Report a car sales yard

[vc commodore]

In my dealership days you did as you're told or get the sack on the spot, nothing like it is today with employee rights etc. Dealership mechanics touching my cars stops at the pre-delivery check on a new car or when I've taken delivery of a used car.

You can do the same these days with newbies.....They don't toe the line in the first 3 months at anytime, they can be told they're not suitable....

So really the difference is, the timeframe available to you and how you approach it...ie, you can't say you're fired....you have to say, you're not suitable...If you can't pick how they are in the first 3 months, you're in deep trouble

 

[Dunlop]

The sales yard I bought my car (VF SV6)
from last year sold me a car that had a recall that hasn't been fixed relating to power steering.

https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/recalls/rec-000535


Should I report them and how would I go about doing that.

So how did you actually find out about the issue not being fixed? Sometimes things don't always go as they should and maybe the car was sold hurriedly for whatever reason. Unfortunately used car sales people do tend to have a reputation and there is a reason behind this.

 

[Ralphski]

I did my apprenticeship with a Chrysler/Mitsubishi dealer from 1977 to 1981, a while ago but we were taught to do roughies, smash jobs out in certain time or faster to make the service department money. Air con was mostly dealer fitted and the first thing the foreman did as I opened a GE Sigma air con kit, was tell me the parts you don't fit because it takes too long to fit them. If you could fit a Sigma air con in less than 3 hours, you got an extra $20 in your pay packet. Another good one was a major service where each car got a complimentary engine wash. What you do is take the car out to the wash bay, spin off the oil filter, start the engine and pump out a couple of litres of oil, fit a new filter and top the oil up and wash the engine. Nothing was done other than making sure it had a lube sticker on the windscreen, a new oil filter and the windscreen washer bottle was full. Make it look like it's had a major service in the shortest amount of time, true story! Charging for air filters and spark plugs that weren't fitted was standard practice.

I did my apprenticeship with Mazda in the late 90's. Although we had a recommended time limit in which to get stuff done, but we weren't allowed to do 'roughies'. We had to tick off each item after we'd done it & if it wasn't done, it was a bollocking from the foreman...

 

[RevNev]

I did my apprenticeship with Mazda in the late 90's. Although we had a recommended time limit in which to get stuff done, but we weren't allowed to do 'roughies'. We had to tick off each item after we'd done it & if it wasn't done, it was a bollocking from the foreman...

I think it was more about service department efficiency where I did my apprenticeship for everyone on the workshop floor to do 8 hours of chargeable labour per day. They had a photo board of each mechanic and apprentice in the office and each week, they'd arrange the photos in order of the most efficient to the least efficient based on standard times. To be the most efficient, you had to complete jobs under the standard time and doing "roughies" saved time and of course made the service department more profitable.

"Roughies" were mostly done on major services, if book had a trans service listed and trans fluid looked clean, you didn't do it. If the book listed a wheel alignment check and tyre wear was reasonable, you didn't do it and just ticked it off. We got a bollocking for things the customer could see, like not changing the lube sticker on the windscreen, greasy finger marks on the car, not cleaning the windscreen, dirty boot marks on the carpet and no clean Castrol oil paper floor mat on the driver's floor, not ticking off items in the service book etc. Everything to give a customer the impression that we did a good job was a priority.

 

[Sir Les]

I think it was more about service department efficiency where I did my apprenticeship for everyone on the workshop floor to do 8 hours of chargeable labour per day. They had a photo board of each mechanic and apprentice in the office and each week, they'd arrange the photos in order of the most efficient to the least efficient based on standard times. To be the most efficient, you had to complete jobs under the standard time and doing "roughies" saved time and of course made the service department more profitable.

"Roughies" were mostly done on major services, if book had a trans service listed and trans fluid looked clean, you didn't do it. If the book listed a wheel alignment check and tyre wear was reasonable, you didn't do it and just ticked it off. We got a bollocking for things the customer could see, like not changing the lube sticker on the windscreen, greasy finger marks on the car, not cleaning the windscreen, dirty boot marks on the carpet and no clean Castrol oil paper floor mat on the driver's floor, not ticking off items in the service book etc. Everything to give a customer the impression that we did a good job was a priority.

Whilst I'm not naive enough to believe this sort of thing didn't go on (and probably still does), it saddens me greatly to think that dealer principals and/or workshop owners could just blithely rip people off in this way. But then, I always look for the good in people......

 

[chrisp]

Whilst I'm not naive enough to believe this sort of thing didn't go on (and probably still does), it saddens me greatly to think that dealer principals and/or workshop owners could just blithely rip people off in this way. But then, I always look for the good in people......

While not specifically ‘car servicing’, but ‘car sales’ doesn’t rank very highly in trust… http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8691-image-of-professions-2021-april-2021-202104260655

 

[Skylarking]

Not surprised Federal and state Politicians are down towards the bottom at 7/100 but rather suprised High court judges are only rated at 66/100 for ethics and honesty

Used care salesman, surprised they scored so highly @ 3/100

 

[the_boozer]

High court judges are only rated at 66/100 for ethics and honesty

After Geoge Pell most people I know rate them lower than car salesmen.

 

[J_D 2.0]

After Geoge Pell most people I know rate them lower than car salesmen.

This kind of shite doesn’t help their cause either!

 

[Skylarking]

This kind of shite doesn’t help their cause either!

IIRC, the original case revolved around the salesman's representation that the fuel consumption for the new Triton would be better then the guys old Triton and should be close to the figure on the sticker.. Hence the guy bought it only to later discover that the consumption was worse than his old truck... It didn't have anything to do with mandated tests

But Mitsubishi went into the case half cocked and said the sticker is a comparison tool and doesn't reflect real life consumption and they ignored to address the issue of the salesman's representations. So it wasn't a surprise they lost...

Mitsubishi would have been better off to let the dealer handle the case since they made the representations but Mitsubishi's legals cocked it up and lost. And in an appeal you can't really bring in new evidence so they continued to play the only card they left themselves which was the "we followed the required laws to affix the comparison sticker so can't be at fault" be cause they couldn't say "the dealer made an error telling the prospective owner he would get better fuel consumption than his old car"....

So IIUC, it's not an error in the law but a tactical error in how it was defended by Mitsubishi.'s wigs. And as the appeals court can only address the grounds put up in the appeal docs (which must relate to presented evidence decisions in lower courts, not new evidence) it makes it all sound rather ludicrous at times...

Once they lost the VCAT hearing, because of how they attached the case, they lost big time. And it wasn't a precedent at that point until they appealed and appealed again to the highest court in Victoria... Seems Mitsubishi were too stupid to recognize they were in a whole and should have stopped digging. They should have simply paid out and educated their dealers sales force on what not to say .Now its a precedence, of sorts, one of their making

But to clarify whether my recall is OK, I may find the original and the appeals rulings and read them... When i'm really board

Still, Judges seem to have a bad rep and in some case i'm sure its deserved. Just not sure this is one of them