Stealerships.....

[seadoosnipe]

It's very well known, I do not trust many stealerships. There are a couple members here in the forum who have had great service and great repair work at a reasonable price.

What I get annoyed with, is when you have a problem, most of the time, these mechanics have no clue. Sometimes, when they put it in their test tanks, the problem does not occur, so they charge you their labor costs and your on your merry way.

Then, when you get it out on the water, the problems are right back and the money you just spent, is non refundable.

The #1 thing I always try to make known is, these guys will replace parts hoping they've guessed it right, charged you for the right part and you only have to pay for the part, which is usually inflated 110% and their exorbitent labor cost.

The following is a prime example of what I see on a regular basis. The username has been omitted to protect his privacy.

Here's an update. 3 weeks after I took it to a shop, they finally looked at it. Found a bad spark plug connector and the wear ring was out of tolerance. Two more weeks to get the parts in, river tested and there wasn't much improvement. Another week they found a bad coil . . . two more weeks to get a replacement and install. Testing found better but there was a "rough spot" in the mid-range and didn't want to let it out of the shop.
They called SeaDoo who told them to let me run 3 tanks of fuel with injector cleaner. It does run better than before. Accelerates smoothly. Try to hold 35 mph (up from 25-30) and the speed falls off. I'm running 30 most of the time so after a couple more tanks we'll see. 8 weeks in the shop in the summer! Wow!

All those excessive parts you see they installed, he had to pay for. Did he need them? I bet not.............

 

[timmyboy76]

crazy

dont mind me ask'n, but what type ski/boat, you talk'n about?

 

[seadoosnipe]

Gtx di...

It was a GTX.....

And while I got your attention. I'd like to add to this thread, here's a member named "timmyboy". I think he comes from my same way of thinking.

I've known him for over a year and since then, I think he's bought, repaired and resold 4 or 5 boats. I might be wrong, maybe more.

My point! He does not take them to a dealer. When he sees one up for sale, he goes and checks it out. Makes an offer on the boat and if the seller is good with it, he takes it, gets his own parts, troubleshoots it and then, after playing with it a while, sales it for a small profit. The good part, the person he sells it to is extremely happy because without the dealer involvment, timmyboy's price is super low and the buyer feels like he got a great deal for a good running boat..........everyone is happy! .....................:cheers:

 

[scooper77515]

YAY Timmy!!!:cheers:

I also agree. No dealer touches ANY of my stuff, unless it is warranty work.

At least I KNOW what is cross-threaded next time I work on it, because I did it. :ack:

I don't know how many times I have taken a car in for new tires to be put on and next time I rotate, a cross-threaded lugnut and eventually a broken stud.

 

[popasodatastie]

Good or bad?

I did a very bad thing I took my 96 xp to the dealership where all the guys know me and they all know i wont put up with their crap. But i have been troubleshooting this no spark problem for almost 2 years and i broke down and took it to them for diagnois well they said they were going to need it for about a week just so they could check and double check it. But they came back with a DC-CDI modual went out and it was going to be about 500 ish dollars. So I was like are you sure thats what it is and their like we have checked everything. I told them i'm not going to pay for somthing you order and it doesn't fix it. The shop manage agreed i guess it helps having a friend in high places.

 

[voodoo]

I think that this forum replaces a lot of the preliminary work a dealership would do especially with the well known fuel symptoms that exist in the 2stroke series, with the hours of labor to replace lines and clean carbs I can only imagine the money doing things like this yourself saves must be in the 6-700bux range and then you can use the dealer for programming any other specialty service needs.

 

[aklim]

What about when we have people that try this, that and the other on the forums and it still doesn't work? Sure, there are some numb nuts out there in the dealership but I don't think it is fair to say that every tech is an idiot. Just like I have gone to both independent and dealership car shops. Some are idiots and some are good. It's up to the individual technician. I have brought my Vette to get some AC work done. At a Midas, they wanted $130 to fix it. An independent shop wanted

$41 for the new valves ($12 at Napa)
$99 to clear the code the BCM set (disconnect battery using MY quick disconnect)
$196 (X2) to screw out the old R134 adaptors and screw new ones in (I think I was the one getting screwed)

 

[get_real]

Dealers are a must for people that have no interest in learning how to work on their stuff, and even for those that do when you're stumped, but I personnaly don't plan to go back to my current dealer unless I run out of options or need something quick. What I hate is the feeling of getting ripped off every time you go there. I may not be, but it usually feels that way. Another problem I have is the dealer is 60 miles from my house and the hassle, time & expense to get there & back. Really appreciate the forum and the freedom it provides to cut ties with the stealership!

 

[Gronbo]

Yes there are stealerships and I have had bad experiences too. But, I also understand that there are tons of very good dealerships out there. It is our job to find and then work with them. The others will just go out of business by not taking care of their customers. I do have a good dealership in my market, fair on pricing and good techs. Guess where I spend my money.

 

[shucky]

Stealer ship here just tried to charge me $45 for a freakin relay fuse.... Best part is I already have to fuse in question which was given to me by the wankers biz partner... But how do U charge 45 for a freaking relay anyway
..

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

We make a majority of our money on boat storage, secondarily on sales. Providing service support is just one of our necessary evils.

 

[shucky]

Agreed, however I'm not getting bent over on the $ 45 price of of a USED relay fuse... I'm not even sure a brand new one is that much..

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

LOL, yeah, you'd probably get one here for free if there was one laying out back in an old parts ski that we haven't hauled off to the county dump. People sometimes leave their old boats here for us to scrap out, we try to separate the metals from engines and stuff and throw them in a pile, then load up the dump truck once the pile gets large enough, haul it to the metals scrap guy. Proceeds go to charity.

 

[Mickirig1]

I am new here, but far from new to repairing anything that has wheels or runs on fuel. The neighbor kids bring their bikes over for me to fix. ( It makes me proud when they knock and ask me for help ) I have a fleet of 5 cars in my family, I service them all. In my experence having someone repair one of our vehicles is worst then me doing it. A Dealership service department is for people with no tools, skills, time or knowledge. For me all I need is the Knowledge. It's in a manual, a book or a forum. That's why I am here!