Target "audience"

[Jim Warman]

Currently, our shop is booking for almost two weeks in advance... this is ALL work, not just diesel.... We are pissing people off due to the wait times... many of these are the wrong people to piss off....

 

Now, upper management (the DP and the SM) both feel that anything that let's us write an RO is a good thing.... Case in point happened today.... 1991 Ranger... belongs to an acquaintance of mine.... been to every shop in town.. has run like a bag of shit for over 6 years.... I scanned codes in my driveway at home for him one time and didn't see anything I could point a finger at and asked if he'd had a compression test done..... "oh, yes....".

 

Fast forward.... today, this abortion appears in the bay of one of my diesel techs.... He played with it for about an hour - unfamiliar with this old of a truck... I even had to explain the 2.3 dual plug set-up to him.... and I can't say that I have a lot of experience with these.. anyway, after his hour, I suggested a compression test. With two cylinders that would barely bump the gauge, the old "oh, yes..." came back to mind.....

 

Again, I digress.... while this travesty is tying up a bay, sitting outside are trucks that "matter"... trucks that belong to people with money to spend... trucks that belong to people preparing to replace an aging work truck...

 

I once again remarked to the SM that we should choose our jobs a little more wisely.... To take on a 15+ year old truck that could have easily turned into a money pit isn't high on my list of "want tos". She pointed to the blue oval on the grill and (with all of the knowledge her 4 years in this business as her authority) she reminded me that we are the dealer and we *HAVE* to fix these things.... What do I know, with my meagre experience?

 

Now... the reason for my post... With the constant backlog we are running, I am asking for a shop with no jobs over 10 years old.... non-Ford jobs limited to used inspections, safety inspections and out of province inspections. I feel we should be up front with our customers regarding other makes... we don't have the tools for some labour ops and we don't have the documentation for for anything other than basic repairs....

 

I need some ammunition to affect change.... we are trying to be "everyman" in our shop... and I can't see it working at this point. Help me out here, guys....

[Keith Browning]

Quote:

Currently, our shop is booking for almost two weeks in advance... this is ALL work, not just diesel.... We are pissing people off due to the wait times... many of these are the wrong people to piss off....

This is the exact problem my shop has been facing for years and I believe we are now paying the price, big time. This issue applies specifically to my truck team. We move many trucks out of our store, we were second in our zone last year for truck sales which I think includes our large fleet division and the many Utilimaster and Quigley vans that are drop-shipped throughout the country. Long story short, we have a large customer base. Then, along comes the 6.0L Power Stroke.

My truck team has varied in strength from two to four technicians and I have had to deal with an amazing variance of skills and ability. At the current time I have two guys that are probably the best of all that I have worked with so far. We have always been very busy with a decent mix of warranty and customer pay work with appointments going out two weeks. When the 6.0L hit us and began to be problematic, trucks started to back up. When the new Torqshift transmissions started to show some early flaws, they back up. One winter we had twelve trucks towed in in one week, covering two snow storms. All of those owners expected their trucks turned around immediately. Some sat for weeks. To this day, despite having become experts with the 6.0L and the TorqShift, three or four big jobs hit us and they start to stack.

One of my techs has "friends and acquaintances" that own trucks and he hears that they get pissed waiting for their trucks to get fixed and they end up somewhere else only to return when something major (and under warranty) goes wrong. Our retail business has fallen badly. At the moment we are in a bad dry spell. Maybe a handful of cash tickets a week. Constant tow-ins for SCT fittings, EGR valves and turbos and transmissions sprinkled in. Some weeks, ONE of us will break 60 hours but for the most part, its 40s for the two of them and if I am lucky I will make it to 40 hours.

Jim, I am convinced that if you make your customers wait, many will eventually stop waiting and it has a snowball effect. It is hard to get them back if not impossible. You would have to be insane to let a non-Ford customer or somebody who was last seen at the dealer ten years ago when they bought it come before your long time paying customers who regularly maintain their vehicles at your dealership. It will hurt you severely in the long run.

[Tony302600]

Quote:

Jim, I am convinced that if you make your customers wait, many will eventually stop waiting and it has a snowball effect. It is hard to get them back if not impossible. You would have to be insane to let a non-Ford customer or somebody who was last seen at the dealer ten years ago when they bought it come before your long time paying customers who regularly maintain their vehicles at your dealership. It will hurt you severely in the long run.

 

 

Keith, I agree with you on that. Me and the other diesel tech know the trucks from the people that make us or break us. We usually drop everything and go to work on their truck. Is it fair, kind of, especially when they come back every 5K. Henkels and McCoy, Sunbelt, Martin Cement all get 1st priority at our shop. We have been getting a slew of fleet managers that say "I have 50 other trucks that need work if u get this one done fast i'll give you my business." We do the work 100%, fix it 100% and never show back up. The regulars tell us which truck they need back ASAP or what day it needs to be back.

