service advisors

[bucketmouth64]

I was talking to an employee of a dealership and the subject got on pay in the service dept. This dealership pays their advisors on a commission basis, in addition, the mechanincs are paid a commisssion too. Person said this is common practice in the industry, which I didn't know. So my question is this true with dealerships and/or with other chain garages or smaller private garages? When I go to the dealership they find no problems in a front end check, but when I go where I get my tires rotated they say there's problem(s). This just happened when I needed an alignment. Dealership had to bring it to an outside vendor because their machine was down. Other vendor said they couldn't do alignment because a upper control arm needed replacing. Vehicle was brought back. I asked dealership to verify problem before deciding to replace control arm, and they said there was nothing wrong(within specs) so they went to a different vendor to do alignment. So are garages motivated by commission if they know that something really doesn't need replacing? To me this just seems to be somewhat dishonest...just trying to get your hard earned money. This is why I am very picky who works on my vehicles.

[Scott K]

There are dishonest people out there, but there are in every business. Being paid commision is to benefit the more experienced tech, that is quicker at his job. Honestly, who would you want working on your car, a mechanic that has been a mechanic for 20 years, has all the training, and has done the job 100 times before, that can do a better job in less time, or would you rather have a person with no experience, that will take twice as long, and has never done the job before? Commission will benefit the experienced tech.

Also the inexperienced tech, if he tries to hurry on the job, to make better time, he will mess up more, then have to fix it the second time for free.

Sure some techs may be dishonest, and try to sell more jobs to make money, but that is the same in all industries. But the majority are honest, and try to do what is best for the customer. That is how you make customers happy, and get a return customers.