I advised him to go to Autoplus in Greenhills, and have it checked by my trusted friend Pacho Blanco. One faulty injector later, the car is running as good as new. So we did happy hour again to celebrate.
Recently, just before I decided to sell it, I brought my own car back and forth to the casa and to a specialist LPG shop to give it a thorough check and to solve this hard starting problem I had. They couldn’t seem to fix it. After six months of this nonsense, they were still baffled; the LPG place told me that there was nothing wrong with the car, and if there was, it had nothing to do with them, while the casa told me the same thing as they did Dong – the car needed a complete transplant. I brought it to Pacho. He replaced my fuel pump, cleaned the fuel filter and ended up buying the car from me. Meanwhile, the casa tried sending me a bill for the “diagnostic” work that cost much more than the actual problem, and used words so big that you could literally hurt yourself trying to pronounce them.
Why is it so hard to speak truthfully and normally? Probably because many service centers, like many hospitals and even airlines, survive solely on intimidation to insure their credibility and justify their exorbitant costs. They love to create this illusion of complexity because it gives them some kind of home court advantage.
To illustrate my point, try this: Tell someone to strip as they walk into your office. You would be lucky if you got away without a ***ual harassment suit. Put on a uniform, however, and ask the same person to do it in a hospital or an airport and you can get them to whistle our national anthem, too. It’s intimidation by design.
A lot of casas (just like hospitals) work on this notion and act like we should just be grateful they know where to put their wrench and we don’t. (I know where I’d like to put it) After all, who are we to question? Let’s face it, a modern car’s engine can be as difficult to understand as a jealous lover, which is why most people take each written or spoken word as Gospel from anyone wearing the manufacturer’s logo on a uniform and holding a clipboard.
You want to impress us? Forget your multi bay, ISO 900-kwan certified, brightly painted service centers. Get it right the first time, instead of feeding us all this mechanical jargon that you learned in your last conference, just to tell us that our car has to come back because something else just happened to give way and now needs to be replaced. Then try charging us fairly instead of making a 1,000 percent mark up on branded parts only to spend on advertising posters that make us feel guilty for choosing the generic ones. And if things go wrong, just say sorry when it’s your fault. That’s impressive.
You may feel protected by the fact that its very difficult to quantify complaints because of all of the intangible complexities that go along with a modern day car, but that doesn’t mean you should shamefully capitalize on it. Please, Mr. Quota-driven-service-manager, impressive as your diagnostic machines may be, just because someone doesn’t share your understanding of how an engine works, or more importantly, why it just stopped, it doesn’t mean that they deserve to be raped and pillaged. It only means that we would appreciate the transparency and honesty even more, especially considering that we bought our precious vehicles from you.
Stop trying to insulate yourselves with your mechanical engineering diplomas and tech talk, thinking that by doing so, we will go weak at the knees and feel completely out of our depth, therefore justifying your painful lack of a simple, straightforward answer and upfront price.
Times are changing, and so are your customers. People have wised up. In Australia, large independent repair chains have been doing scheduled, handbook servicing for new cars at half the price of their respective casas without voiding the manufacturer’s warranty. Obviously many manufacturers tried to fight this, but they lost in court because it was ruled that for as long as the work is carried out according to the vehicle’s handbook, by a licensed and trained mechanic, there is no legal or justifiable reason to annul any new car warranty. And any attempt to blackmail a consumer into using an in-house service constitutes “third line forcing”, which is against the law.
Not all casas are like this, of course, and the honest and efficient ones have nothing to worry about; I address myself to the repeat offenders. You know who you are. It’s time to shape up or ship out. It’s only a matter of time before some enterprising businessman comes and sets up shop here. Imagine a fully independent repair chain that could do the same work for much less and still maintain warranty?
It may seem far-fetched, I know, and the numbers may favor you now, but it is a hollow victory; there is no honor in winning over a customer’s patronage after you have robbed them of the power of choice. Don’t wait for someone else to cut your hair while you are sleeping, Samson. Ask yourselves this: If fair competition was to come in tomorrow, and you could not blackmail an owner anymore by voiding their warranty by choosing to go to them, would he go? Or would he stay?
Think about it. Then think about why. And start doing something about it. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Try starting today.
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April 1st, 2009 11:49 AM #2
Great read. A copy of Deakin's article should be sent to Honda Cars, Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Ford, Mazda, etc.