 

There is a 08 F-450 that we treat like gold because the owner is just trying it out to decide if he will purchase 50 new ones for his fleet. "Hence the 2 page complaint list that we have to warranty." ( i think he knows that he is priority so he abuses it, also the guy that runs LSD, not ULSD in the 6.4'd truck and complains about mileage )

 

So far we have had 7 first time visit trucks that the fleet manager said we've done above and beyond his expectations, then we never see anymore work from them. I don't think it is oour workmanship, because I know i fixed it right the first time and tehy tell us that.

[G. Bedford]

Jim, my feeling is within the next 5 years Ford products coming in the door will not be enough to keep up your car count. You will need to take on this work or scale down the number of techs.

 

We don't see alot of 7.3 work anymore because the indies are pretty good with them. The 6.0l will be the same. Good instructors and the available tooling and information available to them will make them a force to be reckoned with. That and the fact many top dealer techs are leaving to the aftermarket makes it hard for me to brag to customers that the dealer is the better option.

 

The dealer service dept. of tomorrow will be more like a independent repair shop in order to survive. I am seeing more brand x vehicles in my bay lately and am starting on the learning curve needed to be profitable. Frankly, if my dealer would lose their franchise tomorrow and become a used vehicle dealer/repair facility I wouldn't care. I make my living fixing cars, not selling them.

[Alex Bruene]

All of our commercial service customers have a rating as to their loyalty. Basically, if you bought your truck with us, and maintain it with us, you are on top of the list... down to the ones that don't purchase or maintain with us, and only come in for warranty work. They can be held back for service while higher priority customers come in... and everywhere in between. The occasional "warranty only" customer will complain to Ford, but it's a company policy, and there is not much they can do about it. We are lucky that we rarely see pre-powerstroke era trucks, but in the event they do show up, they are made aware that it is going to cost them. All said and done, it works out well for us (we're probably just lucky), and has ended up in many cases getting CP work out of "warranty only" customers.

[Alex Bruene]

BTW, 1991 Rangers belong at the big red triangle if you ask me...

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[Brad Clayton]

The dealer I used to work at was so big, that their policy was any service advisor caught turning away work would be sent home for three days without pay. No matter what the job was. This was a popular idea with them. If you got into a fight with another co worker, you didn't get fired you got three days off. They must have been ex high school principles or something.

 

BTW I have an '88 ranger with a fuel injected 5.0l t-5 5sp and 3.27 limited slip, driven daily during the summer, most reliable highly modified rig I have ever driven.

[DwayneGorniak]

We have crunched numbers at out dealership and the highest rate of retail I have ever seen there in my best month was 12%. On average I am doing 95% to 97% warranty and I never get to see any retail gravy. I just don't have the freekin time. However, the retail I do see, is from my regulars who come in for waranty work and inspections and request that only I work on their trucks. It's nice to get a set of ball joints even though it's only about twice a year.

 

We are in a pridicament where other customers from other dealerships bring their trucks to us, because other dealerships are turning them away. And I can tellyou that we should be chasing these cheap bastards away as well, because they do absolutely no maintenance. But our service manager is freekin superman and we can fix anything. I think I am his superdog.

[Brad Clayton]

The way I see it as of now, if Ford continues to turn out products such as the 6.4L customers will have no choice but to return to the dealer.

 

This is a very precise and vulnerable powertrain and I don't see the majority of the indies getting with the program and repairing them out of warranty when the time comes.

 

The problem is getting people to understand this and have their vehicles serviced with us thru the life of the vehicle and not just for warrantable concerns.

 

All to many times they find out the hard way and return to the dealer as a last result from going all around town wasting time and money (one ex. the fellow who's cab got pulled off to do a set of spark plugs) and ending up at the dealer to have if finally fixed right, after many wasted dollars.

[DwayneGorniak]

I tend to agree with Brad on this. I don't totally agree that the Indy shops are all that great with the sick litres and alot of them seem to have a hard enough time with 7.3L. We have a few Indy shops in our area and I get alot of calls from them about 7.3L's and sicko's. I just blow them off. And sure as hell the truck in question shows up in our dealership eventually.

 

But thats allways strictly diesel diag. Never anything to do with the basics of the rest of the trucks. You can bet your buts that Indy shops make sure they get all the gravy done before they tackle the high tech low paying stuff.

[Jim Warman]

I'm still brewing a response to some things brought up by Brad and Dwayne... many abortive attempts, so far but nothing I care to post....

 

BUT... Brad... you are joking, right? Pulling a cab to replace spark plugs? I mean.... but.... wha'.... ummmm....

