At 06:42 AM 5/19/99 , you wrote:
[...]
>I have worked for or been closely associated with Chrysler Corporation for
>35 years. In my personal experience, the majority of problems has not been
>with engineering, assembly, or performance. It has always been and still is
>the dealer network. I am sure there are several very good dealers in the
>country,
>but not near enough. Several should have lost their franchise long ago.
>In several cases, the "almighty dollar" rules and real customer service and
>common courtesy have gone away.
Yep, we had a similar experience with a 5 star dealership. For the past
10 years or more, my Dad has owned Chrysler minivans of some sort (Voyager,
Caravan, Town & Country). He was also the director or a developmental
workshop in Buffalo that used them to transport clients, and my Dad was the
person that bought them for the company. He bought all of them through
this 5 star dealership, and also bought all his own vehicles there too.
Needless to say, they treated him pretty good seing as how he had bought
somewhere over a quarter of a million dollars worth of minivans from them.
They always gave him a great deal on his personal vehicles too. But, when
he retired from the company and the purchases slowed down to just his own
personal vehicles, they would barely give him the time of day, and gone
were the deals they used to give him. The attitude was almost like "what
have you done for us lately?" Needless to say, he bought his next minivan
somewhere else.
I haven't exactly been around the block too many times, but in my short
time on the earth so far, I have seen my share of experiences like this,
and the time I spent as an independent contractor going into places like GE
and Cummins have really opened my eyes. I am surprised that most
businesses in the US manage to STAY in business. Their full of idiots, and
hardly anyone seems to understand the value of customer service and word of
mouth! I've often thought how cool it would be to have my own dealership
and run it the way it "should be". Reminds me of the story in Car & Driver
a while back about a Porsche dealership down in Florida somewhere that had
absolutely dismal sales. Someone who had just immigrated to the company
bought it for a song and a dance and in a few years, turned it into the #1
volume Porsche dealer in the entire US. I immagine that the same could be
done for any type of dealership. Something DOES need to change, but
no-haggle Saturn dealerships and mega-auto-malls aren't the answer. The
individual dealership has to take a look at itself and return to the good
ol' fasioned values of honest dealing and treating the customer with a
little respect.
>I doubt in your case or mine it will make any difference. Neither of us will
>break the dealerships involved. Their emphasis is on high volume and high
>dollar business. Real care for the individual customer has all but
>disappeared.
I don't know exactly how much it will help either, but if you have a bad
(or good) experience with a dealer, feel free to submit it to the Dealer
Resource page on the DML...
(http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/www/dakota/dealer) Its one more way
to get the word out anyway, and let the dealerships know we're keeping
score. :-)
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
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