i donno, reading the incident, i kinda have to justify and side with the shop.
$110 for an alignment is a good price, this is under the assumption that all is going well, and nothing is going to need replacing or need fixing just to pull the alignment. you as the owner wouldnt know that parts of ur suspension are going, and the shop isnt psychic, they wouldnt know until they put it on the rack or the hoist.
you still had the option of taking ur vehicle and going if you didnt want to pay anymore more. every minute your car is on THEIR hoist, and not being charged for it, is money THEY are losing. they also have customers waiting and booked right after you.
the only fault i can see is the advisor should have, and you should have said, if your car had any aftermarket parts, or has been altered in any way. modded cars change all aspecs of any job, and will more than likely make the job go longer. the price you are paying for, pays for every mouth in that shop, all the maintenance of the equipment, the rent, the electricity, and all the years that tech went to training for his knowledge and skill. lets face it, you would do ur own alignment if you had the know how, and the equipment, but u dont, none of us do in our homes, thus you pay someone for their time and knowledge to do it.
charging 1/2 an hour to do a tie rod is good, he didnt even charge you the time to diag whats causing your alignment to not go to spec. removal of tie rod, a seized one, is a BITCH. then to clean it, which means scrubbing, making sure the threads are still there, greasing everything, putting it back together, and then continuing with the alignment, all for 1/2 an hour??? i can garantee that it took more than 1/2 an hour. and that 30mins spent, factors in all the shop material used.
if your car is lowered, and has a hard time going on the hoist. the tech may need to spend 10 more minutes to lay out ramps to get your lowered car on the hoist, that time spent, was it charged to you? thats 10 minutes the tech lost, unpaid.
asking for a deal? why? because you spent 110 bucks on an alignment? if you spent $1000, its justifiable. the girl did her job, she asked for a deal on ur behalf. you made the decision to go to them because of their rep, and their price, now you are asking for more of a deal on an already low rate?
how much total time did they spend on your car? how much is their labour rate? if they spent more time on your car than their hourly rate, isnt that a deal already?
i myself have never delt with CG as i dont drive an euro. I know they have built their rep based on working on euro cars. however, as a previous acting manager at another independant shop, i understand why no discount was given.
as for the owner not coming out and chat with you, or your friend. you ever been on a job, or been working on something focused on. if the owner is a mechanic himself, and he is on a job, with a deadline, walking off that job to talk to a customer over a minor deal discount would be really bad, he has to keep every customer satisfied there, and sorry, but explaining why he needs to charge 1/2 an hour to do a tie rod is probably not on the top of his list. that is the job of the advisor you got.
there is a reason why most shops dont like or allow customers to stand around while they are working on their car. let the mechanic do their job, let them have the time to do their job. any time YOU spend chatting with them over their current job or if they are on your car = time wasted. you might want to shoot the shit, but they have to get shit done.
in the end, you are displeased with the $110 bucks for the alignment, and the bit more for a tie rod. if you were on a tight budget, you shouldnt drive an euro. all euro parts, on par with they domestic or japanese counter part, will cost more, dollar for dollar. even if its the same material, the parts supplier will charge more for the part, and thus, the cost is past onto the consumer. its called capitalism. YOU made the choice to buy an euro, and so you should acknowledge the higher price on parts. it sucks, because if you ever worked on the car, you would be swearing and yelling out, "why the fuck they made this part so damn hard to take out and put in?"
and if your wallet is empty because you spent $40 more bucks, you should carry a bit more money around. $40 dollars in vancouver wont even get you 1/2 a tank of gas, let alone a decent dinner w/ a gf at a decent restaurant.
thats my 2 cents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 325isMSPORT
(Post 7614111)
So hearing CG did 4 wheel alignments for about 110 give or take , I book an appointment all goes smooth with the registering process.
Patiently watching my car get aligned I was quite pleased. Halfway through Kristina - the receptionist tells me "your tie-rod is siezed so I have to charge you an extra .5 hrs" I gave her the expression right away, a couple seconds later she also says "your car is lowered so it would be about 135+ the .5 hrs" Now I was quite cross happily I asked if I could maybe get a discount or something.
She tells me I can probably charge you 110 + .2 - I was pleased with that and continued my car getting aligned. 20 minutes later she came out and said sorry my "boss" is adamant about charging that .5. Now Bobby chimes in and says there is pretty much a line up of *bcb* people(3 or4) doing alignments and it'd be less costly for them to keep their customers happy than to find new ones.
At the end I was really displeased with the 110+ .3 (about 40 dollars extra)hours and Chris himself not comming out to talk to me about the situation - instead of playing puppet with the receptionist.
Also Chris did just walk right past Bobby without a greeting or anything(even though he is an "past" customer
My rating for them would be.
Technical skills : A - all the numbers were matching on the dot - which is really hard to do without camber plates.
Customer service: D - Kristina did a good job at keeping cool and not adding to the fire, but Chris should really have talked to me directly.
Recommendations to CG: You should really quote a price that is close to the price you may or may not charge , or at least mention it.
Most alignment shops just tell you "your tie-rods are seized "and recommend getting them changed for next time at no additional charge.
I am as dissatisfied as the time I went to do my EWS sync at Autowest bmw
Recommendations to people who need alignment: CG will do a good job at the same time probably emptying you're wallet
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