They said they had to order OEM/Dealer parts and was about a 2-3 hr wait. Stated with diagnostics, parts and labor, about $252 drive out. To get my daughter back to school safely, that's a pretty fair price to me.
Yes, that's a fair price. Other than an oil change, there aren't many repairs that I can think of that would be less than $250 at a decent shop nowadays.
I am still wrestling with the Jeep Dealership in her college town, and they are stating they have no record of her paid invoice or anything ?? My daughter paid cash to get our car last friday 2/9/24 at noon, so I am going to look into "who did what" and get to the bottom of it. She did not receive a typical service type invoice that shows parts, labor, etc, but rather a receipt print out as if you bought take out food.
Yeah, that's shady. Especially if they had it all week. Was it expensive? You might have to write this one off and do the online reviews as suggested. You should be able to give the dealership a review from the Jeep corporate website as well, that worked on my Hyundai, and Hyundai America reached out to me. You can also file a complaint with the BBB, at least then the dealership should respond with a better explanation.
-buy a good code diagnostic reader [any recommendations?]
Basic:
Autel AL319
A little nerdy: A bluetooth OBD II dongle plus an
app called Torque (Android only, the Apple one is a copy), even the free version is really great at doing what most people need. Look around on the car forums and the Torque wiki for recommendations for which dongle to buy.
Pro-Level:
Look at Launch and Autel readers on Amazon. I have a smaller Launch and a pro-grade Autel MaxiSys. They are not cheap. There's a YouTube channel called Autech that's really good for tutorials. I will warn you though, there's a reason why service techs go to school to learn to use those things...and unless you have a mechanic friend, you'll probably be in way over your head. (I have many mechanic friends and it's still tough.)
-look at how to infuse smoke into closed systems to discern leaks in hoses/other
I don't typically use smoke, the first two are how I do it, the last one is smoke, which is safer, but stinky.
-have my daughter ask for more specifics on invoices and to always put your car invoices into an envelop that is stored in glove compartment. [does anyone store gloves in this area, or is this from Henry Ford's days] ;-}
Good advice for a variety of situations. I put mine in the center console (trailer plug adapters and a fire extinguisher are in the glovebox). I also take pictures/scans of documents and before/after of the vehicle and store them in a Google drive folder.
As far as Jeep Wranglers go [her's a 2018], in the last 6-9 mo's, this thing is falling apart**. In doing a search on Jeep Wranglers and major problems, the website was inundated with issues, many that are factory defects.
Unfortunately, many newer vehicles are made to fail at around the warranty expiration, so you'll replace them. I could write a dissertation on it, but just ask any honest mechanic.
Yet, the word from Chrysler: "if no one is dying from it, it's not going to be recalled".
Unfortunately, that's the law, and most people don't know it. A recall is only required if there are deaths. And they only issue technical service bulletins (TSBs) when the lawyers and number crunchers say too. My friend was in a years-long legal battle with Ford after her two sons were severely and permanently injured in an accident due to a widely reported defect, that's how I found out about the recall law. It was settled out of court to seal the records and no TSBs were ever issued.
Unfortunately there has been a long held belief that women get shafted with everything to do with cars and car maintenance. And a young 18 to 25 year old likely would be considered the perfect mark.
It is a thing, I've dealt with it all my life, but it's not just women anymore. I was at a radiator/exhaust shop one day and heard the guy behind the counter tell a guy with a Mustang GT that his muffler bearings were bad, seriously, it was not a joke, the Mustang guy totally believed him. I called him out and referred Mustang guy to three other honest mechanics in town.
I'm pretty sure every salesman and service manager in town has a picture of me on the wall..."BEWARE: She knows our bullshit."
If you really want to mess with sales people, learn the "four square" and throw it in their face at the end of "negotiations".
Former used car salesman Alan Slone grows a conscience and reveals one of the major strategies dealership use to screw you when buying a new car. At the heart of it all is the "4-square," a sheet of paper (sample above) divided into four boxes: your trade value, the purchase price, down payment...
www.consumerreports.org
(They're using more distracting and complicated looking sheets now, but the sleaze factor is still the same.)
Fun stories:
When I was around 23, I went with a 19 year-old woman into a dealership in Orlando (no credit, min wage job, family was helping with the down payment). We walked out with a better car than she wanted, her car insurance paid for two years, and at a lower final price than she expected to pay. The sales manager came out as we were leaving and said he had to meet me in person because the whole sales staff was abuzz, and then asked me not to come back.
When I was buying the Hyundai, the sales manager came out and accused me of lying about my credit score and then yelled at me that I was wasting two of his sales guy's time. In shock, I politely thanked him and left. He chased me out in the rain to begrudgingly apologize and get me to come back in, and I told him, "Shopping for cars is like shopping for jeans, I can't stand spending all day trying them on and I don't need the salesperson to tell me how good my ass looks in them." He laughed. I asked if he would meet my price, he said he'd lose money (which was true*) so I left. I went to another dealership 2 hours away the next week and bought the same car at my price, with zero percent financing, which wasn't being offered at the time. The finance manager was so impressed by me that he made a phone call and and literally said, "I need a favor" to a finance company to get me zero percent. (I got the impression that some of the staff at the dealership treated the finance manager poorly, and he did it because I upset the balance that day. The three sales managers there were real winners, they sat at their little desk in the middle of the sales floor and made Aggie jokes about me and discussed the anatomies of the female employees within everyone's earshot. My salesman was an Aggie, and I think he felt the same as the finance manager about his coworkers.) The salesman bought my lunch and dinner (I was there all day), and gave me a gift card for a full tank of gas. I'd buy from him again, but not that family of dealerships....they're in Weatherford if you need a clue.
*When he said that, I knew something was up, so I Googled. It was a 2014 special edition vehicle that all dealerships were required to take at least one of, depending on their sales volume. They'd been sitting on lots all over the country for a year and no one was buying them (too pricey). I then realized that I had quite a bit of negotiation power and looked across Texas and Oklahoma for high-volume dealerships with multiples on their lots. I went on Black Friday.
I am lucky to have had many male friends and father-figures in my life that have taught me what I know, and I am thankful every day for it.