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April 2nd, 2009 09:04 AM #3"Tyranny of the pretending-to-know-it-all"...
Dapat gumawa din ng batas dito para ma regulate ang mga Casa..pag maningil sila at magasalita, feeling nila they are above the law.
Dumadami pa ang mga katulad nilang abusado
It's a must read article nice one James!
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April 2nd, 2009 11:08 AM #4
yan nga din pinagtataka ko. labor sa casa is times 3 sa labor sa labas. ang piyesa, ganun din! i'm sure na alam na alam eto ng mga casa, na sa labas, kayang kaya gawin ang mga bagay bagay na nagagawa nila sa loob ng casa. kahit oil change, kaya na ng ordinary tao.
sana lang sa mga casa, its time to think of this...
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April 2nd, 2009 11:22 AM #5
kasalanan din kasi ng mga car owners yan
masyado kasi bilib ang mga tao sa casa
and overprotective ang mga tao sa brand new cars nila
ayaw nila ipagalaw sa iba, sa casa lang ipapagalaw
akala ng mga tao casa people are the only qualified people to work on their cars
pero di nila naisip na ang mga tao ng casa ay meka-mekaniko lang na naka uniform at may company name/logo sa uniform nila
(don't give me the BS that they were trained abroad)
i can get a sidewalk mechanic, make him wear a uniform, and make him go get a shave and a haircut --- magmumuka syang taga casa
the casas exploit the ignorance of car owners
image and branding lang yan
mga tao kasi judgement nila based on image, brand recognition
parang Rapide
ganda facilities
uniformed mechanics
tapos?Last edited by uls; April 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 AM.
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April 2nd, 2009 12:12 PM #6
precisely!
tama ang sinabi mo uls! kahit naman tayo eh, pwede tawaging mga "mekaniko". know how lang naman, ganito ganyan... seminar sa ganito at ganyan...
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April 2nd, 2009 12:45 PM #7
three thumbs up uls! very well said.
our personal mechanic was chief mechanic before sa isang car dealership. and isang gas station. minsan ang sales agent daw ang nag uutos na wag ng galawin kasi di naman mahahalata ng owner na. para magmukha yung casa ma madali gumawa. the reason kaya nagresign sya years ago. at nagtayo na lang ng private talyer kung san yung mga old clients nya sa kanya na pumupunta and nakikilala na lang sya based sa mga recom. yung present talyer nya ala ring palatandaan na talyer kasi ang prinsipyo nya, mas maganda na yung konting kita wag lang masira reputasyon nya as mekaniko. so much for the this anyway.
kaya mahal kasi may cut pa yung agent at mekaniko at yung gahaman na manager ng ahente. tapos para makarami ng trabaho sa isang araw, ang ginagawa nila declared na finish na. the tip is, anumang part na pinalitan khit na fuel filter lang yan ay hingin mo, yung lalagyan ng oil, basta lahat ng pinalitan na luma, para may basis ka.
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April 2nd, 2009 01:09 PM #8
^^
yes, hingi mo ung mga pinagpalitan
thing is, karamihan ng customer, they don't bother asking for their replaced parts... ininiwan lang sa casa
so itatago ng mga casa people ang mga lumang piyesa
then pag may customer na humingi sa replaced parts nya, kukuha lang sila sa stockpile nila ng lumang piyesa
hehe
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April 2nd, 2009 01:30 PM #9
Yung ibang casa naman bawal mag dala ng sariling oil, para di daw ma void yun warranty, tapos oil nila repack lang yata e.
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April 3rd, 2009 07:21 AM #10I've never owned a brand new vehicle with a factory warranty so clueless ako dito. How does the casa know na pinagawa/pina-PMS sa labas yung sasakyan? I don't suppose may sticker yung mga bolts na nasisira or nabubutas kapag ginalaw.
I guess that's the biggest draw of casas. A lot of people don't know much about car maintenance so if they have deep enough pockets, they pay for the premium of the factory warranty and letting the casa take care of the rest. The casa, in turn, take advantage. Not all of them, of course.
Slightly OT: I always enjoy reading Deakin's articles. Never a dull paragraph, kaya enjoy basahin from start to finish.
^ geo yatta of bulacan, ang nagcause ng traffic sa NLEX eh hinid minimum wage earners. Mga...
Traffic!