[DwayneGorniak]

Just to clarify my first reply there Jim, Our dealership may be quite different than the way you run yours. I feel that my dealership should be turning the less important non paying, ungratefull, taking nothing more than advantage of warranty customers away, just like you are saying that your dealership should be turning the less important non paying customers that do nothing but waste your time and efficiency away. Sometimes I just ramble on a little too much and don't always make sense, but hey I'm trying dagnabbit!

[Brad Clayton]

You guys didn't see this? It's all over the fmc boards and made the local news where the guy lives. The guy took his '04 F-150 to a local garage for a tune up. One of the spark plugs stayed in the head (big suprise). The guy working on it said he had to pull the cap off to fix it and that's what he did, charging the owner $2000 in the process. The local news got wind of it and came down to the shop and had the story on the breaking news that night on tv. It is reported that Ford heard the story and they paid the guys repair bill, why I'm not sure.

 

I don't have the link handy at the moment or I would include it, sorry. If anybody has it feel free to put it up, it's rather interesting reading in a sad way. Especially when the local dealer, most likely in the same town, has the tools to get 'em out quickly and cheaply.

[Brad Clayton]

Duplicate post deleted by The Webmaster

[Brad Clayton]

puter is running slow today and I double clicked the submit button.

give this a whirl. http://www.wgal.com/news/13763192/detail.html

[G. Bedford]

Webmaster, along with removing the double post, it may be wise to move the spark plug issue to its own subject header. That topic was highly responded to on the Ford site and will likely hi-jack this thread. Thank you.

[Brad Clayton]

I did not intend to derail this topic, I was just trying to clear up my earlier post about the fiasco. I don't really think it needs anything else added to it as the other sites have said it all, that's why I didn't think of opening a new post.

 

Now don't get me wrong when it comes to my position on independent shops. I have close working relationships with a few in my area and they are a good group of automotive repair type folks. It's the generalization of the term independent shop excluding the ones that rise above that are going to have trouble keeping up.

 

I think it's the big three's intention to put them all out of business by buring them with technology overkill, well that and the dang goverment.

[Tony302600]

Did ANYBODY ELSE READ THESE?

 

Questions submitted by News 8 On Your Side to Ford Motor Company

 

DOES FORD FEEL IT WAS NECESSARY TO REMOVE THE CAB TO MAKE THIS REPAIR? We have provided service technicians very specific instructions on how to service these new spark plugs. If followed, this should be routine maintenance and cost about the same as similar service for other engines. While we don't know all of the specifics of this repair, Ford F-150 engine repair procedures, including disassembling the engine, do not require removing the cab.

 

WHY WOULD ANY MECHANIC FEEL THEY WOULD BE UNABLE TO ACCESS THE PLUGS WITHOUT REMOVING THE CAB? Even if a technician needed to remove an engine, the recommended repair procedures do not include removing the cab.

 

 

 

WAS THERE A PROBLEM WITH THE DESIGN OF THE TRITON ENGINE THAT WOULD MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO ACCESS THE PLUGS IN THIS MODEL OF THE FORD F-150? The 2004 F-150 was a completely redesigned and re-engineered model that included a new 5.4-liter engine design with innovative spark plugs that increased power, capability, durability and fuel economy. As with any new technology, Ford has worked with Ford dealers and repair shops to provide service guidelines to help them quickly understand the new design. Dealers quickly adopted the new procedures and have reported few issues.

 

THE TRITON ENGINE WAS REDESIGNED RECENTLY - WHY? The most significant redesign of the F-150's 5.4-liter Triton V-8 was for the 2004 model (in 2003 calendar year) when we upgraded it to a three-valve-per-cylinder design with innovative new spark plugs that increased power, capability, durability and fuel economy. As the truck leader for 30 consecutive years, this is yet another example of how Ford continues to deliver the most innovative, most capable and most durable pickups on the market.

 

RECENTLY A TSB (TECH SERVICE BULLETIN) WAS ISSUED TO FORD DEALERS ON THE TRITON ENGINE - WHAT WAS THE BULLETIN DEALING WITH? We have provided service technicians very specific instructions on how to service these new spark plugs. If followed, this should be routine maintenance and cost about the same as similar service for other engines. A Technical Service Bulletin with spark plug removal procedure and a removal tool was released in July 2006.

 

HOW MANY 2004 F-150'S ARE ON THE ROAD TODAY BASED ON THE BEST INFORMATION FORD HAS? We don't provide specific F-150 sales figures but 5.4-liter V-8-powered models generally represent 60 percent of sales. That roughly translates into about 350,000 2004 F-150s with the 5.4-liter Triton V-8 engine.

 

 

 

Can you believe the ignorance of the news reporter after reading all that and Ford saying ummm... they should not have charged $2000 and/or taken the cab off..... the dumbass still did the story. I love it.

[G. Bedford]

And nothing Ford will say at this point speaks louder than the fact they paid for the entire claim. They shot themselves in the foot, big time, when they did so. I feel this was their only failure in this debacle.